Tuesday, April 10, 2012

From Heaven on Earth to Hell... I mean Leeds.

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." --Jacques Cousteau

The next day Lindsey and I ventured out to Howth. The first thing I saw as I walked towards Howth off of the train station was a giant shark. I took this as an indicator that the day was going to be pretty awesome.
As you can see I was pretty excited.
After I had my moment with the shark, Lindsey showed me the local seals. I was expecting something slightly smaller, but what I saw were seals of gigantic proportions.


Howth is really a fishing town that has a surprising amount of tourists. There are abbey ruins, a castle that we could not find to save our lives, and a really cool hiking mountain with a great view. We ventured up a very steep hill to see the abbey and I decided to Indiana Jones it and climb all over it. Sacrilege? Maybe, but it was still fun and the building is still standing... well let's just say I didn't cause it any harm. 


After we were done exploring there we decided to start the hike up the mountain. Halfway up I saw a rickety staircase leading down to a beach with mini caves, so of course we had to get down there and crawl in them.
Here I am getting attacked my spider webs.

And I survived without any mortal wounds to jump around in a different cave with Lindsey.

Back to the mountain we went! The weather held out on us long enough for us to get to the top and back and to get hopelessly lost on the way back down. How I can get lost when there was only one path to follow I will never know. The good things is we made it back in one piece!



After Howth we journeyed back to Skerries and I packed for my flight the next night. I arrived at the airport around 7pm for my flight. It was delayed by 30 min. This kick-started my lovely and adventurous night back to Leicester. I arrived in Leeds at 1130 thinking I was going to be picked up by the friend of a friend we had stayed with before departing to Dublin. After not returning my 5 calls, 2 voicemails, and 3 texts I figured that was a lost cause. When hearing from him an hour later and after yelling at him profusely I was on my own at the airport and in need of a hotel... I got the bus into town and arrived there at about 1230am. I followed the bus driver's instructions and walked 30 minutes to stay in the world's sketchiest hotel of all time for 4 hours to catch my 630am bus to Leicester. Needless to say I was not happy at all. 

To leave this post on a happy note below is a sign I saw in Howth...

 I swim... YIKES




"At the beach life is different. Time doesn't move hour to hour, but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides, and follow the sun."--Unknown

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