June 5 - Belfast Northern Ireland (U.K.) to Dublin Republic of Ireland (E.U)

So now leaving the UK and £ for the EU and the €, prices on the train showed both ! Uneventful morning return the car, catch the 600 bus from the airport straight to Belfast Grand Central Station, brand new spacious train station. We got first in line to board the train and the first class car was very nice, they served us a glass of water right away and then came for orders, had to pay for these tho, not like the LNER from London service. But we cleared the frig last night i made wraps and chips for lunch so we just had drinks i had a guinness draft of course... Get to Dublin well it's a big city, biggest since London, so get used to that again, big, dirty, crowded, lots of people drinking laughing and talking loudly, and this is at 3:30 in the afternoon... we got a free transfer from our train to a DART train to a station closer to our air bnb, then a uber to 33 raymond street, southwest city just inside the south ring road. Quaint and cosy is how Peter describes it, well it's a old smallish place with the bathroom outside... lol... no it's been redone so it's inside now, but between the hallway and the bathroom you are outside the original building, there's another bedroom outside in the back yard in what used to be a shed... looks nice, but no M want's me inside with her so.. the bedroom is nice and the kitchen/living room very cosy too, lots of artwork everywhere buddhist statues and books and paintings everywhere, lots and lots of art statues all kind of things... Once we got settled looked for dinner we are beat long travel day so call for Thai delivery it was excellent and delivered hot quick by a e-bike delivery guy... then i went out to get a few groceries Peter left a bunch of things but we need some bread and butter for our breakfast, have muesli and banana and milk and he has coffees teas pods all manner of things so we are good for the morning, then i was going to walk to the nearest train station to buy our LEAP cards which will be used on transit as we move around tomorrow. Really only have the one full day we checkout by 11 saturday get rental car head down south to Tralee and the wild atlantic way, ring of Kerry and Dingle peninsula. So i walked quite a ways saw 5 grocery stores but they are all these little express deals no fresh bread or all sold out, spinach wet in the bag, gnats on the bananas, it's a kinda transitional neighborhood, this street has mostly professional type people looks like, but a block or two away it changes it's a lot of immigrants and dark skin people and irish poor people look kinda hard lots of drinking, smoking, looks like drug use, litter and rough streets. I said hell with it kept going til i got to LIDL which i've always had good luck with since Ljubljana last summer, but this was the worst one i ever saw, people just drop stuff in the aisles i mean bags of chips, chocolate bars, empty bags, all manner of things i picked up a bunch of stuff put it back on the shelves, all sort of people in there but not many clean well dressed if you know what i mean.. it was mid 50s today, off and on rain tho i saw many about 1/2 the guys in shorts some in sandals no socks, short sleeves, no wonder they looked at me funny with a flannel shirt and long pants and my 12 pocked vest... but then there were others with heavy coats on and hoodies so i don't know it's a real melting pot here from what i've seen so far. i was going to walk all the way to Heuston train station to buy the LEAP cards, but i had no service on my phone so no map and i got into a couple circle streets in a rough neighborhood so i decided just get the groceries and get back to Raymond street before dark and i'll go out again in the morning to get the bus cards... So that's the report today, not many pics, just a few pics M saw this lump in the horizon well it's scotland! lol... and the Isle Of Man is visible to the southeast but no not today... anyway, tomorrow we plan to go to the Museum of Literature at UCD (University College of Dublin) it's on St Stephens Green the big park where the James Joyce memorial is... The Museum of Literature Ireland (Irish: Músaem Litríochta na hÉireann), branded MoLI in an homage to Molly Bloom,[2] is a literary museum in Dublin, Ireland. It opened in September 2019.[3] The museum is a partnership between the National Library of Ireland and University College Dublin (UCD). It is located in UCD's Newman House in St Stephen's Green.[4] It holds a permanent collection of James Joyce–related material, including his "Copy No. 1" of Ulysses,[5] and revolving exhibitions on other Irish literary figures. With a range of audio and immersive displays, it has been nominated for and won a number of awards for design and architecture. And what else we will go looking for bookstores... and of course our sudoku craze continues, the papers here are so funny this one article i read today a maintenance guy at a pilgrimage site got 5 years in jail for what he did to 5 different women 3 years ago, he lured them into a laundry room pretending to need help fixing a wash machine pipe, then he told them reach behind their backs and hold this pipe... lol lol and it was really his pipe !!!! omg... one woman complained (the first 4 didn't) and that's how he got found out... oh the judge gave it to him good... and he's been ostracized in his community too... anyway... saw a FUCK TRUMP spray painted big on a wall too... so it's a whole different culture immersion here oh they have all these signs in Gaelic they are trying to restore the language but our uber driver (Mohammed) he said nobody is speaking Irish, everybody speaks english... ok well that's enough for today it got dark here earlier about 9 so we are getting back to normal somewhat now we've come a few hundred miles south from inverness.