The train from Dublin to Wexford

This almost broke me, y’all.

The morning did not start out great. Breakfast was fine, but after breakfast when I went back up to the room to finish packing and tool around on the Internet for my last two hours of wifi – checkout was at 11 and my train didn’t leave until 1:30 so I wanted to delay checking out until, like, 10:59 – I started crying. I felt so terrible for having such a good day the day before, for not only not missing Tim, but for enjoying not having to answer to him about what I wanted to do/not do/change my mind mid-day about doing. I mean, really terrible. Not “sad” terrible but “like an asshole” terrible. I cried for about an hour and I don’t mean little tiny romantic pretty tears. I mean flat out Ugly Crying.

I held it together enough to check out, but then lost it again as I was ordering the taxi. My crying during the taxi ride did result in a lovely, deep conversation with a complete stranger who had lost her son, and we talked a lot about grief and waves of grief and carrying on and moving forward, and that was a good conversation and I was much appreciative of it.

But then she dropped me off at the train station, and I looked around and… all I saw were busses and homeless people. I absolutely felt that I was in the wrong part of town and/or where the FUCK was the train station?! Only busses, and not travel busses, city busses. Like I’m taking the 43 down to the mall. I stood there off to the side by a wall where hopefully nobody would come near me and I frantically texted a friend to keep me from losing my shit. I kept looking around, looking for anyone with a suitcase instead of, like, all their stuff in a grocery cart, and eventually I saw what looked like a thin metal column might actually be a lift. I couldn’t see anything above but fuck it, it’s not like it was going to get worse, so I got in. There was barely enough room for me AND my suitcases, but when the elevator doors opened up there was a bright and shiny train station! THANK DOG but also WHAT THE FUCK.

I walked in and there was a walk-up coffee/pastry shop, and a sit-down coffee shop, and a full sit-down restaurant, and a closed pharmacy (so much for still trying to find Kleenex) and a little magazine stand (that didn’t have Kleenex but suggested the closed pharmacy next door). And in the middle were little kiosks to print out your tickets or buy them there at the kiosk, I guess – I never did see an open window where it looked like you could just walk up and buy a ticket so I was super glad I had already bought mine online.

However.

Also at all the kiosks were printed out signs saying there was work being done on this particular line, so not to buy tickets for it because you wouldn’t be able to get there. And it was the line I had already bought tickets for.

So. Uh….

I went off to the side where there was a more private alcove, and I sat there and watched people and cried for a little bit more. The woman sitting across from me probably thought I was leaving my husband or something, what with showing up with two suitcases and sitting off to the side crying before buying tickets. OK, that was kind of funny, in retrospect.

I watched people walk up, read the signs, and start arguing. I watched them walk up, read the signs, and go to the empty information booth. I had seen a guy at the booth when I first sat down, but maybe he had some sort of buzzer telling him people were headed his way because it seemed as if every time someone angled towards his booth, he would turn invisible.

I finally decided, well, fuck it, I’m going to print out my ticket, I’ve already paid for it but it was only like $15 so if shit goes sideways it’s not like I’m out hundreds. I printed my ticket out (reading and reading the “Hey Lore don’t buy tickets to this place you’re trying to get to!” sign over and over) and I saw the info booth guy standing out talking to some other people so I went over and smiled as nicely as I could. He did not smile back. I said “Hey, hi, hello, I think I’m lost may I ask you a question?” and he just stared at me like I was a rock. I explained what happened and all he said was “waiting room, platform two.” I started to say something else and he said, louder, “WAITING ROOM, PLATFORM TWO.” uh, alrighty then.

I headed to Platform Two.

You had to scan your ticket through a little feeder thing, and it buzzed at me. “ticket not read, scan other side.” OK. I flipped it over. It beeped at me again. “ticket not read, scan other side.” Uhm. So I flipped it again. I’ll spare you the incessant beeping and me almost starting to cry again. I fed the ticket through four different ways, front/back, right side up/right side down and … nothing. I finally saw a guy in a yellow guard jacket so I went over to him and waved my ticket, about to tell him I was a dumb American who couldn’t figure anything out, and he just waved me through. I stopped and asked him the same thing I asked the information guy, and he, very kindly, explained to me that there would be a bus that would take me from here to Greystones, and then I would transfer to a train and take the train from Greystones to Wexford. I should go and wait in the waiting room at Platform 2, and someone would be along to get all of us at a quarter past 1.

I sat there in the waiting room, watching it fill up with people, and thought… well, absolute worst case, nothing actually happens and I hire a car. I looked up online and it would take a few hours until there was something available but I could hire a car for a couple hundred to take me down to Wexford if I had to. They could even deliver me straight to Hawk’s house and then he wouldn’t have to come to the train station to pick me up. Silver lining….?

Someone did come into the very farthest door from where I was sitting, and shouted something that I couldn’t make out, and everyone got up and ran to the exit where he’d disappeared. So I did, too. I mean, when in Rome? We all walked out into the parking lot where there was a tour bus (as opposed to a city bus) and they took all our luggage and we got on the bus. There were so many folks speaking different languages to each other, and it all sounded like questions and every now and then one of them would say Greystones and I could hear the question mark after it, so I figured if I was lost, we were all lost, so whatever! They never did check our tickets or anything. In fact we took off about ten minutes before the train would have left, had we been on the train. Hope nobody was late.

You can see from my face what a great day I was having, and how positive and empowered I felt. My shirt was a lie.

It was about an hour and we got to Greystones, where they were like GET OFF THE BUS GET OFF THE BUS THE TRAIN IS LEAVING so we all ran across the road as soon as they threw our luggage out of the bus, and then… stood in front of the train for about ten minutes until they opened the doors. A woman came up to me and asked if this was the train to Wexford and I was like, ma’am, fucked if I know! We started chatting and she was super friendly, was so glad I was visiting small places in Ireland and thrilled that I was having a good (ish) time. We got on the bus – she had said there would be a place at the end of the car we were getting on where I could put my big bag, but… nope. Turns out there’s not two spots, there’s one spot, and that spot was at the exact opposite end of the train and the aisle was now filled with people so there was no way I was getting all the way down it. I tossed my big bag into the seats across from me, since it wouldn’t fit under the table, and thought that if anyone yells at me I’ll (a) cry and (b) buy two tickets for my bag, whose name is now Harold. Maude is my emotional support luggage and she was at my feet under the table.

The trip was just as picturesque as I’d been told it would be, and I calmed down a lot once we got underway. I mean, even if it wasn’t the right train, it was me and my luggage, so at least we’d be dropped in the same place! It was… I don’t know, maybe a two hour journey? It felt like five minutes. There was a USB plug so I could power my phone, and they had some wifi that mostly worked so I was able to get a little bit done on the computer.

And you can see the difference in my face, almost to Wexford. I was finally getting a little unwound from the very wound up morning, and soon I’d be with my friend Hawk who I’ve known for a gazillion years and I’d finally get to meet his Irish bride.

What a trip, y’all. I have to say that the experience of not knowing what I was doing, coupled with the sudden change in plans from one train to a bus and a train, made me really reevaluate my trip from Galway to Belfast. The only way to get there on public transport is to take a train from Galway to a station back in Dublin, take a bus from that station to the station I’d left to go to Wexford at, and then get on a different train to go up to Belfast. I had already bought those tickets online, when I’d gotten the other ones, and while I was a little wary of it when I was making the plans, double and triple checking that there wasn’t an easier route, after this trip I was like OH FUCK NO.

I cancelled the tickets, got a refund, and for a ridiculously large dollar amount that I feel absolutely zero guilt about spending because of the load it took off of my mind and shoulders the second I bought it, I hired a private driver to take me from Galway to Belfast. Fuck me, y’all.

If you’d like to see the few photos and many videos I took on the bus/train, you can see them here.