Walking off the map

DUBLIN — No fish today.

I walked west along the River Liffey for more than two hours. Nothing but crap fly-fishing access. After waking up at 6 a.m. to find fish, I was a bit disappointed. I walked about twice as far as I expected to have to and didn’t find much.

I went past all the bridges I knew. Past the entrance to Phoenix Park. Past the Guinness Brewery. And suddenly, I was off my map, which is pretty comprehensive. So I stopped to check the map at a bus stop. It had a map of Dublin and a “You are here” arrow pointing to the metal off the edge of the map.

There was finally some open shore at the Irish War Memorial, but the rain, and especially the wind, was horrendous. So I wandered around waiting for the weather to change, but the rain kept pouring and the wind kept blowing.

So, on tired and aching feet, I headed home empty handed. The rain and wind got harder.

I got some breakfast at a fast food place and headed to the hostel for a shower. I am experiencing the joy of wearing boxers that I washed myself in the bathroom because laundry is getting tight and service washing cost about 10 euro for a load. Which is a bit extreme.

Since this morning I’ve just been sitting inside watching it rain. Thankfully, that BBC reporter was released. Everyone’s just sitting and watching SKY NEWS go over their breaking news. Yesterday the news was a 200 million euro cocaine bust off the coast of Cork. The drug runners overloaded their boat and had to be rescued. That made it pretty easy to find the coke once it started floating off around the sinking ship.

I hope everyone has a wonderful July 4th. I will probably celebrate by going to see “Die Hard 4.0″ at the cinema on O’Connell Street. More pics when I get the camera charged up. And Joe has challenged me to make a video work. We shall see. Take care.

Here’s the hostel room from my upper bunk:

Here’s Phoenix Park: