Theres something nice about traveling on a bus in the off peak hours when there is fresh air and no stench of body odour. Enough space to be comfortable, and a big, albeit smudged window to peek out at the world from. Given the extortionate charges we are forced to pay to board a train, there are times when taken the bus seems like a better and cheaper option. More money for food and magazines, which is always an enticing prospect.
Dublin Bus Station is very small and is definitely in need of expansion, but things seem to run a lot smoother than Heuston Station. Cheaper sandwiches and friendlier pigeons. ( I see a lot of pigeons with missing toes, walking around on their little stumps. It’s a hard life on the streets).
Dublin to Limerick is a journey of three hours and forty minutes, according to www.buseireann.ie. Given this long time period, it’s probably not a good idea to be glugging copious amounts of liquid unless you have very good urethral control, which I would like to think I have. But nevertheless, I always refrain from drinking too much. The scenario of having to ask the bus driver to stop so I can pee in the bushes, isn’t very appealing.
I love to read and that poses another bodily problem. I always have to take a break every five minutes and look out the window before the nausea of motion sickness takes hold. Not a very pleasant experience.
A bus is also a lot more intimate than a train even when it is half empty. There are always a variety of people to scrutinise. Why do certain people always have to screw their heads and stare at everyone else in the bus, every ten minutes? Or those who try to engage you in conversation even though you are clearly listening to music or engrossed in a book. There is always someone who smells of urine, the odour concentrated when there is no adequate ventilation. Tayto’s cheese and onion also have the ability to permeate the air with their stink.
Ireland looks a lot more rural from a bus, you pass through all the small little places not serviced by trains, and you see how some parts are just disintegrating, shops closing down and too many take away diners. Charming areas from a bus but you wouldn’t want to live there unless you had your own transport. There is always an old man smoking outside a house that’s supposed to be a pub and a red faced woman pushing four kids with a pramful of groceries. And don’t forget the people who feel compelled to wave at the driver in some sort of mutual understanding.
Once the journey is done, and your legs are unfolded and receiving blood once more, the thought is always the same. Never again.
I had to take a three hour bus journey twice a week before I dropped out of college and I came to love it eventually.
I love Dublin bus station, me and a girl I’d never met before struck up a great friendship over a mutual appreciation of two pigeons going at it. They began sweetly kissing and suddenly there were wings flapping everywhere. It’s well worth a visit.
There’s this really cool white pigeon near where I live, he has those puffy feathery legs, it looks like he’s wearing a pair of trousers!
I love those pigeons! Myself and a friend were walking down the road by her house when we came across four or five of them strutting around. A fella driving a car stopped when he saw them and asked us if they were ours.
Walking a flock of birds down the road…as you do.
I envy that driver, it must be great being high all the time.