Spent most of the day relaxing around High Street, and ran down the town to pick up a few groceries for Gran (at particular shops of her choosing), then ran up to check e-mail at a Fás centre near the Friary.
In the afternoon, Mona stopped in so I could see Seán and Gráinne, and Seán stayed on to have dinner with “the boys.” He and Tom had a good time playing football cards. We walked Tom down to the station so he could catch his train to Dublin, then Mona later dropped me down so I could catch the bus down to the Rosslare Ferry, thus completing the opposite trek of my most recent trip to Ireland in 2000.
The ferry came in late, and the crossing to Pembroke, Wales, took about four hours. I didn’t much feel like sleeping, since I knew we’d be hauled through security on the British side, so I hung out in the pub and had a few beers while I wrote.
Some Englishman named Mark, who was also on our bus, had way too much to drink and got very rowdy. He kept trying to start fights with other passengers, and breaking into song and dancing about. A few Irish lads tried to get him to just sit and calm down. As we neared the port, he began apologising to everyone in sight, saying he was “as drunk as a man gets.” As we got back on the bus, he traipsed up to me and said “You know what Englishmen are made of? Toilet paper.” That was one of the most profound statements of all my journeys, I must say.
When we went through security in Pembroke, Mark was carted off the bus, along with a few passengers who seemed to be illegal immigrants.
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