Went to Oakland, CA yesterday to review a unique wall and door system for our new residence. The trip reminded me why I like Rural Living.
Traffic was a nightmare, of course. Bumper to bumper on I-80 in both directions. We finished our visit and departed at 1:30pm. Leaving by 1:30 apparently just misses the "afternoon commute" when the freeway jams up even worse. We were told if we waited another 30 minutes to leave it would add several more hours to travel the same distance-- due to sitting in a traffic snarl that barely moves.
...
A few years ago we flew into Seattle. I had read that to get out of town by 3:30pm if I remember correctly. I really did not believe one had to be north of Seattle by 3:30pm but that is what I read and planned to do. The plane flew over I5 around 2:30 or 3:00 and the interstate was empty so I figured what I had read was wrong. We got held up getting a rental car because the employee was trying to up sell us on every single thing.
We got on the road around 3:15 I believe and I5 was clear. I was thinking the 3:30pm deadline was BS...
I was wrong. :shocked:
At 3:30pm, we were still in Seattle, and I5 went from barely used to a parking lot. Twas like someone flicked a switch. :confused3::thumbdown::laughing::laughing::laughing:
Living with lots of people makes people, if not defensive, at least less friendly at first blush which is not an unsurprising reaction since it just takes one person to cause problems.
We just returned from Ireland were we spent quite a bit of time in an apartment in a small town in rural, western Ireland and then some time living in a house in Dublin. Living in a house and apartment as opposed to a hotel gets you closer to the local people and you live like they do. The simple thing of having to shop for food and doing your own cooking adds so much to a trip compared with ordering food in a restaurant. We met quite a few people and had long, deep conversations with many people in western Ireland. Just got some email from one couple we met.
In Dublin we had some interesting conversations with people but NOT in the neighbor hood where we rented the house. :shocked: We were kinda surprised by this since we thought we would see more of the neighbors. Frankly, it was like going to a US city. You would see people, but not interact with them much, if at all. Ironically, the longest conversations with people in Dublin were two young women we met at Trinity College. One of the women was going to the College and her friend was visiting. They were both from the states and used to live where I lived in South FLA! :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:
The other person we had an interesting, but too short conversation was ANOTHER American who was working at a Dublin museum. He was one of three American men we met who where in Ireland because they had married Irish women. :shocked:
At the Emigration museum in Dublin, one of the tidbits of information they had, was that in the 50s/60s, 75% of Irish leaving the country where women. Guess we had met some of the men those women married and eventually returned to Ireland with them.
People in Dublin were not rude or anything just had their shields up so to speak. The only "rudeness" we saw was a guy on the tram who was riding without paying. The transport police/Garda came on the tram at our stop. I had noticed them waiting even though they were in plain clothes. :laughing::laughing::laughing: They saw us swipe our transit card but they still checked us on the tram. After all the card could have expired.
The police checked two guys in front of us and one refused to show his transport card which can result in one getting tossed off the tram. The guy had an attitude and was showing his a...ss so he got thrown off the tram. Guy next to him did not have a card and thus did not pay. However, he did not show his a..ss so he just got a ticket.
We did see people helping people in trouble which was nice but that is another story. :laughing::laughing::laughing:
Those two guys were the "rudest" Irish we saw during the trip which really was not bad given the amount of time we where there. However, in Dublin there were LOTS of rude tourists, and unfortunately, two of them were Americans.
One was shouting at other people in his party in the courtyard at Trinity College in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people.
Twas embarrassing and one guy in the group was trying to shut him up. The other guy was in a an alley leaving a library and thankfully there was only us and one other couple who could hear the idjit. He was talking to someone on his phone, which was in speaker phone mode and he was wearing a ear buds which was odd. Since the phone was in speaker phone mode he was talking very loudly :rolleyes so the person he was talking to could hear.
Twas really stupid but what made it worse was the guy was talking about his s...x life. Really? You have to walk around the streets of a city talking loudly into a phone, so everyone can hear the conversation, while you talk about your s...x life? Really? To make it worse he was an American.
Thankfully, only us and one other couple heard him at least until he went one way and we went another. Hopefully, traffic noise drowned out his conversation so that others could not hear.
I don't think that idjit would have walked around the small Irish town we were in having that conversation.
While it was embarrassing seeing these two rude Americans in another country, we saw far more bad behavior by other non Irish visitors.
Kinda sad but I guess when people go on vacation they let loose too much.
Funny thing was helping tourists who were walking around lost just as we were. :laughing::laughing::laughing:
Later,
Dan
