Eli has this week off, and I had wanted to spend a day in Dublin City Centre, just wandering around looking at the shops and such. However, I did a pivot and said that I'd rather go visit the sea.
There's a stop for this route a couple of blocks from the apartment - or so we thought. We hiked up there, only to be confronted by a sign stating that this stop wasn't in service at the moment. Fortunately, there was another stop a couple more blocks away, and we'd left the apartment early enough that the shift in location wasn't an issue.
It was a fairly quick trip to Bray. As it was mid-morning on a weekday, the bus was pretty empty and we didn't have to make too many stops, either to let someone off or pick someone up.
The beach was mostly unpopulated when we arrived, just a couple pockets of people scattered here and there. We walked across the rocks and settled in near the water.
Eli took off his shoes and went to stand in the water for a few minutes. I'm planning to get some beach/shower shoes so I can comfortably experience the water - and walking on the rocky beach - during one of our trips here.
Sound on to hear the sea:
There were a lot of rocks with holes like this.
As I sat there watching the waves, I felt tears starting to slide down my cheeks. Eli came to sit down next to me, and I said "Lissa should be here." He said, "Yeah. It's not fair that she isn't."
We saw many puppers with their humans. One little dog - it may've been a Jack Russell but I'm not sure - was very excited to be there. He kept running toward the water and then back, barking at his people to get a move on. In the next video I post, I think that's him in the background barking up a storm. One dog drew a little near us, and his owner called him back and said that he knew some people weren't comfortable around dogs; we assured him that we loved doggos. Another lady had a dalmatian and a black lab - the lab was all about jumping into the water to chase his ball, the dalmatian not so much.
We got up and moved a little farther down the beach before settling in again. The first photo is a tangled clump of seaweed. In the second photo, all of those little white spots sparkled like diamonds in the sun.
We left the beach and went back onto the promenade. Lots of people were out enjoying a stroll, eating ice cream (there were three ice cream shops right next to each other, as well as a little ice cream kiosk closer to the water), walking their dogs, and just drinking in the day.
I was beginning to tire, and we were both hungry, so we walked a few blocks to get to our bus stop. On the beach, I was scouring the thousands of rocks, looking for a purple heart-shaped stone. Purple was Lissa's favorite color, and I've taken to looking for heart-shaped rocks when I go to the beach. If you squint a bit, the one rock looks a little heart-ish and is a bit of a lavender color. The larger stone has all kinds of sparkles in it.
I was a bit disappointed that I didn't find a definitive purple heart-shaped rock. However, on the walk to the bus, we passed many houses that had names (I had mentioned in a previous post that many folks here name their home and usually put a sign up that displays the name). One of the houses we passed was named "Lissadell."
Once on the bus, it didn't take long to reach our lunch destination - a tiny diner called Shake Dog. As with many shops here, it was quite narrow - a hole in the wall. There were only two other diners when we arrived, which seemed strange because it was around noon. Perhaps things are simply more quiet in the middle of the week.
I had chicken tenders and fries - not pictured is the chocolate shake which was sooo good. Eli had a Kit-Kat shake, along with some onion rings, fried mushrooms, and the smoked veggie burger.
When I was looking at the map to find somewhere to eat, I noticed a place called Chipped which was only a couple blocks from Shake Dog. Even though we'd just eaten, there was no way we were going to pass up the chance to have more fries. I had a small cone of fries smothered in cheese sauce; Eli had the peri peri fries. We sat at a small bistro table in the shade, enjoying the breeze while we ate our treats. And they were SO FREAKIN' GOOD, y'all. We'll definitely need to go there again.
Then it was off to find the bus stop for the ride home. We had a timely arrival as the bus was scheduled to be there in about a minute when we walked up.
After another short trip, we were at the apartment again. The cats greeted us at the door, wondering why we'd been gone ALL DAY (3 hours) and why no one had been around to feed them.
All in all, I'm glad we went to the beach rather than City Centre. I think I needed the quiet steadiness of the sea rather than the hustle and bustle of Dublin.
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