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I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and sky.
All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. -- John Masefield
The festival has been great - the music is fun, the ships are gorgeous, and everyone here is really into it. A lot of the other tourists are actually Irish themselves - the race runs through different cities every year, and this is the first time in a long while that it's been in Ireland. There's fishermen from all across the coast, little kids running around the docks, all sorts of people who are genuinely excited that the tall ships are coming through here this year.
The city itself has actually done a lot to help - there's apparently some sort of legislation the mayor enacted to make it illegal for existing shops to hike their prices up during the festival (which is nice, but it doesn't stop the street vendors from selling ice cream cones for 2 euro.) They also actually closed down the city center and all the riverside roads - which is a bit crap if you live in Waterford and have to do little
things like going to work, but it's great for the other 3000 of us. People just sit down right in the middle of the street and have little picnics.
I have to admit, my guidebook is letting me down. It's saved me some euros in the past, been a nice source of information for Cork and Limerick, but ever since I got into the Waterford area it's been a bit weird. (If individual tickets to the Crystal Factory, the museum, and the tower are €3.50, €4.50, and €1 (respectively), then a pass to the trio that costs €10.20 is NOT "a great deal", actually.)
Anyway, I checked into my hostel a couple nights ago and talked with the owner for a bit (he actually lived in Manhattan for a month. Small world.), and he asked if he could see what my guidebook said about his hostel. He explained that he had to put up with the researcher for 3 days.
... no wonder the Southeast Ireland researcher raved about the service he got everywhere - he went around telling people he was reviewing them! I always thought there was some sort of Consumer Reports type rule against that.
So, the race itself will actually start tomorrow. The crews are all running around the decks checking the rigging right now. It's a bit weird to watch, because most of the crew on the boats I can see right now are actually younger than me. There's quite a few youth boats here. The USA and the Oman boats had uniforms and military marching during the parade, but most of the other crews were wearing street clothes and just looked like any group of students - it's a bit weird to think of them actually running a huge boat, but they got here from Wales alive, so I guess they know what they're doing.
New photos, by the way - I didn't really check to see if any of them were good, I just uploaded them all at the photobucket site. There's a lot - uploading took forever on this computer (ridiculously slow. an outrage.), so these are just a random sample.
Anyway, today is my last day here. There's fireworks over the River Suir tonight, and a lecture I'm going to, but that's about it - mostly I'm just walking around and getting a last look at everything.
Assuming my feet aren't as sore tomorrow, I'll hike around the cliff path in Tramore (there's supposed to be seals), or maybe just head straight to Kilkenny.
I'll write more then!
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Rachel
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Tall Ships Viewing
I was at the tall ships it was brill with the lights it was stunning.iwas down on duncannon beach and watching the boats sail past is so so thrilling!i would like to know where the boats are now?i thought it was lovely but i am only 9 so how would i know.the best ship there was the the Indonesia ship it was called the Dewaruci and seing the president there it was so cool and fun.i would like to say thank the sailors,popcorn people,president and every1 who pretisapaeted in the event in waterford