Bike Ride to Trim

Today's long bike brought me to the town of Trim. Pictures are here, and this is the route I took (more or less).

I got an even later start than usual. I slept in, because some Bozo kept playing "music" really loud last night. I went to bed past midnight, which is not that unusual for me on a Saturday, and this loud "music" started (it certainly wasn't Beethoven or Mozart). My neighborhood here is not exactly quiet, and at first I thought it was a car and hoped that it would drive away soon.

After a while I concluded it must come from one of the apartments and stuck my head under the pillow. Sometimes they turned it down a little and then back up again. For the most part I only heard the boom, boom of the base notes. I would even fall asleep for short periods of time, and then somebody turned it back up again, or the party makers would make some other loud noise.

Saturday night, kids need to party. I figured it mould eventually quiet down or one of the neighbors would complain. 1:30 am, still going strong. 1:50 am, a girl is leaving. While stomping down the staircase she was explaining to someone on her cell phone that she was coming home now. Good; the party is breaking up.

The party continues; no one else is leaving. I get up to look out the windows and check which room is closest to the noise. The streets are empty. It seems the racket is coming from my entrance to the apartment complex. There are seven apartments, including mine, at this entrance.

Back to bed. This must stop soon. Someone will complain. It is 2:00 am. What is the non-emergency number in Ireland to call the Garda?

Now they switch to rap, which is even further removed from music than the stuff they have been playing so far. Now I can hear the boom boom and some idiotic deep voice fragments. Plus, somebody starts banging their foot on the floor completely out of sync with the rhythm of the noise.

At the very least, I need to get out into the staircase so I can figure out what apartment this is coming from, so I can complain Monday morning. In the meantime I can't sleep and what good will a complaint do anyway? Why is nobody else complaining? I know at least one of the apartments has small children. How can they sleep?

2:30 am. Technically, it's 3:30, since we just switched to daylight savings time. This is nuts.  Get dressed and start walking upstairs. For that matter, what is the emergency number for the Garda?  (It is 999 or 112. I looked that up afterwards.)

It's not the apartment above me, it's on the top floor. How can the people on the floor above me stand this? I bang on the door. Nothing. The noise is too loud, they cannot hear me.  I use my fist to bang on the door. Still nothing. When there is a "dramatic lull" in the racket, I really bang on that door with my fist. Someone yells, the sounds is turned off, and I hear shuffling and voices.

The door opens and a short stocky guy in shorts and beer bottle in hand goes "What?" (Good. I can take this guy, if necessary. Unless there are more and bigger ones inside.)

"Can you turn down the music?"

"Sure, I can turn down the music."

Great. Now I know he can, but will he? "I know it's Saturday night (Sunday morning really), but this is a too loud."

"Alright, no problem. I'll turn it down --- Who are you?"

I didn't really understand that last part at first. With many of these Irish accents I only understand every fifth word on average. As usual, I was guessing the general meaning of what these people say.

"I'm Rolf, I live here."

"Since when?"

"For almost a month now."

"Really?" Now his girl friend shows up in the background and goes "What?" (Good. Maybe I'll get invited to the party. Make some new friends.) He turns around and says something to her, but I did not understand a single word. Maybe it was in French.

He turns back to me and says "I'll turn it down". (Guess not.) I ask him what his name is: "Paddy". We shake hands and I go back to bed. There are a few more weird noises, but the music stays off and eventually the apartment goes quiet.

Then I slept until 10:30.

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For my bike ride to Trim, I tried to avoid main roads and use the smallest ones available.  Without GPS and google maps on my phone I could not have done it, since these smaller roads are not exactly straight, well marked, or directly connected to each other. But it worked and I was on bigger roads only a small fraction of the time. Despite GPS, I did get lost a couple of times (the actual geography and google maps don't always quite match up out here).

While these small roads are fun and have much less traffic, they are not completely problem free.  There are the occasional pieces of evidence for the existence of live farm animals nearby, that are left on the road and need to be avoided. These roads are not as smooth as the main roads. I lost a bottle top somewhere. It rattled right off. And when there is a car, crossing and passing is much more difficult, since the road is really only wide enough for one vehicle.

But it is worth it and much more relaxing than the main roads I have relied on so far because I was afraid to get lost.

Trim  is an old town and it houses the ruins of Ireland's largest Norman castle. It is also a Tidy Town, although it has been a while since Trim won it. But signs at the entrance of Trim still proudly advertise it, and it is indeed a tidy little town.

The weather today, and all this week except yesterday, was nice and sunny. Because of my late start, and because I wanted to get home before dark, I didn't have enough time to explore the ruins. I want to come back with a real camera and take pictures on a nice day. The rest of the pictures are here.

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When I'm not using my bike, I leave it in the stairwell, just outside my apartment. I was worried that Bozo from upstairs would vandalize it after last night. But it seems he is a decent human being after all. Or he hasn't quite figured out yet where I actually live... ;-)