Dublin

Dublin

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  • Thomas Brütting
    Thomas Brütting
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    No overnight parking!
    I remember a nice story, that happened, I think, somewhen in 1995 when I was travelling around Ireland with some friends. We were travelling in two cars and spent most of the nights under the blue sky, in the tent, or in the car. You see, it was that kind of holiday, very low budget student holiday.

    When we came into Dublin from the Wicklow Mountains we decided to visit the Joyce Tower in Sandymount first before looking for a place to stay. On the way back to the camping site in Shankill we encountered a minor problem with one of the cars and ended up in the car park of the Dalkey DART-Station.

    We parked the cars right underneath a big sign "No overnight parking" and the friend of mine started fixing his car. We hadn't been there for more than 15 minutes when a Garda patrol car stopped next to us.

    "Hi lads, need any help?" asked a young and not unattractive female police officer. We told her, we were allright, just fixing the car and she asked us where we would spend the night. "Shankill camping site" we replied not really understanding the question.

    "Well, if you want to save your money, you can stay here on the car park. We let the others patrols know, so they will keep an eye on your cars, while you're in town having a drink."

    They really did. When we came back from our pub crawl around a quarter to midnight with a bag full of Guinness cans a patrol car was just leaving the car park. "Are you the lads from Germany?"...

    We had a nice midnight chat with two friendly officers who unfortunately were not allowed to have a drink with us but who kept coming back every hour for the rest of the night to look after the "German lads".
    • 20 Sep 2005, 5:22 pm
  • Volker Boelsch
    Volker Boelsch    Premium Member   Group moderator
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    Re: No overnight parking!
    Thomas Brütting schrieb:
    "Are you the lads from Germany?"...
     
    We had a nice midnight chat with two friendly officers who unfortunately were not allowed to have a drink with us but who kept coming back every hour for the rest of the night to look after the "German lads".
    This story almost makes me weap. It's true, though. I remember when my car had broken down once, it was on the driveway in front of my house, so no problem there. My family and I had just moved there. Being from South Germany (Württemberg) I first tried to get it to work again myself, rather than to consult a garage. That didn't work out, though...

    The next day, when I came home from work (had to take the bus, 31A to Howth), my wife told me about the neigbour's wife, who had apparently noticed me fumbling about with the car the day before and figured it was down. So she had approached my wife, introduced herself and - as she was just about to drive down to Sutton - offered to do some shopping for her. That's the practical sense I really love about the Irish!

    VB
    • 21 Sep 2005, 07:43 am