Ireland; Dublin

{Saturday October 4th} 

It's a full flight to Dublin aboard United Airlines, so sleeping will not be done in abundance or comfort. We were served our choice of cheese noodles or chicken (how American..) around midnight. The chicken tasted only slightly more appetizing than it looked, and was served with 'salad' (aka lettuce). 

Time passed by reading my new novel 'The Life List'; sad but very good thus far. There were also in flight movies to enjoy, so I watched The Other Woman. I laughed. Out loud. A few times. 

Right around the time I decided I should try to sleep for a while, was the same time that the turbulence started. Unfortunately it wasn't really the rocking-lullaby type, but more of the crazy-person-shaking-a-baby type. Thankfully it didn't last too long and I did manage to doze off for a while, and woke up around 3:30a Toronto time, to a beautiful sunrise over the clouds.  

Irish Fields

We flew over the middle of Ireland, and arrived smoothly to a sunny 14 degrees in Dublin at 10:15a local time. 

While patiently waiting by the carousel we helped a lady by completely an advertising survey, however we eventually realized everyone else's bags had gone, and Paul's wasn't there. We went to speak to the kind customer service lady who told us the bag is currently in Newark and should be arriving at 7a tomorrow morning. They are able to deliver them, but since deliveries don't begin until 9a and we wouldn't likely get it until the afternoon, we will come back to the airport in the morning to pick it up. Fingers crossed! 

Once that was settled, we went out to the rental car area and took a shuttle over to where we can pick up our rental car. The reality of this wrong-side-of-the-road business is starting to sink in... *inner freak out*

We got our rental car without any trouble and have ended up with a red Mitsubishi Colt.. It's actually not as tin-box tiny as I thought it would be. We also discovered that by not booking the GPS in advance, we could rent one for 3 euros a day.  For a quarter of the online price, we decided that it would be a worthwhile investment. 

Out to our new wheels we went and we were off! Well.. after stalling three times in the parking space, then we were off. For someone who's left handed, you would think that the whole clutch on the left, gear shift on the left and driving on the left thing would be great. It's not. It's just weird. 

We headed towards the hotel where we will be spending the night, as a couple Dublin friends were meeting us there. We were running a little late by this point, but by the time we got to the hotel I was starting to getting the hang of the driving a little more.

Arlene, Julie, and Laura met us when we arrived. We had lunch with them at the restaurant in the hotel and had a really nice visit. 

After our visit, we headed downtown around 2:30p. We walked a little way from our hotel to where we could catch the bus. Their busses are all double decker busses (14'3" clearance) and navigate the tight corners and roundabouts surprisingly well. It cost us 3.05 euros to take the bus. Of course we sat on the top, from which you can easily see into people's second floor windows. 

Guiness Storehouse

We got off at the Guinness Storehouse and walked around where Guinness beer originated. It's quite a large complex with many old buildings. From there, we wandered further into the downtown core, hoping to find St Patricks Cathedral. 

We soon abandoned that idea, as we didn't have a map with labelled street names, and none of their roads go straight.  Instead, we simply wandered. We ended up seeing quite a few sights, including a local chocolate cafe (mango truffle.. yumm). 

Trinity College

We worked our way over to Trinity College, across the canal, and into a shopping area where we were able to find some toiletries and clothes. Thank you, United, I quite like my new skirt and scarf! We thought we saw a guy who was crumpled over looking quite dead, but we came by later and he was up on the bench, so he wasn't dead after all. 

Trinity College Campus

Around 6p we decided we had seen about enough for one day and worked our way back to find the bus to take us home. The transit here is amazingly easy to navigate. 

We got back to the hotel just as it was getting dark, and checked into our room. We got things settled in, and then I went to check out the pool. It was quite nice, but I didn't stay too long as I was already a bit chilled from walking home. 

A hot shower followed, although I have no conditioner and no hair brush, so my hair has just a couple of tangles.

Feels like a quite a 24 hour day, but time to call it a night!

J. 

Design Life. Create Originality. Inspire Wonder.