the turquoise trail

Red trail represents path taken, blue markers represent towns where we stayed.  {budget} My goal for this trip was $2000; knowing that was on the low side, we tried our best to be conscious of what we were spending while still enjoying the trip and seeing everything we wanted to see.  We stayed in a variety of hotels, hostels, B&B's and airbnb homes along our trip, and travelled over 2100kms.  Ireland uses Euros and Northern Ireland uses British Pounds, so to make it easier to follow I've converted everything to Canadian Dollars.    Flight: $813ea. Accommodations: $742.96 ($371.48ea) Car Rental: $727.75 ($363.88ea) Transportation (Gas, Ferry, Bus): $278.32 ($139.16ea) Attractions: $354.98 ($177.49ea) Food: $338.68 ($169.34ea) Other (Shopping): $287.20 ($143.60ea) All in all, the 11 day/9 night trip, including all spending money, cost each of us $2178.   {nutrition} The food we had in Ireland was delicious.  There are ...

{Monday October 13th} We got up around 8a this morning to finish packing things up and get ready to go. We checked out of our hotel and headed to the car rental return shortly after 9a. We returned our car with no trouble and then got the shuttle to the airport. We checked in around 10a and made our way through security.  Once we were in the airport, we wandered around for a little while and found something to eat. I got a scone from Starbucks, which came with it's own mini jar of strawberry jam! So delicious. We boarded our plane shortly before 12p without any trouble. We are flying with Air Canada, on quite a large plane so thankfully we will have a little bit more space than we did on the way over.  There aren't any tvs on the seats, and I finished my book just before takeoff, but air canada has an app you can use to watch tv shows or movies on your iPhone or you can rent an iPad, which is pretty cool!  (not going to lie.. I was really starting to quest...

{Sunday October 12th} I got up around 8:30a this morning to a lovely view of the river. I had a shower, and then enjoyed a cup of tea looking over the water in a stellar leather armchair.  Shortly, it was time to get ready and get packed up again. We went downstairs to load the car (without dropping any keys) and met Maeve around 10:30a.  From Chris's apartment, it was a short drive over to Pearl and Tommy's where we met for church this morning. We had a lovely meeting, and met a man who had travelled well across Canada as a country singer in his youth.  We stayed at Pearl and Tommy's for a delicious roast lamb dinner, complete with all the fixings. It was awesome to have some lamb!   We spent the afternoon with them and Maeve, and then headed out shortly before 4p to go to a gospel meeting about an hour south of Belfast, on our way to Dublin.  We got as far as the motorway (barely 1km), before I knew something was wrong. I pulled over to the sid...

{Sunday October 5th} We got up around 7a this morning to get ready and head back to the airport. We checked out of our room and called the airport to confirm that the bag had arrived, which it indeed has...  always a good sign.  We got to the airport shortly after 8a and I dropped Paul off to go and get the bag. It a was about 8:40a by the time we left the airport, but we were glad to have the bag back.   From the airport, we worked our way towards the south end of the city, passing through some very nice neighbourhoods  and past Aviva Stadium. We found a little newsstand/deli to get some breakfast, which was a bagel with some bacon (peameal), sausage and cheese on it. It was a little sketchy, but it tasted delicious and fit in with our quest to not eat anywhere "recognizable".   Dun Leary Pier From there we continued on towards Brighton Hall and got to Laura and Elliott's for church around 10a. We were able to borrow a pair of scissors ...

{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 ...

{Friday October 3rd}  Following a short work day, I headed home to get ready to leave! Mom, dad and my brother Paul came to pick me up, and we left around 4:30p. After enjoying some typical Toronto traffic, we got to the airport shortly before 6p.  We checked in and received our boarding passes, and proceeded through customs and security. We went through entirely separately, as I have nexus and Paul does not. The lines were fairly reasonable so we met up again around 6:30p.  We picked up an autumn turkey sandwich - quite delicious, with the exception of one toxic blob of mustard in the middle of mine. While waiting for our plane to begin boarding, Paul discovered that he actually had my boarding pass. Upon further inspection, turns out that I also had his, and we had gone through customs and security with the entirely incorrect boarding passes. Hmm.  Our plane was late arriving and then the baggage guys took a while to get things loaded (so they cla...