Wednesday, January 10, 2018

Travel Day

Today was a veerrrrrrrryyyyy long travel day -- we left home at 7am on Tuesday and arrived in Ireland a little under 24 hours later. Note: it does not actually take that long to get to Dublin. We had a TEN HOUR layover in Canada; I didn't notice that when I booked the tickets (perhaps part of the reason the flight was as inexpensive as it was). Then once we got on the plane, we sat for an additional hour while they fixed the computer system that had crashed (I guess as long as it is the computers crashing and not the plane crashing ...). The flight was about seven hours long and was pretty uneventful -- and then came the line for passport checks. Oh. My. Goodness. We stood in line for another THREE HOURS waiting to be cleared to enter Ireland. While in line we visited with the Canadian Curling Team who was headed to Scotland for a tournament -- very nice gentlemen who were just as eager to get out of the passport line as we were. And finally, after moving one step every five minutes all the way to the counter, we got our passports stamped and were officially on vacation!!  

We caught a bus from the airport to city center and then walked a few blocks to our hotel. That's right, I said hotel. Though I have lived the hostel life for many years and am forever grateful to hostels for their cheap accommodations that enabled my ability to travel, I decided that this trip's lodging would be a little more comfortable and a little less crowded -- look forward to seeing our unique sleeping spaces as the trip progresses!! (You didn't think I booked us at Holiday Inn's, did you?!) For tonight, we are staying at Temple Bar Inn. We thought we would be way earlier than our check in time of three o'clock since our plane originally was supposed to arrive in Dublin at ten, but thanks to our delays we were just on time to check into our room. Originally I had thought that we would drop our bags and head back out for lunch and maybe a walking tour ... but we were exhausted!! So instead we dropped our bags and took a nap and planned out what we want to visit tomorrow. 

After our snooze we wandered around the Temple Bar district in search of somewhere to have dinner; we settled on Quays Irish Restaurant. After filling our bellies with delicious Irish food (I always forget how much I love Irish food until I'm looking at the menu!!) we walked back to our hotel and are now settling in and finalizing our plans for the rest of the week. Some of you may not know, but this trip was a surprise Christmas gift for CJ -- he has always told me that Ireland is on his travel bucket list, so back in August I decided that a trip to Ireland would be the perfect Christmas gift. I booked the plane tickets and where we are staying (including a few days of hiking ... because I'm selfish and couldn't resist ...) but everything else we do -- tours, museums, restaurants, site seeing, etc -- is up to CJ. I'll be just as surprised by the itinerary each day as you are! ha 

Here are a few (and I mean very few) pictures from today: 

Entrance to temple bar inn 

The lobby -- a little fancier than we are used to! 

That would be a free coffee station at the far end; CJ is in love! 

The first of many Irish beers : )

Food!!! CJ's fish and chips ... 

... and my bangers and mash. 

Now we are back at the hotel getting our ducks in a row for tomorrow and picking out a movie to watch. Tomorrow, let's hope for better adventures than airport shenanigans !!! 


3 comments:

  1. Maribeth HollinsheadJanuary 10, 2018 at 7:41 PM

    Let the adventure begin!

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  2. Glad you made it safe! Have fun and don't worry about Bernie, we'll get in our own trouble!! :-)

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