Recap

One of my Ireland travel mates (Allison) posted a blog about Ireland a few days ago, and it reminded me that I never left a solid description of our travels for my family who I know wanted to hear about them!  Everyone else has pretty much gotten the low-down, but for those that haven't....Allison has inspired me to share.  It may also be because I've been spending most of today daydreaming about far away places.  Its funny, when I'm away, all I want to do is be back.  When I'm back here, all I want to do is be away.  Grass is always greener on the other side they say....except its not really.  I like the grass here a lot....I'll stick with that for the long term. :)

Anyways...I'll go day by day to give you a good idea of what we experienced.  I'm including a few pictures to share for each day!  This may take a few days of blogging....it was a long trip!  :)

Day #1
We were supposed to be catching flights from Spokane to Seattle to Paris to Dublin.....which ended up not happening.  We had a short layover scheduled at Seattle before that Paris flight, and we didn't even make it to Seattle before our flight had left.  There were complications in Spokane with the plane and we were unfortunately forwarded on to Seattle instead of being re-routed from Spokane. We spent about an hour and a half hanging out around the Alaska Airlines customer service waiting to get  something that would send us on our way sooner than 3 days from then.  Let's just say it wasn't our most gracious moment...it was pretty frustrating to feel like your vacation isn't going to happen because of an airline's mistake.  Finally they found a flight for us at 6:00 am to Newark and were shipped to a Comfort Inn somewhere near the Seattle airport.  I, being the only unmarried traveler at this point, got a room to myself.  This would have been more fun if we weren't supposed to be on our way to Paris at this point. 

Bored....not loving Seattle at this point.

Day #2
The flight to Newark wasn't the worst and we got to see the Manhattan skyline as we flew by.

 We had a 7 hour layover, but decided not to risk the drive into the city...that was the last thing that we needed (to miss another plane). Newark has a bad rep, but it wasn't the worst layover I've ever had.  The Japanese earthquake had just happened that morning so we spent a lot of the layover watching that on the news and trying to find sleeping space on the floor.  We left at 10:00 pm and flew overnight to Dublin.  I've never flown over an ocean, so that was an exciting first.  I ended up sitting next to a girl from the East Coast who was flying to Dublin to party for Spring Break.  Next to her was a military guy who was also flying to Dublin to party. He was supposed to go with a friend, but apparently he came down with something right before the trip.  So, this guy decided to travel alone.  It worked out well for him on the plane it seems as he had lots of time to flirt with his seatmates.  It was an overnight flight and between him and the girl next to me, they drank at least 10 beers.  I declined.....

Day #3
Finally in Dublin.  We walked around the airport looking for the travel desk for about 20 minutes and then found our bus shuttle to the Dublin city center.  We thought we had located our hostel on the map and walked at least a mile to this location.  Unfortunately, there are two Great George Streets in Dublin and we had chosen the wrong one.  So, we back tracked that mile and had to walk another 1/2 mile to our hostel.  Lets just say that the map readers almost found themselves at the bottom of the Liffey River after that one....and I was one of them!  Our hostel was Mount Eccles, and seemed to be airy and cute when we first walked in.  Upon further inspection....it was kind of dirty and weird and our dorm room had at least 15 beds in it.

We met up with Mollie and Christie (who had managed to make the flight to Paris that we were supposed to be on) and headed straight for the Guinness Factory.

  Mind you, at this point, we are all delirious with jet lag.  The Guinness Factory was fun....maybe not anything to write home about.  I guess my real beef with the whole experience is that nothing was authentic.  They don't actually show you the process of beer making, they show you a simulated version of the process.  They use a lot of lights and videos to show things, but I wanted to see some real action.  We did get to sample Guinness....which I sipped and then shared with my travel mates.  Ick.  The view at the top of the factory was incredible though....well worth it!  We also went to check out Dublinia (a Viking museum that was cheesy and ridiculous, and one of my favorite spots in Dublin).  Attached to this spot was the Christ Church Cathedral and a tower that you could climb for another beautiful view of the city.  By this time, most everyone was ready for dinner.  We landed at the first pub we could find, and I spent most of the evening nursing an upset stomach. 

My first Irish meal was vegetable soup (classic.....every pub has it as their soup of the day) and Irish soda bread (sick...grosss.....never again).  The whole day ended pretty badly with that upset stomach turning into a full fledged nightmare.  I thought I might die on my first day in Ireland....

Day #4
Our second day in Ireland was dedicated towards making it to Cork, which is in the Southwest corner of Ireland.  This is where Mollie had been living as an au pair, so we were all excited to get a taste of what she had been experiencing.  We had purchased bus tickets that allowed us to travel freely all throughout Ireland through a company called Bus Eirann.  It was a 4 hour bus ride, complete with a stop in at a gas station where we had the chance to fight motion sickness and buy European candy bars!  Cork was bustling and had a much different feel from Dublin.  Dublin was kind of dirty and much too busy, but Cork was much more stylish and had a younger feel to it.  We stayed at Hotel Issacs, which was a hotel that had both hotel rooms and apartments. 

We rented a 3 bedroom apartment for under 100 euros for one night.  Great deal.  We dropped our stuff off at the apartment and did a little souvenir shopping around town.  Every city in Ireland shuts down at about 6:00 pm every day (except for the pubs)...so you had to make sure you got your shopping in before that time.  We spent the evening in the apartment playing games (always interesting with that crew) and eating some yummy homemade shepard's pie that Mollie made.  It was nice to be in an apartment with a clean, fully functioning shower and a clean kitchen.  Hostels leave much to be desired, so this was wonderful!

Day #5.....coming soon!