Day 7 – Travel day to Ireland

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Today started with a 4AM wake-up. The Guesthouse owner was supposed to leave us some sandwiches for breakfast in the fridge but they weren’t there. So we made ourselves at home and made our own breakfast. Let’s just say we were not that quiet and when she got up to see what was going on, she was not happy. She had made our breakfast, but left it in our fridge, not the one in the kitchen. Oops. She’ll get over it. But the sandwiches did come in handy for lunch. We had a 5 AM pickup with a 45 minute drive to the airport. We checked in with no problem in about 10 minutes and as predicted, we had 90 minutes to spare before our flight departed. This drives Kirsten nuts. That is another 60 minutes we could have slept.

Everyone slept on the way to London. We had a few hours there after we got our luggage and checked back in. Chester and Judy were a bit worried as the airport doesn’t give you the gate until about 30 minutes before the flight leaves. There was a second security check that was backed-up. So Chester nearly ran to the gate, but Kirsten just laughed as they weren’t even boarding. It was an uneventful flight to Shannon, Ireland.

We got the car rented and as seems to happen in EVERY foreign country when you rent a car there were more fees. If you decline the 32 Euro a-day insurance you have to still pay 30 Euros for the service of declining rental insurance. Lovely. Kirsten is driving, which with the combination of driving on the left side of the road, car being a manual and very narrow roads, makes for some tense moments. She made it clear that there will be no backseat drivers and navigating was the shotgun passenger’s responsibility. 45 minutes later we arrived at our cottage. It is literally out in the middle of nowhere near farms and the city of Bodyke. The lady at the reception was great and gave us everything we needed to plan our 4 days here. She even tried to help Gene get the car in reverse as he could not figure it out. Finally her father figured it out so we didn’t have to push the car in neutral every time we needed to reverse. Chester and Judy just sat at the cottage and laughed, as did a few other people in the area.

She directed us to a local pub for dinner in Tuamgraney. Judy got the tradition bacon and cabbage. All but Kirsten enjoyed the beers despite Gene’s inability to pronounce any of them correctly. The waitress finally said you’ll get what I give you and like it. Judy talked to everyone sitting within ear shot of us while Chester and Kirsten just laughed and made fun of the really ugly old Irish women in the pub.

We are looking forward to a dark night and not having to get up at any set time tomorrow. It has of course been pouring rain all day today and most of tonight, but hoping for some breaks in the rain tomorrow. No pictures to share today.

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