Day 1 - Travelling!

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Well we started our journey the morning of Sept 25th - Getting picked up at our house at 6 am we started off from Temecula to LAX for the flight into Dublin.

LAX is a large airport but we found our flight igate and by 1130 am we were in route to Chicago, our first and only layover. Kellie got the window seat and I was in the middle next to some dude who didn't say a word but did play on his computer and watch Dexter.

By that evening, roughly 4pm we were in Chicago and had a 3 hour layover where we spent it hanging out and eating Burritos. Our gate was in the International Terminal - Which is very different from normal ones. The international terminal is full of people from other countries going home. Polish people are apparently very common in Chicago as the flight to Warsaw was packed with people waiting to go home.

Its wild because they are really big on this Duty Free shop thing at the international terminal. There is every kind of booze you can think of in huge containers as well as chocolate and the like. Kellie enjoyed the hundred pound box of chocolate covered raisins.

We left Chicago around 8pm Chicago Time (6pm Temecula Time). We flew Aer Lingus, the most popular Irish Airline. They are big on the color green and all the flight attendants wear green outfits. The flight was long and fairly uneventful. There were many Irish people on the plane as well as some Americans. Most of the people were older (60 plus) My guess is they were traveling home from the US just visiting family. There was a teenage boy sitting behind me that hated that I leaned my seat back and thought it was a great idea to bang on the seat all night. This was pretty annoying so I happily would bang the seat back every once in a while, hoping to annoy him back while pretending to sleep. Irish folk are very kind but their children seem like little brats.

We arrived in Ireland (Dublin) around 9am Irish Time (1 am Temecula time). Having very little sleep and feeling a little goofy we boarded a shuttle (bus) in which our last stop was our Hotel the Beautiful Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel .

Our ride to the hotel was pretty cool. The little towns on the way (seems like there is one on every street corner were great). The style of the buildings are all their own and a giant medieval church is literally in every major intersection.

Our hotel was the last stop on the Dalkey Route. We entered a large gate (Like castle large) Only thing missing was a moat and drove up the drive way to the building. I got the impression this place was once some very rich persons house and has since been turned into a hotel. Check out the website to understand the place.

Our room was little but has a nice view and a balcony, we can see the Ocean!

I watched TV a little, its interesting. American TV shows are very popular. A broadcaster announced that a Blank Show would be out within 2 hours of showing "In the States". The TV commercials are the most fun to watch as they remind me of American Commercials from the 80s. Kind of a low budget feel and the actors are all over acting, but they are memorable.

Well, we watched Tv for a short time then after showering, went to sleep. It was about 12 noon in Ireland and around 4am Temecula time. And this ends our first day.

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Comments

[Karen Parker-Foley]

Thank You for sharing. Looking forward to more blogs. Karen

[D MJ Binkley]

Happy traveling
Looks like a great hotel.