Land Ho!

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We’re here. Nick, Sean, and I have been up for over 24 hours with no more than a few hours of sleep. The trip was an absolute nightmare. We were delayed out of Kansas City, then delayed out of Reagan in D.C., and when we got to Boston our checked bags were nowhere to be found. After we waited four hours in the baggage claim, checking the belts for all the U.S. Airways flights that had come into Logan from D.C. - no luck. The splendidly helpful guy at the luggage counter told us we probably wouldn’t see them before we left and that he wouldn’t be able to get them to us by the time we arrived in Shannon because it was out of the country and, hence, out of his realm of control. Needless to say, we’re all a little hot about it. I feel bad for Sean though. He didn’t pack a stitch of clothing in his carry-on luggage, so he’s stuck with what he’s wearing until we can get the bags. To make matters worse, we don’t have any solid means of communication. So even if they wanted to get a hold of us, they couldn’t do it directly. Add to this situation a pretty serious case of jetlag on all of our parts and you can see how we might be a bit frustrated.

But enough about the bad. Limerick is beautiful. The shades of green in the country here are utterly breathtaking. The scenery is so beautiful, in fact, that it overshadows the soggy, dark weather which hasn’t let up since we landed this morning. The people have been extremely kind so far, and more accommodating than I had expected the Irish to be toward Americans (especially when you’re traveling with a hard core Texan - cowboy hat, belt buckle, and all). We drove through downtown Limerick on the way to our apartment complex and it seems like a pretty nice little town. The center of which is dominated by a castle - one of three we’ve seen in the short distance between Shannon Airport and Limerick. The area where our apartments are located is mostly student living, and the three universities in town bring in students from all over Europe. Tonight we’ll be heading into town to have some pints with the locals. More to come...

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Photos

Sean and I at KCI
before we knew what we were getting ourselves into.

My Travel Buddies
notice they still have smiles

This sucks
after waiting for the 4th straight D.C. flight to arrive with no sign of our bags

victory!
A duty free bottle of Bacardi was our only consolation...

Almost there...
about 20 minutes before we landed.

Parade
This was a parade downtown for a soccer tournament in Limerick over the weekend