First Time in Northern Ireland

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Geo: 54.5973, -5.93019

We had breakfast and left the hotel with time to drive around the area some before our afternoon flight. We found a cute vacation community on Loch Lomond and took a walk around it. There were small lake homes that seemed to be mostly summer homes, but could be permanent residences, I suppose. The woman at the shop there said that the internet service is terribly slow so most people don't even bother with it.

We drove back to Glasgow to return the car and make the 2:00 flight and saw a petrol station on the road before we got to the car hire return location so we could return it full. It has been a great rental car--just the right size. Other than that thing with the tires, we did really well. The woman attendant at Avis looked over the car thoroughly when we brought it in. We passed--no new scratches or dings on it.

We had to check our luggage on the flight as Aer Lingus will not allow as much carry on luggage as most U.S. airlines allow. The bags made it through and were waiting on us when we found the baggage return in Dublin. Picked up the new rental car, which is an Audi and a little bit bigger than the BMW we had in Scotland. It has a built in GPS, but the disc is not inserted in it so we had to rent a Garmin instead.

We were on the road to Belfast by about 4:30 and drove straight to the hotel in the city center without any problem arriving to our room by 6:30 p.m.. In fact, as we were nearing the location as provided by the Garmin, I saw the entry for the Hilton Car Park in time for Philip to turn into the gate for it. We had to take a ticket from the machine to get it to open so we'll use that to pay when we leave tomorrow. Tonight's stay is free with Hilton points. We used them in Dunblane and will use more in Dublin in a few days.

Dinner tonight was in the Sonoma Restaurant in the hotel. When we approached the podium to ask for a table, there was one man waiting already. The host invited all of us back to show us our tables at the same time. Yes, he knew that we were not all together. The other man insisted that we be seated first. Very kind. We have seen kind, courteous and happy people everywhere we have been on this trip.

It is so nice to have air conditioning in the room. I have cranked it down to 18 degrees Celsius to cool us off. We won't have air conditioning again until we get to Dublin for the last few nights of the trip.

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Photos

Hire Car for Ireland
The car had a speedometer in kilometers per hour which was fine in the Republic of Ireland. Once we got to Northern Ireland, the speed and mileage signs were all in miles per hour and miles. We had to do a little bit of math in our heads quickly when the signs changed. At first, something in the car gave a dinging sound periodically. Everything seemed okay so we kept going. It is pretty annoying though.