USA to Ireland

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Sorry for the delay in getting my blog posts up…had virtually no internet upon arriving in Ireland on Tuesday.
Leaving Detroit was largely uneventful, except for getting stopped at security to have my backpack checked…seems a small bottle of hand sanitizer looks suspicious…be warned everyone (I was supposed to remove my ‘liquids’ from any carry on…oops). When I got to my gate, big sign read Philadelphia Canceled! Luckily this was for an earlier flight…unfortunately our plane was packed to the rafters. Flight to Philly left on time and arrived early – great flight. Geoff was in Philly waiting for me; Brian’s flight was delayed about an hour but he showed up soon enough and we had a fun dinner at the airport getting reacquainted and anxiously looking forward to the trip.
The flight was very good even though I didn’t sleep very well, and we arrived in Dublin at 9am Ireland time. We waited forever in customs, then waited longer for our luggage but everything arrived safely. With luggage in hand we made our way to the rental car counter and picked up our red Volkswagon Gulf! We had a little trouble finding the car, managing to peruse every floor of the 3 car parking garage and even discreetly following a woman looking for her car which was parked next to ours (she wasn’t very friendly but she may not have spoken English). We finally found our car, spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to open the back hatch, another 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get all of our luggage and the 3 of us into this tiny car, then set off to leave Dublin. On the flight we decided we would have time to explore Kilkenny before heading to Ennis.

Gaelic word/phrase for the day: fáilte du Baile Átha Cliath (Welcome to Dublin)

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Photos

Philly Airport
Mark, Brian, Geoff...ready to board the plane for Dublin

Back seat view
Driving on the wrong side of the road

Comments

[Doug Hockstad]

Who are these guys?
OK....when did you guys get so old? (Although Brian's lookin' dapper). I could'a swore we were all in college not too long-ago....

[Geoff]

Careful there Dougie!
Remember life is but the slowest form of death. As I recall you may have a gray hair or two. Had you joined us (dig intended) you may have brought downt he median age of the group. Turned out I was the oldest.