Woke up early.
Went to the airport.
Took some long flights.
Arrived in IRELAND!!!!!!!!!
Upon our arrival in Ireland we encountered the longest line in the history of lines...Customs. Apparently while tourism makes up about 80-90% of the country's economy they are still in the early 1800's with their customs. You see there was exactly 2 customs booths open for non EU residents. My friends and I were in the back of the plane, therefore by the time we de-planed we ended up in the back of the customs line. I am not kidding you when I tell you that the line stretched from the custom booths, almost all the way back to where we had just stepped off our plane! It was nearly an hour before we were able to actually get our official stamps :)
Once in the arrivals terminal we collected our respective bags and discovered that our 6th travel friend had already arrived. Actually I should clarify...his plane arrived. It would seem that Kelly's adventure to Ireland had a twist or two on his final layover in London. Now you have to also realize that we have no phones and no way to contact him to find out what the heck happened so what do you think we did? If you guessed that we walked to the one and only pub in the terminal to have our inaugural pint of Guinness then you my friend are correct! After finding out that the airline cannot tell us if Kelly missed his plane or if he is on any other flight in, we decided that at least 3 of us should go to our Townhouse to check in. So it was that Bettina, Tracy & myself found our way to a taxi and the Fitzwilliam Townhouse in Dublin.
Our rooms were just big enough to fit 1 Double size & 1 Twin size bed + a small desk. In order to open the door to exit the room one has to stand to the side so the door can clear the dresser.
The bathroom though....oooh the bathroom. I'm sorry its not a "bathroom" here. If you ask for one you will get strange looks from the locals. As I was in formed "the toilet is to the back, but you'll no find a bath in there". I am sidetracked though. So our bathroom....what you should do at this moment is stand up, stretch your arms out to the sides as if you are a plane. If you are somewhere that you can do this & you haven't touched anything with either hand, then you are somewhere bigger than the "toilet" in our rooms. Quite literally the toilet sits next to the shower & you can just about shower while going to the can. I shared the photos to prove this with some friends & my dad's reply was that the Irish are just efficient, one person can go to the bathroom & scrub the back the other one who is showering!!
At any rate, the 3 of us take a 2 hour nap, upon waking we find that our other 3 friend have still not made it from the airport. We log into our ipad & try to "Facetime" with Kaylene who also has an ipad with her. There is no answer. We look on FB only to find that Kelly arrived but into a different terminal & he could not find us. We were getting ready to go back to the airport ourselves when low & behold the other great travelers appear at the front stoop.
B, T & I decide to go for a walk to allow the other 3 some time to take a nap as well (we had all been traveling just about 24 hrs by this time). We head out and find St James Green. It is Dublin's version of Central Park. To say it was lush, green and breathtakingly gorgeous would be an understatement. There is a pond, swans, greens and countless statues within the park.
I think I could have spent an entire day just soaking up the scenery in the park alone. Upon exiting the park we found ourselves on the famous Grafton street...the shopping district. We walked ourselves around and saw some cute little shops, some major named stores, but most of all we found ourselves immersed among a diverse and entertaining people. Somewhere along the line of gazing at the beauty we found ourselves in and the stores and the people we failed to make note of where we were going and thus our real 1st adventure began. We were lost. It must have taken us about an hour or more to find our way back to the hotel. All of the buildings looked like they came straight out of the movie set for the Bourne Identity.
When we got back to the hotel, I Skyped with my dad & let him know we made it alright. Everyone woke up and got showered so that we could go out and find ourselves some dinner. The hotelier, Veep, was very helpful and sent us to a place called McGratton's for dinner
. This place appeared to be what we in the states imagine as a stereotypical Irish pub. I had the fish & chips, probably the best I have ever had (and I am not saying that just because I got it in IRL). I had my 2nd Guinness and then my 3rd :) After a lovely dinner we headed out to another Pub just up the street. We were told to go there & when we did the place was totally packed. Why....because there was a live jam session taking place and it was awesome!! After a short bit of not being able to turn around we made our way to the Pub's outdoor patio. Now by this time I may have had my 4th Guinness of the day...maybe ;) Bettina was busy trying to snap photos what seemed to be every 4-5 seconds and we were all giving her a difficult time about it. As we were doing so I looked over to find 2 local gents teasing us as well about us teasing our friend. What do you do in that kind of situation...well if you are me you strike up a conversation & invite them over to our table. Turns out the one gent's name is Flor (pronounced floor). As he explained it his name was like "1 tequila, 2 tequila, 3 tequila ME".
We finished our drinks just in time for closing and we meandered our way back to our hotel. Flor was disappointed that we didn't find the next place & continue drinking, but all of us decided that it had been an incredibly long day & we were all exhausted.
Day 1 was done, we had traveled from 10 AM Arizona time & partied to 1AM Dublin time.
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