Ireland Monday 1.0

This post was taken from my Irish Travel blog: britandsadiegotoireland.tumblr.com

We arrived, safe and sound. Well, mostly :D

Getting here was mostly uneventful. Shout out to Mrs. Lenartz and Mrs. P (Mom!) for driving us to Chicago and buying our “last American” meal at Giordano’s. Got checked in early, waited, got through security fine, waited, got to our terminal, and yep, you guessed it, waited.

Flight was excellent. We highly recommend Aer Lingus…complimentary pillows and blankies, and really, really cute food. And tea. Lots and lots of tea. Tea = <3

We attempted to sleep on the plane; it never really worked, but we had our eyes and bodies rested for quite a while. Woke up the sunrise and seeing the peaks of some of the mountains in Ireland.

Got the airport just fine, and that’s where the adventure really began. Sadie almost got denied entrance into the country for apparently not having enough money (word to the wise…apparently you’re supposed to have over $80 per day you’re staying here). Then we walked around, trying to get our luggage (another word to the wise…we already know we overpacked). Brittney failed miserably at getting a luggage cart out, but then we got our 3-day Freedom Pass to get on the buses, and we were on our way to the city center.

…

Yeah, the 3-day freedom pass? We’re going to call that our 3-day “Freedom from mistakes” pass….because we make a lot, and this way it at least doesn’t cost us. We managed to get on the right bus, only to be on the one going the wrong way. Also, getting off the wrong bus, Brittney almost sat on some poor gentleman waiting for his bus. Us = smart American travelers :P

The bright of this was, as we were waiting for the correct bus, and then getting on the correct bus, we met and conversed with two very nice elderly ladies, who were nothing but smiles and fun advice. “Be friendly…but you know, not too friendly. But I’m sure your mothers told you that”.

So after finally getting on the right bus and asking the driver to let us know when we got close to our hotel, we get dropped off and HAVE NO IDEA WHERE OUR HOTEL IS OR WHERE WE ARE! Then Sadie spaced out for a minute, and lo and behold, the sign for our hotel appeared. Of course, we have to run across 5 lanes of traffic to get to it, but at this point, what does it matter?

So here we are. At our (very nice!) hotel, with our luggage stowed away until we can check in, and breathing!!!!! And it’s not even noon.

Plan for the day: utilizing our Get Out of Jail Free bus passes to to the hop-on-hop-off tours, take lots of photos, and see what other trouble we can get into.

Also, we might not be coming back. Dublin is GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Brit and Sadie