Arrival!

I woke up as they were serving breakfast, which was a croissant and yogurt. We were about an hour from Dublin. I was disappointed that they didn't give us hot wash cloths, but maybe that's a COVID change.

We emerged from the plane and made the slightly-groggy walk to immigration. Strangely, our phones had no data, even though we thought our T-Mobile plan included texting and data in Europe. That made it harder to message with Bella.

It took a long time for the luggage (we had the one big bag and we had voluntarily gate-checked our carry-ons) and then we got to the car rental counter. We didn't see Bella there, and we finally figured out that she was at a different terminal. We finally connected with Bella, and the six travelers were united again for the first time since Orlando. Three hours later than planned, but safe and no luggage lost.

The car rental guy asked Jeremy if we would be driving into Northern Ireland. Jeremy asked if they needed anything special for that. "An AK-47 or AR-15," the rental guy said. He was joking, but it was a sign that the vestiges of the Troubles are still around.

We took the Sixt shuttle to the cars and had a nice chat with the driver who asked us about our plans. We told him we were heading to the Cliffs of Moher. "Stooning," he said. He was great.

We got the cars with no issues. They gave us matching Hyundai Tucsons: a free upgrade to a full-size SUV, manual transmission diesel. Despite calling them "full-size," the Tucson is smallish by US standards. But it was perfect. I wouldn't have wanted anything bigger on these tiny roads.

I had a bit of adjustment figuring out the gears and stalled a few times in the parking lot, but finally figured out where exactly first gear was, and we were golden. The gear diagram looked like this:

6 Gears!?!

Since our phones had no data, we followed the Hines, whose phones seemed to be working just fine. We headed to a town called Maynooth, west of Dublin, to have tea with Jackie, a Jin Shin Jyutsu friend of Cristina's, and her husband John. Jackie and John had talked to us on the phone at length months ago when we were planning this trip, and they were gracious to offer us a nice welcome to Ireland.

Their table was filled with scones, biscuits (cookies), digestives (tea cookies), quiche, and a pot of hot Irish tea. After the stress and exhaustion of traveling, especially with the delays, it was wonderful. They have a sweet dog named Cooper who loves to play fetch, so Bella could get her dog-time in.

We had quite a drive ahead of us, and were starting later than expected, so we said goodbye to Jackie and John and headed to the west coast. Jackie invited us to come for dinner on Cristina's birthday (Monday).

The highway to the west coast was large and relatively pretty compared to the M40 out of London, which has to be one of the most unpleasant motorways I've been on in Europe. Good service plazas, though. I'll give England that.

Halfway thru the drive, I got drowsy. Imagine that! I hoped to stop at one of those service plazas, but we took an exit for a small town and stopped at a Circle K. Yes, the same Circle K from the States. But this one had a hot food bar which was amazing. We didn't get any hot food, but it was an impressive offering (though we weren't sure what chicken goujons were). We had a nice chat with the cashier, who had plans to visit Orlando soon. We gave her advice about sunscreen and dealing with the heat. 

Coffee and biscuited up, we hit the road. We didn't need gas because we prepaid gas with our rentals, so best to return them as empty as possible. I don't usually do prepaid gas, but the guy said it was worth it financially right now because their price was based on when Sixt bought the gas weeks ago, instead of the current price, which had gone up quite a bit. He said diesel was around $12 a gallon, but I did the math after I saw service stations and it was closer to $10. Still twice as expensive as Florida. Hopefully the prepaid is a good deal. It will be nice to not have to top the tank off when we return it.

We got to our airbnb, McKeen's Meadow, around 7 pm. We took showers, glad to be out of the clothes we'd traveled in for the past 36 hours.

Freshened up and ready for dinner, we found a pub called Roadside Tavern. There had been a bike race, and some of the racers were celebrating in the pub. There was live trad (traditional) music. We had the obligatory Guinness and ate delicious pub food (I got the slow cooked beef cheek with mash and king oyster mushrooms...it was feckin brilliant).

After eating, Bella and Jacoby met the trad musicians and chatted about drums and flutes. It was so cool. Watching them learn about fiddles and bodhrans surrounded by the noise and life of an authentic pub is when it really hit me. We're in Ireland.

We headed back home and even though it was 10 pm by this point, the sun was just setting. And what a sunset. We pulled over to admire what has to be in my top 5 greatest sunsets of all time. And I've seen some pretty ones. 

To quote the shuttle driver, stooning. Just absolutely stooning.

We got to bed around midnight. Before I went to sleep, I got T-Mobile on the phone and upgraded our plan, so that by the time we woke, we would have data.