People keep asking me how the trip went, well problem is that since we have moved to Peterborough I’ve been able to talk to people here, but most people I know live back in Thunder Bay or elsewhere, so I’ll post some thoughts from my log (yes I keep one for all my trips) and links to Flickr for the pics.
Day 1
We left Peterborough early on Friday September 25th, 2009 as I had an eye follow up on my laser surgery around 11am. My eyes are good, and just slightly over prescribed at +0.25 (they should be a bit more) so they will soon settle down and hopefully at zero when done healing. Afterwards we do some shopping and meet Aziel’s brother and his coworker for late lunch/early dinner. We head to the airport around 6pm and wait, and wait some more. We finally board the plane and it takes off at 11:40pm.
Day 2 - Kinda
The flight is 6 hours long and the time change is 5 hours. We leave at 11:40pm and arrive at 10:50am. Flight was ok, they leave the lights on, and both movies IMO, suck, but Aziel watch’s one. I play my DS and try to sleep. We do get dinner around 1:30am EST, or about 6:30am, depending on who’s watch you’re looking at, and then another snack a few hours later.
Customs was very much a breeze and although our line did go fast, the three Muslim guys in front of us slowed things right down because one of them had an invalid visa or something and got questioned up the ying yang. We got asked maybe one question, welcome to Ireland!
We meet Phil at the airport, first time I see my name on a piece of cardboard, almost feel important, almost. and he is our transfer, first of our many “tickets” we got from TravelPlus. We get to the Mespil and my wallet is buried deep in my suitcase so I give the guy the last of my Canadian money as a tip. We shower, rest for a bit and head downtown. We visit Tourism Dublin and Trinity College
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991471606/in/set-72157622530804668/
The downtown is packed with Tourists, lots from the UK and some nice buildings
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991470898/in/set-72157622530804668/
We also head back to the hotel, dead tired and go through St. Stephen’s Square.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990716061/in/set-72157622530804668/
We get back to our hotel area and really are just dead, we take a quick look in the area for food and find Italian, Thai and a couple questionable pubs and land up doing Thai, hehe. Our first Irish meal lands up being Thai in a box. We get back to the hotel and watch Fringe as I had it on the netbook. It’s already proving its worth.
Day 3
Woke up early @ 7am and had a big breakfast, found out the first of Irish realities and that is there is no cream for coffee, just milk. I never did try the black or white pudding, it scared me. Walked to St. Stephen’s Square to catch our hop on, hop off tour bus as it will also take us to our destinations for today. It did a nice tour of some of the tourist spots:
Christchurch
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3987479239/in/set-72157622530804668/
St. Pat’s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3988237748/in/set-72157622530804668/
Guinness
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990716755/in/set-72157622530804668/
We went into Phoenix Park and past the US Ambassador’s house and the Irish President’s place:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991473092/in/set-72157622530804668/
We get off the bus and head into the Dublin Zoo. There are lots of animals and a few I haven’t see before like the Red Panda:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990722743/in/set-72157622530804668/
Aziel notices the Tim Horton’s sign:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990723769/in/set-72157622530804668/
so we actually go and get a Tim’s, excited I order my double-double only to find out they give you black coffee and you mix it yourself, and yes, it is just milk and the coffee is slightly different, but it was fun anyway.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991480062/in/set-72157622530804668/
We ran to catch the bus, as we noticed it was going up into Phoenix Park and it would come back shortly, so we hoofed it to the stop and I managed to get a few photos of Wellington’s Obelisk, the second largest in the world (first being Washington Monument) and didn’t realize the guy who beat Napoleon was from Dublin.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991473144/in/set-72157622530804668/
We toured around a bit, saw Bono’s/The Edge’s suite on top of a hotel, several landmarks and more, go view the pics on Flickr, they are in order. We get off on the grand circle tour at Guinness and had a pint in their 360 Gravity Room.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990732367/in/set-72157622530804668/
In the background of Aziel here is the actual St. James Brewery, it is the reddish building. The whole area is under Guinness, storage, factories and all kinds of things.
We walk back to St. Pat’s get some more pictures and stroll through the tourist area and stopped in at Foley’s Pub for food (Irish Stew myself) and it took three tries with the Visa to get it accepted. Their machine problem, not my card and everything is chip card over there too.
We head back to the hotel and tomorrow is my 40th Birthday so say goodbye to the 30s and I’m fine with that, but a little trepidation in getting our rental and driving on the left side of the road with a left hand shift, fun fun.
Day 4 - September 28th, 2009 - 40th Birthday
Woke up early again, at least our bathroom is mostly normal, I swear you could fit a small child in the toilet though. I am happy with the breakfast portions we get, it’s all you can eat, and I do eat more then my share as we have a light lunch snack and then go for early dinner because food here is more expensive. We check out of the Mespil Hotel and walk down to Leeson and waited for the bus, we just miss it and while waiting a taxi comes by and offers to take us to the airport for the same price as the bus. So we go along with a young lass from London. At the Airport we find Hertz and jump on the shuttle to the large “car hire” area. We got our toll info, GPS and took a bit to find our postage stamp of a car. One suitcase fits in the trunk, but I push both in and it’s like a SmartCar with a trunk, hehe. But with my first time driving in Ireland I’m happy for the size as it will allow me to fit in tighter spots and I hear the roads can be quite narrow.
The GPS took us straight downtown Dublin, we could not have been more downtown then this thing took us, talk about trial by fire, but I actually did ok and only cut one person off as I needed to switch lanes quickly for a left turn. Finally out on the four lane highway, I get a feel for the car and the roads are actually pretty nice. The four lane highway slowly turns south, but we area headed to Shannon (well northwest to Ennis) so the GPS takes us off the four lane and we enter what I like to call, farmer’s backyard lanes. The road gets so narrow that it is barely wide enough for our tiny Ford KA and I keep seeing speed limit signs for 80Km/h, which is laughable. I barely get up to 70 or so and have to slow down for a corner, traffic or something. But I do learn to drive these roads and all without incident, so I’m happy. Even getting the hang of our roundabouts.
The hotel we find after going into the downtown because we couldn’t find it on the GPS. One thing you learn is that there is not specific street addresses, rather block addresses. So like Dublin 4 would be in this area of this block, that’s all you get sometimes. We find our hotel, I by getting instructions and Aziel by playing with the GPS more and finding it being listed in a suburb and not Ennis itself. The hotel is nice looking, but was smokey in the hallways and our room did smell a fair bit, so we opened the windows and after the first day wasn’t bad. We have dinner in a very nice restaurant called the Oyster Restaurant:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991522990/in/set-72157622530804668/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991523082/in/set-72157622530804668/
The people here speak very much with an Irish accent. In Dublin it seemed more smooth, like Canadian English, but here it is definitely different. The waitress was very nice and she brought me extra food for my 40th Birthday, so with my chicken and mashed potatoes I get potato wedges and chips (English french fries), mmm, they like potatoes here. I couldn’t eat it all, so she does bring me a brownie with all the fixings =)
We go to the local grocery store next door which turns out to be like this discount store and get a wack of snacks. Then we go to the pub for some Irish music and I start what would be my regular consumption of Irish Cider. I also keep the label for my souvenir. So not much to usher in my 40th, but mostly travel today.
Day 5
We went to bed late, so up later at 7:30am and still a bit tired today. We head off to the Cliffs of Moher, or as I like to call them, The CLIFFS OF INSANITY! (from Princess Bride). The GPS takes us right cross country again and even the pavement wasn’t wide enough for our car in some places, it was half dirt, half pavement and at one point I had to stop and pull into a farmer’s driveway to let an oncoming truck go by and yes, it is still 80Km/h here.
The Cliffs were nice, very picturesque and I’m really getting the hang of driving. The left hand shift isn’t bad at all, it’s really turns and when you pull out of parking lots you have to think stick to the left.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991490188/in/set-72157622530804668/
We visit the gift store and get our fridge magnets as usual. We also drive into Liscannor to stop at the Rock Shop to see what they have. Nice store, but I don’t buy anything, Aziel gets some rocks though. We keep driving, this time I override the GPS and stick to the main highway. It is around lunchtime and we decide to do Bunratty Castle today as we have time and didn’t realize everything was so close. Well I thought it was, but thought it would just take longer to get around, but it doesn’t.
We do Bunratty and the grounds, which turns out to be a lovely village:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991496222/in/set-72157622530804668/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990740627/in/set-72157622530804668/
We drove back to Ennis, parked downtown and looked for some tourist places to shop, but no luck! So we went for food at a local pub, headed back to the hotel and went to their pub again and listened to some music and had my cider =)
Day 6
Up at 7am, Aziel didn’t sleep, her allergies kicked in and I’m guessing the smokey room did it. We pack up from the Auburn Lodge and eat lots of breakfast, as like the cruises we have done, I’m starting to feel blech about scrambled eggs, but I really like their bacon, usually one piece is enough as it is big and thick. So we check out, still a nice place as our open window cleaned the air:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991498802/in/set-72157622530804668/
We stop in for gas, and although gas is pretty pricey here, the tank is very small, like 25 litres or something and the fill up is nothing. Using the Netbook every night is invaluable, as we went looking for tourist shops. At the Cliffs we were very close to the Aran Islands and have heard of their sweaters, but couldn’t find anywhere to buy them. So using the ‘net, we searched and found lots. Going back to Bunratty Castle we go to Blarney Woolen Mills which is a great place for tourists and we start shopping!
After shopping we head towards Cork and not Killarney as we are going to go kiss the Blarney Stone. We do go to the castle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990743789/in/set-72157622530804668/ and kiss the stone:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3987479781/in/set-72157622530804668/
Aziel gets a wonderful shot of my chin with my camera and nothing else, so I do land up buying their copy of me doing the act. We tour the grounds which again, as in everything in Ireland, is very green and pretty. We find yet another Blarney Woolen Mills and Aziel buys her sister a Waterford Bunny and some socks.
We then head to Killarney and again, those wonderful Irish roads make you feel like a race car driver! Our last hotel is very, very nice! The Lake Hotel is a centuries old manor converted to a hotel on the edge of Killarney National Park on the lake:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3988236274/sizes/l/in/set-72157622530804668/
We check in here and as we always do, eat the first night in the hotel, again, very nice and jump on the net to figure out what we are going to do. For our first time on the trip, we realize this is the area that has everything we wanted and more, we could spend weeks here and still not have enough time, so we narrow it down as best we can and get it down to three: Dingle Pennisula, Killarney National Park - Gap of Dunlore, or the Ring of Kerry, too much to do!
Day 7
Woke up early, again, we have a pattern here. Was going to go to bed early but her allergies are in full force and must be dead tired, poor thing. Damn this is a nice hotel, even the breakfast is the best we’ve had. We do decide to do the Gap of Dunlore over breakfast. We tour the grounds a bit, picture link above is a pan I made from about 7 pics and another is in there from like 10.
We get picked up and dropped off at Ross Castle while the guy gets his boat ready. We all board and join others, some are going to bike the gap.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991509836/in/set-72157622530804668/
Aziel also starts to pet every dog that comes near her and wonders why she is sneezing so much. We stop at the Lord’s Cottage at the south end of the Gap and get some soup and bread. Today is a bit cool, but nothing bad, temperatures always seem to be around 12-15 degrees.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990756809/in/set-72157622530804668/
Even the locals seem to be playing some music:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991512552/in/set-72157622530804668/ and I do have some movies I should post to Flickr as one of them is of the young guy on the right playing for a bit.
We catch our jaunty (horse pulled buggy) and ours is a four person jaunty with the driver standing on the back. This is the group right in front of us:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991515068/in/set-72157622530804668/
Our driver is Tom and our horse is Pudge and like everyone in Killarney, if I thought the English was hard to understand in Ennis, they have nothing on the people in Killarney. I’m told a majority of people here have Gaelic as their first language and as I listen to Tom speak to the driver in front it’s hard as hell to understand. The American couple in the buggy with us as Tom what language he’s speaking and I pipe in, it sounds like Gaelic, but you’re throwing in English, like Gaelic slang and Tom agrees. But even his English is brutal to catch, haha.
The Gap is amazing, just gorgeous, lots of pics in this area, and this is just one:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990760157/in/set-72157622530804668/
The hills here are bare and reminds me of when we lived in Nanasivik. Vegetation is low and shrub like and there is lots of loose stone. We get to the north end of the Gap and have a drink at Kate’s Gate and do some shopping at the tourist store. Our ride arrives:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3991517812/in/set-72157622530804668/ and say goodbye to Tom and Pudge:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990761273/in/set-72157622530804668/
Back in town we do a wack of shopping, so many shops and this place is full of tourists even this late in the season and finally eat at Scott’s Pub. It is my first time driving at night, but it is easy by now.
We get back to the hotel, it really is a nice place and I suggest Aziel take a long shower to help her allergies and I land up watching CSI:NY.
Like the cruise, I have some tea and repack all my stuff, I definitely have much more going home then I did coming in, haha, we are so full of stuff.
Day 8
We woke up a bit later, hope Aziel’s allergies get a reprieve. We eat another big breakfast, and I’ll miss the bacon for sure, sniff sniff. We drive up to Torc Waterfall and hiked around. For the first time in my photographic experience I learn how to use my camera and get those magical water moving shots, this is just below the waterfall, but go back a few to see the whole thing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990764445/in/set-72157622530804668/
We drive back to Ross Castle, realizing we have to get back to Dublin which for us is going from the Southwest of Ireland back up to the East Coast near the north, so we don’t have much time. We get a guided tour of Ross Castle. Still surprised at how big these places are and how little living space is actually in them!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/3990766799/in/set-72157622530804668/
We head back to Dublin and this time I stick to the main highways and four laners and it takes no time at all! Much shorter then I expected, so we get to hotel (Holiday Inn Express) and check in. I gas up the car and return in, debate on walking back to the hotel and the girl at Hertz convinces me to let her taxi boyfriend give me a lift. I still have a wack of Euro’s to spend, so why not.
We eat at a local Italian restaurant and it’s pretty good food, but we had little choice of restaurants in the area. We rest up, fill out our V.A.T. forms for getting money back, have a shower, some tea and get ready to say goodbye to a wonderful trip and a very nice country.
Day 9
Up early at 6:30am as Aziel wants to get all the line ups done at the airport so we can just rest and wait for the plane. We eat our breakfast and there is some ladies singing groups competition going on, so they are everywhere. We get to the airport and I forget my boarding pass at security and don’t realize till later on, but luckily they have it when I go back looking for it.
I spend my remaining 80 Euro on gifts for friends and family. It rains while we wait and for the first time since getting to Ireland, it rains pretty hard. It was always overcast, and rarely sunny, but it never really rained till now, good timing says me.
We take off just after lunch and the flight is seven hours back. I do watch The Proposal and eat everything put in front of me, playing my DS again, and watching the first episode of Dollhouse on my Netbook, looks like it might be worth watching this series.
Getting ready to land, I take my walled out from the pocket in front of me and was so squished I couldn’t put it in my back pocket so I just stuff it between my legs, only to forget it there and to be paged just as we’re about to leave customs. I go back and pick it up, must be tired, hehe.
We get our stuff, get my car and head out. Grab a real Timmy’s and drive home. Aziel checks the voicemail and hears her ring is repaired and just before the turn to Oshawa disappears I turn in.
We get home, unpack and realize just how much we bought. From Irish linen, Aran sweaters, Waterford Crystal, Irish Whiskey, chocolate and more, I hope people are happy with what we got.
It was a good way to spend my 40th and I’m quite happy with the trip, all the pictures are on my Flickr account, well of the 936 pictures, I did upload just over 500 there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loimere/sets/72157622530804668/
