Ireland Road Trip, Day 1, September 21, 2013

 The TSA had to “pat” me down twice, once at National and once in Boston because we had to switch terminals after in Boston. The way they “frisk” you these days there is no need to scratch your testicles. The flight from Boston to Dublin wasn’t too bad except that the passenger in front of me had his seat reclined enough that I could count the hair in his scalp. That caused me to be a contortionist in order to exit my seat to walk around or go to the restroom.

Everyone, except me, packed for wet cool weather. It is 72 and sunny so I’m glad that I opted for layering and packed mostly what I wear at home except that I packed no shorts.

We rented a 9 passenger van that is as big as a tour bus. Jason is driving and doing an exceptional job of it. I can’t get used to driving on the other (wrong) side of the road. There is also a really strong possibility of me becoming Irish road kill because I forget to look to the right first before crossing the street.

We are staying at a hotel called the Beresford. Room one had 5 million stairs to get there. After Katy lugged most of our luggage down there, and after much consultation, it was decided that I couldn’t negotiate the steps as often as I would need to do so. Katy said it would be best if Babs and I took their room. Jason came and moved our luggage and we all left for a walk and breakfast. 

After breakfast, we decided to buy a two day pass for the Dublin sightseeing bus and just ride the entire route to decide what we will stop and see tomorrow.

At this point, no one had really been in our rooms for any length of time. Turns out that the room we got from Katy had problems she didn’t know about. The room’s air conditioning didn’t work and both the warm and cold faucets in the room only produced scalding hot water. The only advantage of that was that if you sat on the toilet and flushed, you’d get a butt facial. We relocated.

Everything in this room works except for the air conditioning. However, I’m not reporting it until tomorrow because with all of our other experiences, I also learned that there are no maintenance people here on Sunday.

We all were ready for dinner. We had a little way to walk and we had to take it slow because I somehow “lost” my adjustable hiking stick in a bar somewhere. All the pubs were rocking because Dublin had won it’s Gaelic all Ireland Football Championship. It is something akin to winning the Super Bowl.   There were THOUSANDS of “party hardy” people everywhere. We went into a pub for dinner and the owner wouldn’t seat us “because we wouldn’t enjoy ourselves in here with all the drunks”. He told us to go next door, which he also owned. The place had good food and you could still hear the celebration in the adjacent building. Babs and Katy took a peak on the way out of the restaurant. They said that there was live music with a violin, flute, accordion, and guitar. She said the scene resembled the part of the Titanic movie where the people in steerage were dancing the “jig”.

Babs Says: Please turn off the lights and com to bed!