We’re
all up at 7:15 today – we didn’t know that until we met down for breakfast and
we were all way too excited about how without talking to each other we all set
our alarms for 7:15. I have text
service this morning, so that’s a little reassuring.. except that I get news
that the kids’ new flight has now been delayed!! Their flight will now land in Charlotte at
2:34 – and their flight out of Charlotte leaves at 2:44.. a ten minute
connection?? Seriously. Yah, yah, adventure, take it in stride, be an
international traveler… enough already – just need to get them on a plane and
get them home. I tell Lauren to be sure
to ask them about what they’re going to do for them – like hold the plane, get
them a fast transport to the gate – because they have already been delayed and
now it is the airline’s fault again for them being delayed further. She’s keeping me updated as they get to the
gate – but there is no one there to ask yet, the desk is unmanned. We’re all just a little stressed.
At
breakfast, Brittany has the full English, and Patti and I have the omelet (I
know what you’re thinking, English breakfast was on the menu and Susen didn’t
order it?)… and I actually know that you weren’t thinking that. BUT since it’s out there, I’ll address
it. Beans. It’s all about the beans. An English breakfast needs to have the beans
to tie all the elements together. No
beans, no full English. We also try the
orange marmalade because it’s on the table – and I haven’t had a good memory of
it, but I’m always willing to give a food item another chance. Nope – it’s just not good to me (or anyone
else who dared to put it in their mouth) – it’s the zest, (they call it the
“shred”) that is in there. If wanted to
eat that, I wouldn’t bother to peel my oranges.
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| Dana at our door |
The
décor in the breakfast room could not be more Irish Catholic – on one wall,
“The Last Supper”… on the wall facing it, a portrait of JFK. Now I expect to see that in the good Catholic
homes in the US, but it really threw me to see it here, in southern
Ireland.
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| Catholic much? |
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| Emergency shower handle... or phone? |
We talk
to our host about how light it is outside compared to how dark it is in the
US. Here it’s light until 8 or 9 and
then it’s light again at 4am… who needs daylight savings time? Another topic of conversation is the heat
wave. They love it – I’m still a little disappointed
that I’m not getting my 60 degree weather that everyone “warned” me about… can’t
tell you how many people told me that I would need a jacket, and I assured them
that I would not. Not only do we not
need jackets, we need fans. The forecast
is another day of “unbroken sunshine”.
We have been joking about it too – and you’re probably tired of hearing
about it (if you’re not, you will be), but even though it’s been about 26 (about
82), the humidity is like 85% at the lowest (we’re on an island), and it really
can be just sticky and gross. And at
night there isn’t a happy medium with the bedding – we get no top sheets, we only
get this really thick duvet (and that’s been everywhere) – so we either have to
have nothing, or 5 inches of hot fluff covering us.
Dana has
been nursing a cough which she blames on me – but that’s impossible because I’m
not contagious, since it’s just my sinuses.. but she bought some cough medicine
over here and got the one that best fit what she thought she had – it’s a
“tickly cough” medicine. And I’m messing
with her a little about it today because we were both in the bathroom together,
sharing the mirror – she poured her stuff in the lid for her dose, and then had
to lean into the mirror to watch herself take it. Do you really need to look in the mirror to
take a swallow of cough medicine? Just
taking a poll…
We
finish packing and head out – we’re especially ambitious today… we’re going to check out Killarney and see if
there are any shops we need to visit, and then we’re heading into Dingle. We’re going to take a dolphin boat ride to
see Fungie the dolphin. They say that we
have about a 95% chance of seeing him, and if we don’t spot him, we don’t
pay. It’s only about 17 pounds and the
boat ride is about an hour, so we’ll still have plenty of time to get up to
Belfast. We have a long drive today, and
in my crazy planning delirium, I thought that we were also going to stop off to
see Kenmare, the Cliffs of Moher, and even stop by Tipperary to see about
Patti’s family history… not sure what I was thinking. I also had it in my head that the trip from
Dingle to Belfast was about 5 hours, and that we were going to be done with the
dolphin by about 12, so we could be in Belfast by 5pm – which is what I’ve told
our host Andy.
We do a
pass through Killarney and it’s another really great town. It won “tidy town” in 2009 or something, so
there is pride there. We notice bikes
hanging from banners all over the town (like full sized bicycles hanging from
banners that cross the street).. and it seems that the town is involved in some
kind of bike event for charity. We don’t
stop – its about 10 and we still have an hour to Dingle, and then an hour in
the boat, and we have to eat something… so we’re pushing it if want to leave by
noon (ok, it’s impossible to leave by
noon, and I’m finally realizing it).
The
drive to Dingle is gorgeous – it’s on a peninsula (the Dingle peninsula) and so
we’re getting great scenic views of ocean and green hills and rock faces.. Tim (our gps) didn’t know exactly where to
find Fungie the dolphin, but we look for the tourist info and parking, and we
see signs for the dolphin tours. There
is a lady who is writing on the sign, next boat at 11:15. It’s 11:14.
Dana panics a little. This is
like her THING – she LOVES dolphins.
Like she loves dolphins like I like Freddie Smith (and I went to LA just
so see him… so this is huge) – she wants to see a dolphin, but she also knows
that we’re on a time crunch. If we don’t
get on this tour, we probably won’t have time to wait for the next one. We ask if it’s full… how many in our
party? Four… we can just fit you
in. YAY!!! We’re going to see a dolphin. We joke that his name should be Barry.. the
Dingle Barry… Dana claims not to be amused, but she keeps calling the dolphin
“Dingle”…
We get
out on the boat, and there is a cute puppy that owns it – he watches us all
board and he’s very excited. We imagine
that he loves a boat ride with the wind in his hair just like other land-locked
dogs love a car ride, and people getting on his boat means that he gets to go
on a car ride. We love him – who needs a
silly dolphin? Dana has looked up Fungie
and says that he’s not even considered to be a wild dolphin anymore because he’s
so used to interacting with humans on these boat tours. But she’s ok with that; makes it more likely
that we’ll see him.
The view
from the water is just incredible. I’ll
post pics, but you won’t get it – our cameras just can’t really take in what we’re
seeing. Dana hands me her camera as we
get closer because she’s afraid that she’s going to be so excited that she’s
going to just drop her camera in the water and not get any pictures. Everyone on the boat is on alert for Fungie –
and then we hear the squeals! Most of
the people squealing are the kids – and Dana claims that she never squealed,
but she got pretty close with some of her spottings. I try to get pictures at first, but it’s just
impossible to predict when and where he’ll come up. I feel the Jaws music playing as we scan the
waters looking for a fin… we’re going to need a bigger boat. I’m starting to dread that this is going to
be just like the dolphin spotting that we did in Ocracoke – we saw a few
flashes of fin from a pretty good distance…
and then Fungie pops up, right next to the boat! And when the boat goes along in the water, he
follows – it’s like he loves the wake of the boat and swimming in it, we seem
to be playing some kind of game. We can
see him even when he’s below the surface, right along beside us – and as we get
further out, there are other tours on the water, some more private, and some
are just some local kids in small motor boats (like the size of innertubes) and
we hear one of them say that Fungie just bumped the bottom of his boat. We’re out there for about an hour, maybe
more, and we see a lot of dolphin. Dana
is pleased. More than pleased – she’s
just a little giddy. Later when she watches the videos, she squeals.
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| The kids in the small boats, and another tour boat |
Back in
Dingle, our bellies say it’s time to eat – and it’s about 12:30. We’re giving ourselves until 1 to eat and get
out – and I update Andy on our eta. We
eat at a little fish and chips place that is steamy hot inside.. and really
that’s where the problem is during this heat wave, is inside. Outside it’s gorgeous, the sun is strong, but
the breeze is amazing, and there is no complaint – just beautiful weather. But
inside, these people aren’t prepared for sunny days – the windows are huge and
just act like big green houses, the windows don’t really open, or if they do,
the people don’t know how to cross ventilate, and of course they have no need
for air conditioning most of the time.
It is just nearly unbearable indoors.
We get
out on schedule – or nearly… and we try to type the address into the gps but it
won’t take it. It won’t accept Belfast
because we’re in Ireland, and it won’t pull up Northern Ireland as a country –
so we try to trick Tim and we give him the name of the last town that we’ll hit
at the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland – and I’m hoping that once we
cross the border that the gps will be smart enough to switch to Northern
Ireland and we can put in the Belfast information. Tim is taking us back through Dublin, which if you look at a map seems like the
long way round from Dingle. It’s kind of
like going through KC to get from Springfield MO to St. Louis. But that is where the big motorways are, and
it’s so much longer to go the shorter distance because the roads are so
tiny. So we’re headed back to Dublin,
and I realize that it’s not a 5 hour trip – it’s a 6.5 hour trip… so we told
him 5, it was going to be 6 since we were leaving at 1, and now it’s up to
being 7:30… Andy is a little stressed that
we’re going to be so late because he’s out of town and his parents are handling
it for him, and it’s his mother who has to meet us, and that’s so late – he usually
requests a check in by 2:00 (we didn’t know that). But we can’t change our eta now – I do offer
to just find a hotel once we get there because we really don’t want to further
inconvenience him or his parents, but we get a text from his mother and she’s
fine with it, just let her know as we get closer to Belfast.
On the
kids’ front, we’ve heard that their Charlotte flight to STL has also been
delayed, so they’ll still have about a 2 hour layover (much better than 10
minutes) to make their flight. I’m
relieved, but I know that they just want to be home and any delay at this point
is a little disappointing.
So. We have a 6.5 hour drive now – and for the
first part of it, getting from the south (Dingle) up to the middle (Limerick)
takes a lot of small roads, exchanges and roundabouts. Dear lord, the roundabouts. I miss our highway system so much. When we get on a road and go somewhere we
just slow or get off if we want to exit, but with a roundabout system, it’s
like everyone has to get off and exit and then re-enter the highway if you didn’t
want to exit.
We see lots
of cows and sheep on our drive up – the cows here are freaking huge! Their heads are the size of toddlers (or like
a BABY?). Big fat cows. And Brittany says that they scare her a
little – they’re like wild cows… Wild cows??
The image makes us all laugh really hard – big “wild” cows with that
wild look in their eyes, ready to pounce and eat you… Big fat wild cows. Patti declares that she loves a cow having a
lie down over a standing cow.
Noted.
Brittany
also tells us to be on the look out for gypsies. TLC says that there are lots of gypsies in
Ireland. Patti and I kind of laugh at
that because it seems out of place to have bands of Romanians roaming
Ireland. But we agree to look for them
with her. We drive past a historical
marker (they use brown signs to denote attractions and parks too), that says it’s
to the “ancestral home of President Barack Obama”.. and it conjures this vague
memory of Obama in Ireland looking up his Irish roots. I looked it up.. Moneygall, Ireland. We
find ways to entertain ourselves and each other – and we are enjoying the radio
too. It’s amazing to us how most of the
songs are American – it’s almost like being at home, they’re playing the same
music, the same oldies, with just an occasional odd song that we’ve never heard
of. We really laugh at a bit that the
DJs are doing – there are three of them and they had a challenge, to go out on
remote and ask people what their favorite flavor of ice cream was, and then ask
“what’s your 2nd favorite?... your third? If you had to pick a 4th, what
would it be? Come on, everyone has a 12th
favorite ice cream…. What is your 17th flavor of ice cream would you
say?” – it’s endless! And they had to see who could get someone to go the
highest. They don’t play the whole bit,
but just highlights – the first guy gets a woman up to 19 favorites – and I
thought that was pretty high. You have
to find someone who would be patient enough with you to stand there and name
all those flavors, and I’m not even sure that I could name 19 flavors, much
less 19 that I would consider a favorite.
The second DJ builds his segment up by saying that he had a woman who
had a very impatient boyfriend with her – so we’re not expecting the 19 to be
challenged. But she’s a machine! She just keeps rattling them off and he gets
her to 41 flavors!! We’re really into
this and hoping we’re not losing the radio (Britt’s biggest complaint with
navigating is that it also includes radio duty, and it has to be changed every
2-5 minutes because the reception is bad with all the hills). Now it’s the 3rd guy – and we’re
getting now that they’re putting them in this order for a reason – we’re
expecting more than 41 for this last one, but it’s still crazy. The person he’s asking is just listing
chocolate combinations.. 1 – Chocolate 2- Chocolate with peanuts 3 – Chocolate with
almonds 4 – chocolate with marshmallows…. And it goes on and on… he gets up to
80-something flavors, and about 40 of them are Chocolate and something.
We cross over into Northern Ireland and I tell Andy and his
mother that we’re about 2 hours away – with us finding our way around the city,
we agree on an 8pm meeting time at the apt.
But we still don’t have the apt in the gps because even after we crossed
over into Northern Ireland, the gps won’t locate Belfast… Then Brittany erupts in laughter. That kind of laughter when you realize how
stupid tired you are? She’s been trying
to enter the country into the gps as Northern Ireland… and then we hear, “OH, it’s in the UK!!! DUH!!” …. Yah, duh. So we enter “UK” in the gps, and suddenly
Tim has no trouble finding Belfast. Just as we hit the city, I get a text from Lauren. They're in Charlotte (yay!!) and their delayed flight, is delayed further. It was originally 2:30, then 4:30.. no 5:30... they just want to be home.
It’s about 7:45 and we pull up to what we think is the apt
.. the address we have has “6-8” as house numbers and Tim doesn’t like that –
or 6 or 8.. so we just went with the street.
Andy has contacted us again and said that because it’s so late, that his
father is meeting us, not his mother… so we’re on the lookout. Finally we see this cheery man coming toward
us, just so pleasant – we’ve been so fortunate with everyone that we’ve
encountered. Love the people. He’s not the least bit upset that it’s 8pm,
and the reason that he came instead was because he just got off work. The apt is amazing – looks like a magazine
layout (before we mess it up) – huge windows, minimalist décor – just really cool. Andy’s dad gives us the lay of the land, and
he chuckles when we have to ask him to repeat a few things. He says it really slowly, and he knows that
we can’t understand his accent – because he has a hard time understanding us
sometimes too. He brought us food – just
something to get us by in the morning. A
carton of OJ, some milk, a loaf of bread for toast – and he shows us around the
apartment, gives us some tips about where to eat and how to get there before he
heads off. We breathe for a second and
decide to walk down to the city center.
We’re not going to get much (really any) Belfast time in, so this is
kind of our taste of the city. I warn
the group that I want to drink a pint in a Belfast pub before we head
back. We get some laundry in the machine (no dryer again, so the earlier the better, more time to dry) and we head out.
The walk down is great – the area is in the Queen’s College
area and it just feels like college student vibe. Very energetic, lots of people out and about,
and very light (the sun is still out), and safe – a good vibe. We walk by Queen’s College itself –
beautiful. On the way we hit an ATM and
we’re a little shocked that the money looks different. We thought that we were back to pounds, but
these say “Sterling Pounds”… there is a post office just next to the ATM and it’s
still open, we ask the girls inside and they say that yah, Northern Ireland is
Sterling pounds, but Scotland will also use those – and they’ll both take
British pounds too, but we might want to just have British pounds in
England. We have a few days in Scotland
after this, so the Sterling notes should be fine. Just don’t want so many that we have pile of
them as we cross back over into England.
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| Remember that this is taken at 9pm... |
FOOD! Andy’s dad
warned us that places stop serving food at different times, and we find a pub
that we like, but they stopped serving food at 9 (it’s 9:15) – there are like 5
bouncer looking guys outside the pub, so I go up and ask if they know where we
can get food at this hour and he says that the place right next door has food,
but it’s “quiet” – like he thinks that we’re looking for a great place to
party. We tell him that we’ll get food
there, and then come back here for a pint.
He likes that deal.
The food at the “quiet” place was really good – I have a
nice pie..Patti gets some big ham steak - but everyone is very pleased with their
choices. I notice that the people next
to us are having the roast with the Yorkshire pudding. I’m tempted to try it again, but there are so
many other things that I want to try.
Patti is tired – but I remind her that we need to get a pint… so we head
back over to our bouncer friends, and go inside. We’re like some of the only people
there! He accused the other place of
being quiet, but at least it was a small restaurant (supposed to be quiet) –
this was a BIG pub with bouncers outside and there are like 10 people
inside. But 10 is early for the party
crowd – we’ll be gone by the time they get here. We have some cider on tap – and I’m
satisfied. The walk back is just as nice
– but when we get back to the apt, it’s warm.
Again, no fans – no air – but as it gets later, it gets cooler..
Tomorrow we head to the Giant’s Causeway and maybe the
wobbly bridge… then a ferry to Scotland!
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