We started the day at 3:30 am. We piled in the car and were on our way to the airport by O'dark thirty. It was early. We had stayed up until midnight. We were hurting.
The airport at Stansted feels like a cattle slaughterhouse. Huge lines of people making very little progress in their "queues"... basically just killing time until they are called out by the airport employees, because their flight is about to leave (and they've been standing in unmoving lines for 1-2 hours). It was pretty annoying.
We switched lines at some point and then made it through to the next obstacle before our flight: security.
One of us had a knife in our bag, so we got a little held up in security. It happens to everybody at some point. But this was unfortunate, because we were already running late to catch our flight.
Once on the tarmac, the pilot announced that there was some engine trouble being looked at by the mechanic. We'd be off about 45 minutes later than planned.
Once we landed safely in Dublin, the tax we'd ordered (with a rear-facing carseat for Oliver) was nowhere to be found, and we couldn't get a hold of the taxi company. No problem. We opted for a bus. The buses seemed simple.
They were not. We took the 123 the wrong direction. We sat on the bus as it traveled the entire north part of Dublin, which is terribly poor and dirty. It was a silent tour of poverty, made even more depressing by the gradual realization that we were going in the opposite direction of our intended destination -- the Guinness Storehouse. We got to the end of the line and got on the next 123 bus -- which continued our wrong route... but the route was beginning to be the "right route" because we'd made a circle and were therefore coming back up on our intended location.
But we missed our stop. So out of that second 123 bus -- and onto a third 123 bus (going the opposite direction) to take us back a few stops... to the Guinness Storehouse. Except, the bus driver let us out early, so we still had to walk a ways. Between the 4 bus employees with whom we interacted, not one was friendly or helpful. It was a terrible introduction to Dublin, and by the time we finally made it to the Guinness Storehouse, I was proclaiming aloud that I hate this city!!
And then everything began to look up. We found our friends, Ken and Jody, and their kids who were with them.
They had moved to Dublin literally 1 day before we got to England and were still jet-lagged, but they enthusiastically agreed to meet up with us and show us around a little.
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| photo by Ben |
The Guinness Storehouse was informative, entertaining, and very well done.
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| photo by Ben |
It ended with a complimentary Guinness in the Gravity Bar, and we all sat down for some "chips" (fries) in a cozy little booth.
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| photo by Ben |
It was really nice -- so fun to catch up a little and feed Oliver and rest from all the running around of the morning.
After the tour, we found a great, very traditional Irish pub down the street and settled in for lunch.
It was SO good. Daniel and I each got a traditional Irish breakfast -- with fried potato, scrambled eggs, beans, roasted tomato, toast, bacon, and sausage. YUM.
Sadly then it was time to go back to the airport.
But thankfully our bus ride back was much less eventful than the ride to the Guinness Storehouse.
We arrived at the airport without event and slowly made our way through to our gate and the tarmac.
These planes are relatively small, so you enter directly from the tarmac.
Overall, the day was a success. We made it to another country and back. We maintained fairly good moods while thing after thing went wrong. Oliver slept through most of it. We saw good friends and ate great food...
...But -- we are planning to take it easy tomorrow. No bus schedules. No flights. No security or rude bus drivers. Cambridge is the plan. We are going to take it easy.
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