Journal of Our Journey Our 1997 Visit To Ireland By Kathy Brammer and Judi Olsen December 7, 1997 Day one Kathy Flight to Dublin will leave at 7:15pm from Chicago O'Hare. Judi drives from Indianapolis and arrives at the airport at 1:30pm. I fly from Columbus to Chicago and arrive at 2:30pm. We have a lot of time to kill, so we find a table in the food court so we can park our bags somewhere. They told us we could check in at Aer Lingus at 4:00pm. When we went to check in, they told us that the plane had hydrolic problems en route from Dublin, and must be repaired when it gets to Chicago. Our flight now won't leave until approximately 11:30pm. We went inside a store to buy reading material to pass the time. I bought McCalls and Judi was buying a book on excellent customer service. When she tried to pay for it, the lady checking us out was talking to another employee and said something about shooting her. Then she rang us Judi's book and said it came to $18.00...Judi thought it was only $7.00, so she didn't want it. The woman looked at her and said "Jesus!". We got out of there fast. Back at the food court, where we were waiting, we saw some ladies at our table who had an Irish accent. It turned out that they were on our plane. They were born in Ireland but were American citizens from the South side of Chicago, going to Cork for a Grand daughter's wedding. They were nice, and we enjoyed listening to them talk. We watched hundreds of Polish people in the airport that were wearing the traditional garb, singing and dancing and playing various musical instruments. The occasion was the first non-stop flight to Kracow Poland, and it was full. The International terminal in Chicago must be the place to go to see how diverse that city is. Judi and I were definitely in a minority as white american women. Word came that our plane was repaired and could be leaving Chicago by 10:00pm if they could reach all the passengers who had left the terminal. We received a food voucher for $8.50 from the airline, so we had Pizza Uno(one slice), an ice cream bar and a drink.($9.15) We ended up boarding about 10:00pm, only 3 hours late, and taking off at 10:30pm. The plane was big, with 6 seats across. They had open bar as soon as we took off. We both had a Bailey's Irish Cream. Dinner was served next and it was a lot of food, since we had eaten at 8:00, 3 hours before. They served wine with dinner. Lights off after that and we tried to sleep, but someone's 2 year old cried about all night. They serced breakfast about an hour before we landed. We landed at 6:30 am edt, 11:30am Ireland time. We got our bags and went through customs--they barely glanced at us. We thought that would be a bigger deal. We went right to the rental car desk and got the car signed for within minutes. They said the car was outside, and a bus would take us to it. We had wanted to stop at the tourist information center to get directions, and maps. That turned out to be one of our big mistakes. We just took off--with no direction and no instructions on driving the car. YIKES! Judi drove. Everythings's backwards from what you're used to...Steering wheek, drving on the left side of the road...DOUBLE YIKES. Rules of the road there are Drive Like Mad, and Try Not to Get Killed. The turn signal's on the right of the steering wheel. Judi kept turning on the windshield wipers when she wanted to turn, and trying to watch the road and other cars, and not run up over the curb on the left turned out to be a real challenge. I wasn't much help, I'm afraid. I think I screamed a lot. Cars and trucks both parked where ever they wanted to on the road...right in the driving lanes. Its wild. We pulled over twice to ask directions to Clontarf (a suburb of Dublin). An old guy in a gas station gave me pretty good directions, but then we couldn't find the street that the Aisling House B&B was, so we pulled over at another store. I know the girl was speaking English, but I could not understand what she was saying....Something about turning right at the yellow tiger....what? Anyway, we found the place, got a room and decided to park the damn car before we had a heart attack. We will use the bus if we go anywhere else in Dublin. And we did. It was nice to be able to brush our teeth after a day and a half in the airport, and on the plane. We took bus # 130 back to downtown Dublin so we could see the sights before it got dark. It was 2:30pm already on Monday and we actually only had a couple of hours of daylight left. We got downtown...it was a very busy day in Dublin....some holiday...and the busiest shopping day of the year, which was why everybody was there. We just started walking. We did go to Trinity College and found the old library and the Book of Kells. The streets were packed with people herding from street to street. It reminded us of the crowded streets of New York City. We stopped in a pub, hoping to eat dinner. It was Madigan's on Abby Street. The only food they had were cold sandwiches. We had one that was called Egg Salad. It was sliced hardboiled egg, with sliced tomato, lettuce, and very strong onion, on white bread, and a draught beer with it. It came to about 5 pounds each., Not worth it. The bartender said they only served cooked food until 2:00pm. Go figure. We walked some more and were very tired and decided to find our bus so we could get back to the room and rest. I think we were both asleep by 7pm. But then awake again by 11pm and couldn't sleep. Judi had coffee and decided to curl her hair. She got the adapters out for the electrical connections...we hadn't used them before. When she plugged them in--FLASH, POP--I think the guy that own's the place will be replacing the fuses in the morning...half of the lights didn't work after that. We were happy that a fire didn't start. Maybe we won't have curls in our hair tomorrow. At 1am...going to bed to sleep some more...They're serving us breakfast at 8am. Day 2 Tuesday, December 9, 1997 Kathy We slept until 8am. I think we finally caught up on that. Then we went down to the dining room. They had a pitcher of juice and milk, and coffee and tea, three different kinds of cereal and some fruit. We sat there for probably 15 minutes listening to our host argue with their children. I'm sure I heard her call her daughter a bitch. The man finally came out and offered Judi a fried breakfast. I ate cereal. Judi turned down the fried breakfast, still full from that egg and onion sandwich last night, I suspect. Judi Took picture of B&B and off we went to Castlebar. Weather great. No problem until we get outside of Tulsk where the road is blocked by an accident. OK, find another way. From then on , we got lost a lot, ended up on roads wide enough for our car, but needed to fit 2 cars down them. Finally saw a "Welcome to Castlebar" sign. Kathy said stop she wanted to take a picture. We got out to take the pictures and some dogs started barking and running towards us. We started to laugh hard and jumped back in the car. We did get a picture though Got to Castlebar just before dark. Found a B&B in town next to library. We cleaned up to go eat. Kathy slipped and almost fell in mud. Walked downtown to Cox's pub for dinner. Too nice for us. We tried a few pubs but they were full of kids. The driving here is crazy. The roads are narrow and winding but the people go fast. In town the people park whenever and where ever. Thursday, December 11, 1997 Yeterday, Castlebar weather mild. Walked around town, went into a lot of shops, but didn't buy much. Had tea and scones in a little shop. Found the catholic church, went in, a large funeral was going on, the church was filled with people, and the arch bishop, Bishop, and many priests. Finbar Kelly, 51, had died in a freak car accident. We got back to the B&B and the lady that owns it said, I didn't know you knew Finbar! Guess we were spotted at the funeral. She invited us to her kitchen and made tea for us...she was nice. We had supper at Flannerly Pub--the owner recommended the special, Boiled collar of Bacon, which was really good...Ham, cabbage, and mashed potatoes. We had Guinness to drink. Best meal that we had in Ireland. It gets windy and rainy each night, then clears up each day. We are going to Westport after breakfast. Kathy We visited Westport after breakfast, and stayed in Salthill outside Galway. When we first got there we were tired, and Judi wanted to take the first room....which was 3 floors up with a shared bath...I balked, and we continued to look for a room. We found one that was nice, and with our own bathroom...I'm glad we waited...although Judi was tired and so was I, from being in the car all day. We also visited Cong where they made a John Wayne movie, and also the Ashford Castle, which is a neat place....I would like to spend a night there sometime. It was built in the 1300's and was owned by the Guinness family. We spent our last night outside Limerick, and went to Durty Nelly's Pub. Some guy bought us Guinness's one after another, I started getting nervous about how we were going to get out of there. It was a fun place though. The kids brought in their guitars, and played American music. Judi requested Hunk a Hunk a Burnin' Love, but they didn't know it. We got up the next morning and headed for the airport. It was a fun trip. The end.