We Made It!

Well, we made it to Ireland!  Huzzah!  And we ran into no problems with customs, turbulence, security check points, or anything else.

L to R: Paula, Audrey, Me, Vinnie, Rachel, Sami, Ashlee, Beckie

(Not Pictured: Laine)

The flight from Chicago to Paris was fast and lovely.  Food: surprisingly delicious.  I had chicken and noodles in wine sauce.  Wine sauce!  On an airplane!  I also watched The King's Speech which was a wonderful film.  Sleeping, though was rather awful.  No leg room and my eye mask was so tight it was giving me a headache.  Still, I slept a bit.  We arrived in Paris and got delayed in security, but that meant we didn't have to sit around and wait for our plane very long.  My view of Paris was rather drab and industrial so that was unfortunate.  I hope to see the real city some day.  I dozed on the flight to Dublin, and though I felt on the brink of collapse when we got to the city, we couldn't check into our hotel for a few more hours.

So, we got lunch at a little Irish pub.  Our waiter was adorable and hilarious.  The food was good; I got a chicken potato pancake with bacon leek sauce (as you can see, though, the pancake is more like a crepe).  But it was soooo expensive!  How unfortunate.

Then we wandered the city a bit.  We saw the General Post Office where the Irish revolutionaries fought during the Easter Rising of 1916.  We saw a handful of statues.  We saw the Garden of Remembrance.  The weather was rather chilly, overcast, but no rain thankfully.  In fact, there were tons of beautiful flowers.

Afterwards we crashed at the hotel and napped for a while.  Then we gathered for dinner and at Bar Italia.  We had delicious pizza and good conversation.  By this time it was late and we wandered a bit in some touristy shops, listening to bands that were playing inside the pubs, and then came back to the hotel.  Now, exhausted again, I'm chillaxing and writing this.  Tomorrow I expect an early morning and a traditional Irish breakfast.  After that we're doing a Hop-On/Hop-Off Bus Tour of Dublin before taking a train to Galway.

Oh!  And you may ask...what has Gucki been up to?  He's been sitting in the hotel room, watching cricket on the tele.  Laaaazzzzyyy!