So, here's the long and the short of it. We flew from Boston on an overnight flight to Shannon, Ireland. I need to say just a few words about that unfortunate flight. We flew Aer Lingus. The flight left at 7:15 PM EDT and was scheduled to land in Shannon at 6:00 AM GDT. OK fine. We assumed that the Irish would know how to take care of us. In some respects they did. But in other, more important respects, they didn't. The flight was akin to baby torture. They kept the lights on through bar service (no free Guinness as one would expect), dinner, and then an agonizingly long duty free process. By the time they turned out the lights it was something like 11pm, with only two hours left of the flight. Elliot (and all the other babies on the flight) screamed for hours, as if begging them to have mercy on them and turn off the lights. Before 11pm rolled around, even the adults on the plane were crying. Here's a word of advice for you Aer Lingus, turn off the lights and let the poor babies sleep. People want sleep more than food on an overnight flight.
OK, so enough of that. We arrived safely in Shannon and we rented a car. News flash: they drive on the "wrong" side of the road over there. We were given a manual transmission vehicle and we had to quickly learn how to shift with our left hand. Weird. This would have been hard enough, but add the pencil thin roads to the equation, and you have an extremely stressful driving situation. The only saving grace was that it was early morning on Sunday and most people were still comfortably in their homes, giving us ample opportunity to meander the tiny roads of Ireland.
We eventually figure it out. I was the first to drive and Justeen likely had the equivalent of twenty massive heart attacks as I attempted to exercise my judgment about the width of the automobile. Suffice it to say that exercise is an ongoing process.
Anyhoo, our first stop was a sleepy little town on the West coast of Ireland called Quilty. Elliot was very happy to see the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
We needed some breakfast, so we popped into this little shop and picked up some food from the "deli." We passed on the blood pudding, but we were able to get a few poached eggs plopped in a bag for us. The Irish have a strange sense of taste. Well, the meal took a lot of Elliot, and in no time, he was back asleep.
Right around this time, we passed the stunningly beautiful Cliffs of Moher, but because of the sleeping baby, we were unable to get out of our car to see them. Wanting our child to sleep more than we wanted to see the world famous cliffs, we drove on.
We stayed in Galway, where our friends Roger and Neil met us. They live in Wolverhampton, England, and flew up to Ireland to visit with us. Enjoying the unusually lovely weather, we headed to the Eyre Square, the city's center, and let Elliot run around.
Roger and Neil only stayed for one night. Once they left, we decided to take the car out for some more heart thumping driving. We passed through the Connemara region (apparently famous for their ponies). The mountains were beautiful and the cost even more so.
We made our way to a little town called Clifton where we found some lunch and gazed at the mountains and surprisingly quiet north Atlantic.
After leaving Clifton, we stopped at a beach and let Elliot enjoy the sand between his toes (and in his diaper).
After leaving the beach, we passed a lovely little town called Round Stone. We thought, next time we come to Ireland, we're certainly staying here.
Alas, it was time to leave this beautiful place. While packing, Elliot seemed to be reflecting on what he experienced (or it could have just been the sand in his diaper).
No comments:
Post a Comment