Friday, July 13, 2007

Day One, July 1st

On Friday June 29, my mom, my daughter and I flew from Portland to San Jose. It was uneventful (or else I was so excited about the upcoming trip that I’ve forgotten any drama). We took the free shuttle to a hotel where Emily’s father picked her up about an hour later. Mom and I were to join him and his family for supper that evening, but neither of us had slept well the night before and we were a little on the fringe, so we backed out.

After Emily left, we had a quick dinner and went to bed early. Only problem was we were both too excited to sleep!

Early the next morning, we headed to San Jose airport, waded our way through the massive crowds of people (including at least one whole battalion of soldiers going home—Yay!), and got onto our flight to Chicago.

The layover flight was, again, uneventful, as was the layover, and then we boarded Aer Lingus, heading to Dublin.

Our first taste of Ireland, 5:00 am Saturday July 1, 2007:

Dublin by Plane

The toilets in Ireland are small. That is, the actual toilets are normal sized, but people there don’t say “bathroom” because, well, it’s ridiculous. They refer to the room instead as a toilet. And those toilet (rooms) are small. It could be that Americans are so accustomed to having all this space to spread out; it could be that toilets are smaller everywhere in the world. I know they are in England. But it’s weird to sit on a toilet and have your hip or thigh touching the wall.

Anyway—we were in the traveling mode, so we grabbed a bus from the airport to Heuston station, hopped on a train, and rode to Galway on the west coast. Once there, we found a cab, made our way to the B&B, then promptly fell asleep for about 2 hours.

When we awoke, we walked into town, first passing the “new” cathedral (built in the 1960s, but in a gothic style):

Galway

Then an older cathedral:
Galway

Then over the river:
Galway

(With a die-hard fisherman in it! Jena—this picture is for you so you can know that at 8:30 on a Sunday evening half-way ‘round the world, you were not the only wife being abandoned in favor of a fishing pole.)

Galway

We found a fish and chips place for dinner, patronized almost entirely by locals (which is always a good sign), had another short walk around town, caught a cab back to our B&B, and then went to bed.

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It is my intention to write some good commentary to supplement the beautiful photographs. I’m still feeling a bit jet-lagged, but I didn’t want to make you wait any longer. So let’s just say the first day was mostly about traveling and getting settled. The remaining photos and posts will be of a better quality.

And by the way, people—it’s nice to be home.