Day One - Ireland Arrival

Although we saved and planned this trip for over a year, it seemed to sneak up on us. In a blink of an eye we were aboard Aer Lingus flying to Shannon. We arrived Friday AM at 5:20 and by the time we went through customs, got the luggage and rental car, it was 6AM. Still early considering that we had a check-in time of 12:30 but it was good to give Kris some time to adjust to driving without lots of heavy traffic.

Driving in Ireland is stressful. First you contend with a new car, the driver's side reversed, and the stick shift on the other side. BUT then the driving itself. Reverse direction of traffic , tiny tiny roads (with stone walls on the shoulder), curvy turns, no route numbers or street signs, millions of roundabouts (GPS is a must), and SPEED. Roads that would be 25-30 MPH at home (plus double the width) are roughly 50 MPH here. Poor Kris, needless to say the 40 kilometers or so to Doolin was quite the white knuckle ride for us both. Good thing we purchased the additional rental insurance!


Weary travelers (My hair looks decent because I had it cut and professionally straightened before we left. I knew how skanky I would look after a red eye with frizzed out hair)

So we arrived in Doolin and had some time to kill before checking-in (OK like 3.5 hours to kill). We walked around the quaint village (I think that is what it is classified as) which was filled with cows (Kris thought that they were starring at him.


Then we headed down to the ocean to observe the Atlantic crashing into Ireland. You can see the Cliffs of Mohr in the picture below. Note: Best traffic sign ever. Point understood and taken.


Finally it was time for us to check into the cute B&B. The room was clean, shower hot, and bed comfortable. I could not ask for more. Oh yes and there was a cow outside our window who was not content with our 1PM nap and felt the need to moo every 3 minutes (pic on facebook). He went away, I bet he will be Guinness stew soon.


After our nap, we headed down to a local pub for lunch. Unlike at home, you are not served, which does not bother me because you are not waiting on a server. You grab a table, go to the bar, order, pay, and your food comes out. Simple and awesome. Kris of course enjoyed his first Guinness. You can see he is happy from the play-by-play below. For lunch Kris ordered the fish-n-chips and myself, the Guinness stew. Both meals were excellent.

Wait for it...................

Sipping.....

Ahhhhhhhh. Got Guinness?


Next we went off to try and visit the Cliffs of Mohr. We tried hiking to it instead of taking the nail biting drive that a sign said is only 5 minutes away. At first, the hike started out on a path like this:

It was a scenic trail with cows and horses (and lots of horseshit) but as we progressed the trail started to dissappear leaving us with just a rock wall guide (also crumbling), the mud increased, and the livestock became less contained (plus a small creek to cross). Yet we had committed so much time and effort we soldiered on. Upon reaching that highest peak in the background we realized that there was no way we were going to reach the actual visitor center and turned around and went the way we came (which might have been induced by some crying by me about not wanting to die out here and fearing for the safety of our unborn child). On our decent down, about a dozen of the free roaming horses decided to romp to another field, galloping past us and scaring the crap out of me. Tomorrow we are taking our chances and driving to the Cliffs of Mohr.

Otherwise it was a great day. We look forward to our next stop Galway.