Ireland to be sure!

Tuesday and departing New York for Dublin. That turned out to be an experience in itself. Picked up by our shuttle from the hotel a few minutes earlier than arranged which seemed like a good omen at the time. An hour later after going round in circles for sometime it was obvious that we could have walked back to the hotel in less than five minutes! New York traffic was almost at a standstill and the driver appeared to have trouble locating some of his pick-ups, not that he communicated that to us!

A protest against Trump held us up early in our journey to JFK

Eventually we started out of the midtown area and the last two pickups. The final one was an elderly woman ( a New Yorker) who got to sit in the front with the driver. She berated him all the way to the airport, among classic lines – I’m going to kill you if I miss my plane!” His response was to put in earphones and to engage in conversation in an unknown language with an unknown person. This didn’t stop the woman who continually harassed him with “that can’t be your wife, no-one has that much to say to their wife, you are doing all the talking, what is she saying? She has things to do, she doesn’t want to be talking to you!!”, and so on all the way to JFK which over three hours to reach and yes, we were horribly late so through customs and the usual delays on the run and made the gates just as the plane was boarding!

It was a relief to finally sit down and relax. However, we have decided it is not a good idea to leave NY for Dublin at 5.30 pm! The flight takes six hours, however it was only five hours for us because of a strong tail wind. All good and did manage a couple of hours sleep – but we arrived in Dublin at about the same time we would normally be going to sleep in NY, and with the time difference arrived at wake up time in Dublin. By the time we got our bags and arrived at our hotel it was 5.30 am.

Things did improve and the hotel staff were marvellous. We were able to sit in the foyer and were promised that as soon as the first room of the full hotel was free they would clean it and we could have it. In the meantime they offered (and we accepted) a free breakfast. Got a room by 9 am, a quick shower and a two hour sleep and we were ready to start exploring Dublin.

Pam’s main objective was to discover the history of the “little people” at the Leprechaun Museum! This was rather different to what was expected and a very “adult” take on the old stories (no children allowed!) The stories that were told were full of cruelty, death and the worst of human behaviours! However, very entertaining and worth the time spent there.

A little Pammy at the Leprechaun Museum

Got our hands on a pot of gold - may never come home!

This was exceeded by the next venture into the General Post Office building which has a major display on the 1916 Easter Uprisings and  the aftermath leading up to an independent Ireland in 1921. Also well worth seeing.

Thursday and we had a short timeframe in which to cross the Liffey River and into the Temple Bar area before we transferred to another hotel to join our tour group for the next seven days – more on that to come!

Temple Bar, Dublin

One of the many bar entrances

Barbara

Ha'penny Bridge over the Liffey Bridge

I whiled away the time sitting on the shuttle to the airport creating a movie involving all the “characters” onboard.  Apart from our good selves, and the atrocious Nigerian(?) driver, and the aforementioned lady riding shotgun in the front seat, we had a young Jewish student, who was travelling back home to Israel via Brussels, after spending 3 months as a counsellor at a Jewish summer camp, she was going  home to study Speech Therapy.  Behind us were a well to do English couple who had spent 10 days at the tennis at Flushing Meadows, and flying back to Heathrow to picked up by their son. In front, a mother, and her teenage son and daughter who I think were Spanish.  I had all sorts of scenarios planned, it kept me amused, and reasonably calm ( haha!)  Dublin welcomed us with open arms – our taxi driver from the airport was delightful, full of local info.  What a contrast.  Yes, I had the Leprechaun Museum in my sights for months.  Funny that we should bump into another Kiwi during this. Tristan, born Invercargill, now living in Dublin and doing tours – he had a Texan lass with him.

And so now we have joined our bus tour for a few days – you will have to wait to hear about that…..

Thanks for all the lovely feedback about the photos and info that we are posting.

Pam