A Dream Come True, Our First Day in Ireland

We left Paris this morning.  I paid Luke to drive my family and I to the airport.  Luke is a very personable 20 year old that stays in the FAR house.  Nice kid.  We spent each evening after my return from walking and touring Paris having a few drinks and talking.  When John Mark and Fieron (I can never get his name when he says it, so this will probably be changed) the conversation was even livelier in the late evenings.  I really enjoyed their company, which made stay at FAR much better.

As I mentioned, we left Paris and fulfilled a dream of mine.  We went to Ireland!  The trip was uneventful until we picked up our car rental.  On line, the car was to be a Ford Focus and was to cost about $225.  By the time I finished paying for the insurance, a GPS, and everything else, the cost became $1075!  That would make a good down payment on a car back home!  The car was a Ford Monedo, which is much larger than I wanted.  One of the reasons I wanted to have a smaller car was that I needed to be able to drive it on the tight streets on the opposite side of the road that I am used to.  This was difficult and became even more difficult because the car is a standard with the gearshift on my left, since of course I was driving on the right side of the car.  Also, shifting and braking was difficult.  As we came closer to the  hotel, our GPS was telling us to take a left, but there was nothin but a barricade to the left.  We ended up going around the blocks, which contained mostly one way streets and me being confused as heck, never really figuring out how to pull into the traffic.  This went on for about 20 minutes of te GPS recalculating.  Finally, we spotted the hotel, past the barrier and in a spot I could not get to, so I parked on the road and walked over.  They told me how to get to the garage.   Since the car was larger than I was really used to, it was a real adventure parking it in the garage next to the hotel.  Jenn had to get out to direct to help me pull down through the -2 gate.  It took at least 5 minutes.  The last bit of bad news was that although it costs 10 euros to park per day, we can't take the car out for day trips without additional charges. 
After going back to the room for a short nap, Deb, Jenn and and I walked around the hotel.  We found we are within minutes of the Jameson Distillery and a number of pubs.  We entered a pub named The Richmond and I had my first pint in an Irish Pub!  How neat that was for us.  Deb even enjoyed a draft cider named Balmer.  Jenn aslo had a Balmer's  and I elected to have a Foster or 2.  The bartender was your regular Irish Pub owner, friendly and liking to talk.  As we were leaving, he suggested coming back that evening around 10 for some music and a few more pints.  He didn't have to twist my arm!

I'll leave the story of the visit and the friends Jenn and I made for a later date.

Deb, Jenn and I enjoying our first pub!