Old Sods in the Auld Sod-Part I

Earlier this month Michelle and I set off on an expedition to explore the land of (at least some of) our ancestors. We were accompanied on this journey by one-third of our intrepid team of explorers from our famous China trip: Abe and Roz. The basic game plan was to fly to Ireland, pick up a rental car, drive madly around the country, see as much as humanly possible in a one-week period, and stay (mostly) in bed and breakfasts (B&B's). Hilarity ensued.

Michelle found an excellent package deal on line which included air fare, a rental car, and accommodations for six nights in the Emerald Isle. Four of these were in B&Bs, and the other two were in a four-star, and a five-star hotel respectively. I'll talk more about the five star joint in a later post. Roz took the lead in finding and booking the B&B's via e-mail, using the list of available places from the travel booking company. Fortunately, these places were all what in Ireland are known as "ensuite", i.e. the bathrooms were private-in-your-room like a hotel as opposed to the "down the hall" baths traditional in B&B's. Anyway, thanks Roz and Michelle.

Well, Friday, the day of the trip, came, and Abe and Roz drove up to New Jersey from their home in Maryland to rendezvous at our house. They left their car in our garage and we all piled into my 4Runner and headed to the airport.

Incidentally, for parking we use an outfit called "Vista" which stores your car in a fenced lot near the airport with 24/7 security guards. They drive you the short ride to the terminal in a van and even handle your luggage. When you return, your vehicle is waiting there for you at the lot entrance warmed up and cleaned of snow if need be - no schlepping through the lot to your car. I highly recommend them - www.vistaparking.com for their info.

Our flight was a 7:30 PM departure on Continental and was rather pleasant for a five-hour flight (once you've done 13 hours over the pole to China anything short of Australia is duck soup). The seats were fairly roomy (3X3 across) and Michelle and I had the aisle and window with the center fortunately empty.

The neatest thing about the plane was the small screen set into the seat back in front of you. You had a choice of movies, TV shows and video games to keep you amused all the way across to Shannon airport. And, it was all free. I ended up watching "Casablanca" and some sitcoms and then proceeded to play video poker and blackjack all the way to Ireland. Unfortunately, one did not play with real money, else I would have won enough to pay for the trip. Why can't this happen in Vegas?? The flight was fairly smooth and uneventful and deposited us in Shannon at around 6:00 AM Irish time. Needless to say, Michelle and I didn't get any sleep on the flight over, but we were nevertheless ready to start a whole new day of exploring "The Auld Sod".

The Shannon River and Limerick City-Our first day in Ireland

Next: Driving on the Left side and other quaint customs.