On Wednesday, August 7th we left Springfield, MO at 2:00 p.m.and flew to Chicago O’Hare. There we had a 6 hours layover. We watched some movies on our IPads, ate, drank, ate again, and drank some more. FINALLY at 10:00 p.m. we boarded a nonstop American flight to Dublin, Ireland ☘️ We arrived in Dublin at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 8th. Our good friends, Tom and Carol Deering were waiting to greet us at the airport. Most of you know Tom and Carol but what you may not know is that Carol has dual citizenship....she is U.S. and British. Their son, Ian, has dual citizenship and Ives in London. So...that being said, obviously we were getting two great travel guides absolutely FREE so it seemed like a deal when they suggested we join them. Once we hugged and did a quick “catch up” we grabbed a taxi and headed to our hotel in the “city center.” Let me just say this about our taxi driver....he obviously wanted to be a race car driver when he grew up. So at supersonic breakneck speeds through scads of roundabouts and all while driving on the left hand side I spent my first 30 minutes in Ireland with my eyes squeezed shut holding my breath! Tom told us on the way that we were staying in a brand new hotel. Well, it was new all right. It was STILL under construction with hard hatted Irish guys running around everywhere! The taxi driver was anxious to scare the crap out of the next bunch of tourists so he quickly collected his fee, dumped us out, and sped away as fast as he could. We stood looking at the dusty construction sight all the while insisting to the construction guys that we indeed had a reservation at this hotel and that we had already paid for it. They continued to shake their heads and tell us that we indeed did NOT have a reservation and it didn’t matter if we had already paid that we would NOT be staying there. We all tried to be calm so decided the best route to take would be to find the closest pub, get a beer, regroup, and try to figure out how to avoid spending the night in a ditch or under a bridge in downtown Dublin😳. We quickly honed in on the nearest pub and off we went. Shortly after we started our trek a young lady in a hard hat came running toward us screaming! Was she talking to us? What was she saying? Should we run from her? To make a long story short...she was the manager of the hotel still under construction and had made arrangements for us to stay at another hotel nearby. After she called us what was comparable to an Uber, helped load our bags, and paid the driver we thanked her and off we went. Phew! Thankfully we didn’t have to spend the night sleeping in a ditch or under a bridge😉. The alternate hotel was The Morgan Hotel!!!!! Was this a sign or what!!!
OK..now we were settled in a lovely hotel in downtown Dublin. What next? Well, it was time to do what the Irish do...DRINK BEER! Our bodies, however, said it was 6:00 a.m. 😰 Well, it WAS noon somewhere wasn’t it? Wait! It was NOON IN DUBLIN!!!! Off we went for our first Guinness of the trip.....
Catch you on the flip flop.....
CJM
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