Day 4
Yes I’ve gotten behind. Things have been going pretty fast & furious & no wi-fi in the room while in London didn’t helped.
So Day 4 found us waking up in Dublin & catching our first real train which was pretty easy. We crossed Ireland & went to the city of Galway. What I noticed along the way was there are a lot of sheep & cattle in Ireland. It is also very green, beautiful & there are rock walls everywhere.
So upon arriving to our hotel they tell us that our room isn’t ready & would we mind if they put us in a 2 bedroom apartment, ugh no we don’t mind. We are traveling for 3 weeks with 2 teenage boys a night of privacy sounds good. The apartment was very nice & clean with some pretty views from the balconies.
The whole reason I wanted to go to Galway is because I wanted to go to the Cliffs of Moher. We were disappointed to find all of the tours had already left. But the lady at the front desk checked with the Irish bus line & found us a bus to take. So we headed to the bus/train station, got our tickets, & 30 mins later we were on our way.
It took us 2 1/2hours because we had to go to all of these little towns to let people off & on but we got to see more so that worked out. The roads are so narrow I don’t know how those bus drivers maneuver like they do. A couple of times we came head to head w/another bus & our bus driver just started backing up a little at a time til the other bus passed with not a hair to spare.
The Cliffs were beautiful & Shane was a nervous mess whenever any of us went anywhere near the edge. Which of course made it more fun. :). There was a lot of walking up & down & around, we ended up putting another 9 miles on our already tired feet.
So we got to spend 2 hrs at the Cliffs then another 2 1/2 hr bus ride back to town. We ate at a nice little Italian cafe. The boys had fun using the pay sidewalk bathrooms. So funny they self-clean after every use.
Day 3
By the time we landed yesterday morning Caden was really tierd, cranky & not feeling well. We took a bus to the hotel which was a sometimes frightening experience. Caden layed down for a few mins while we got settled in & he felt a little better.
We found the city transit station closest to our hotel so we could take a train to the center of town. A young man came in & saw that we didn’t have a clue what we were doing & he showed us how to use the ticket machine. When we stepped out on the platform I saw him on the other side of the track then he ducked into a bldg then he was back with us. He came back to us to let us know we were on the wrong platform & showed us how to get to the right one. Such a nice young man to go out of his way to help us.
Once on the train another man we asked a question of said he was getting off at the same station as us & that he would show us out & point us in the right direction. Soooo glad he did otherwise we probably would have been in that station awhile trying to figure out where to go. Turns out he is the General Manager of a Premiere Soccer League here in Ireland. Another very nice man taking his time to be helpful to us.
So O’Connell Street is “the place to be” in Dublin. We saw all kinds of people Caden thought the Irish Goths were interesting. We stopped at our first Starbucks since Gas City (gasp, I know). We were sadly disappointed that our favorite coffee drink is not made the same here. Oh well we’re here to try new things.
So we are walking down O’Connell Street & as we come up to the bridge to cross the river we heard a loud commotion & it kept getting closer so we decided to wait & see what it was. There was a protest going on, I’ve never seen anything like it. The people are upset because water has always been free & now it may become privatized & they’ll have to start paying for it. It was a peaceful demonstration, people of all ages, families & even some pets. We were reading some of the signs which at times was comical. All in all that was fun!
We found a cafe to stop & have a bite. It was fun sitting outside on what was basically an alley with restaurants & coffee & pastry shops on both sides. It was away from all of the tourist places so it was mostly just locals hanging out. Caden made friends with a pigeon there.
After we ate we came upon a park where people were just hanging out. Some were families & some were groups of friends. Some were singing, some were dancing, some were playing games & others were sitting in the grass having picnics. It was nice!
We decided to walk back to the hotel. Yeah that was pretty stupid. We ended up walking 7 miles yesterday! By the time we got back we all were hurting & decided to call it a night!
Day 2
We have had a great day here in Toronto. We spent most of the day at the CN Tower. We went up 147 stories but my littlest chicken refused to leave the stairwell up there. We spent most of our time at 114 stories where both my littlest chicken & biggest had a hard time walking out to the edge & neither would walk on the glass floor. Mom won’t he bravest award today but next time I want to kick it up a notch & do the edgewalk.
Day 1
So yesterday was a long day in the car driving to our “Departure City”. We each took turns playing some music off of our phones. Shane had to play his country music which was torture to the rest of us. The kids liked mine until I switched to Classical. We saw a turkey standing on the side of the road. Found a drink at Tim Horton’s that was “life changing”. Saw some beautiful scenery once we got into Canada. The one thing that stood out to us is how clean the roadways were, no trash & no blown tires left on side of the road. The roads when we got into Canada were so quiet nice & smooth. It was a good first day!
But the real excitement starts tonight…the kids first plane ride.
marchele13 