After several trips straight going back and forth to the New England area, Jess and I are finally off somewhere new! Kind of. We’re back in Ireland, aha! But this time we’re in Northern Ireland too, which is new to us so that counts. We're using a mini camera to take pictures this time, just like in Alaska, but we don't have an SD card reader so most photos will have to wait until after the trip!
As per usual, our journey starts with a travel day. Jess and I each got new suitcases for the occasion as the last trip we took was finally deemed the end of our little flowered roller bags. So we got new purple and pink roller bags! Mine’s got unicorns, which I love, and Jess’s is a garment bag that turns into a rolling duffle bag which is quite cool. We also have a messenger bag I got Jess for Easter to use as a purse. We had them both pretty much packed up the night before while drinking margaritas and watching Mamma Mia so all we had to do was wake up, get ready, and chuck our morning use-items into the bags. Then off we went at 11am to Wally Park! We made great time, arriving there at 12pm-ish and setting off on the tram to airport not long after. We arrived at the airport, got checked in and through TSA pretty quick so we were sitting down at our gate with two-ish hours until our first flight.
We got ourselves some Einstein Bros Bagels and had a merry little brunch while we waited and decided what movies and shows and audiobooks to download onto our devices. Jess got a loaded egg sandwich and I had ordered a pepperoni chicken sandwich but they got it wrong and gave me the pepperoni pizza bagels instead, but I didn’t really care all too much and it tasted great anyway! Time in airports is wild because we basically sat around for 2 hours but also somehow before we knew it group C was being boarded and off we went!
I ended up not even listening to or watching anything I downloaded the while time. The first flight I watched ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ cause JetBlue had it and I’d heard it was a good film to motivate people to travel. And it was a good film! I really enjoyed it! Jess watched The Beekeeper and called it “a preposterous film (affectionately)”. That flight Jess and I had a hard time with take-off and landing so when we arrived a JFK in New York for our layover we decided we needed more food so we got a caramel macchiato from Dunkin, lo mein and egg rolls from a place I can’t recall the name of, and a Mango-A-Go-Go from Jamba Juice and had, once more, another merry picnic at the gate of our next flight! We got asked as we were eating where we’d gotten the noodles from because they looked, and tasted, super good!
The next flight was the long 7 hour one into Dublin and Jess and I needed to get some sleep through it because we would be arriving at 9am Ireland-time and had more traveling for the day planned. We stayed awake until the in-flight meal was served and finished, cause of course. We ordered both the options, the chicked with quinoa and the tofu with noodles, to try them both and the tofu with noodles was the champion! Neither were hot meals, but they were both filling, coming with a salad, snap peas, and a brookie! So we were satisfied and set for a good nap for the rest of the flight. I put on The Gilded Age season 2 and Jess put Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris on repeat and we got as comfortable as possible for the rest of the flight.
Landing was super smooth, that pilot did a great job, and by 9am we were off the flight and in the women's bathroom of the Dublin airport doing a quick outfit change and refresh to start the day! With our teeth brushed and makeup applied we headed to the Hertz rental station to figure out how to get our car. From the first station we were sent to a second station that directed us to a tram to take us to the rental car pickup. We waited for a little bit there as every rental car company picks up there and you have to wait for a tram with your company on it, but it was no trouble! Out in the sun and fresh air, we just had a seat and relaxed for a bit, having a couple of our chocolate caffeine bars.
We, of course, got on the fullest tram and had to wait in the longest line of the morning to get our rental car, but we were in no rush. We usually aren’t. I got to the front, got all the upcharges I’d prepared and budgeted for, and off we were with the keys to our rental! And then as soon as we got in the car we realized I had no idea how to work. It took a little Googling and problem-solving to figure out the dial-gear thing and the auto-start button and headlights and all that, but we just took our time figuring that out before hitting the road! Our first stop was a Tesco to pick up a burner phone to use in Ireland while there, which wasn’t far so it was a good place to head first to get my bearings driving in Ireland. It’s not too difficult, really, except that I pull /too/ far to the left and Jess had to keep hollering at me about watching for the curb aha!
At Tesco we got the phone and thought about getting food there or somewhere but we spent so long getting the phone working cause we haven’t bought a new phone in years and we had a 3-hour drive ahead of us so we just decided to hit the road. And we were off! Our car got upgraded (probably because they were out of the car we booked) so we got a GPS system without paying more for it, which was nice. We drove for about an hour before I needed a bathroom and wanted some snacks so we pulled into a Lidl and got chocolate orange crisps, three donuts, and three packs of deli snack wraps. After a quick gobble down of some of that, we were back ont eh road for the next 2 hours. Honestly, the drive wasn’t bad. Everyone had built up round-abouts as these crazy confusing things but we have quite a few of them were I live so maybe that's why they didn’t confuse me at all? I dunno, I thought they were fine.
Arriving in Derry was where the problems started. Up to that point in the drive I'd done surprisingly well and had only gotten honked at 3 times (one of those didn't count though because we didn't know if we could turn left on red and decided to wait and see if the person behind us honked to signal we can go). Our GPS cut out, but we found our Holiday Inn, but then we couldn’t find parking, but I knew I’d seen an entrance for a parking garage somewhere but then I kept being in the wrong lanes to get to it, and our burner phone, classic, doesn’t work in Northern Ireland without roaming charges cause it’s a different country. I did, eventually get into the right lane and get into the parking garage and did a lousy parking job but I was finally starting to feel super tired so I couldn’t be bothered to care and we headed to the hotel. Except it wasn’t there. It was an empty gutted building covered in ads for the Holiday Inn. Confusing and alarming. But then no! The hotel was NEXT to the gutted building covered in Holiday Inn ads! Happy days! We went in, got checked in, the guy checking us in was great, giving us a map and some tips for stuff we might want to see as we’re here just because of the Derry Girls series and they have a couple things going on about that! Then we were up to the room for showers, more horking down of our snack wraps, tea and coffee, and a good long nap.
We both work up around 10am Ireland time to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on the TV and tried to figure out if we should do something tonight, or just call it a rest day and stay in until tomorrow. We elected to get dressed and hit the bar in the hotel lobby for a couple of cocktails. After ordering and not asking for our change we had to have a lengthy discussion about whether we were actually supposed to do that, because tipping culture is different outside America, but eventually worked out through some research that tipping bartenders is not strictly usual in Ireland/Northern Ireland but not asking for your change back is also not uncommon and welcome if you can do it. So phew, Ugly American Crisis averted, we got to sit back, relax, enjoy our drinks, and plan our Derry Girls Day before heading up for bed!
Except no, as soon as we got up there we wanted to check on the car so we headed out again and found the place locked up, which was perfect for us cause, great right! Car park gets locked at night, love it! On the way back to the hotel though, we discovered a 24/7 pizza joint right next to our hotel, so up we went again to get our wallet to order some Taco Chips and Spicy Pizza, just cause we wanted to see what that all looked like here in Ireland. We chatted with a few guys who were there while waiting, they told us about their upcoming summer trip to Minnesota in the USA and asked, as gently as possible, why, on this green Earth, were we vacationing in Derry. Funny they should say that though because we were just thinking the same thing about Minnesota! Finally our food was ready so we, at last, actually, for real this time, went up to our room to have some food and fall asleep to HGTV which still has it’s own channel here in Northern Ireland! Lucky us!
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