Friday, June 19, 2009

Ireland Adventures


It's been a bit of a rocky start. Our plane from Atlanta was a little delayed. We left at 9:15 rather than 8:55 pm.



Watching the planes in Atlanta.







Waiting.




Our flight from Atlanta to Dublin was not great. LOTS of turbulence. The pilot also let us know that the lightning we could see was WAY off in the distance. After all, we were flying Air France and they did have the plane go down last month.

We got lucky going through customs. We were taken from the back of the line and ushered to an empty window! Then we waited for daddy to get the car which was too small. We upgraded.


Driving from the airport to our hotel was an experience. The street signs are on walls of buildings and fences so it took us awhile to figure out where we were supposed to go. The streets are skinny and driving on the left was breathtaking-not in a good way.

Our hotel is the old Mason's building; very cool looking. The night was really rough for one of us me. One of us me got some bad food on one of the flights and spent the night on the bathroom floor.





We went to Dublin Castle, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Grafton Street and St Stephan's Green today.
















Wednesday, June 17, 2009

We're Off!

We've arrived at San Diego Airport, gone thorough security, had our required McDonald's breakfast and now the big wait. Security was essentially a breeze for Paul. He went through first, I helped the kids get their shoes and jackets off and put their backpacks in bins. They went off through the screening machine. I took the laptop out of my bag like I had read to do, got my shoes and jacket off and into a bin. Then the friendly (really-totally nice guy) ask if any of the backpacks had a DVD player. Why, yes they all do. Those also have to be taken out of the backpacks, out of the DVD cases and put into separate bins. So, I managed about eight bins on my own while Paul put his shoes back on blissfully ignorant of what I was doing. Then he gets pulled aside by security because, after being quizzed by his loving wife, they find another pocket knife in his backpack. He'd already put one in his checked bag before we got out of the shuttle. Men!!!
Only another hour and my happy pill can be taken.