Ireland Day 1

Woke up at 6am in Bedford, Tx on Tuesday morning. Left for the airport by 7am to catch our first leg of our journey to Ireland. First stop, Chicago. We landed in Chicago a little after noon, collected our bags and found out we would have to wait until 3:45pm to be able to re-check them in for our Ireland flight. So got to spend some time hanging out in the international concourse, ate some deep dish pizza from Uno's.

Yumm!

We didn't actually start boarding our Aer Lingus plane until about 8:30 pm. The plane was huge! It's an Air Bus 300. We had 8 seats per row, 2-4-2, the dashes are the isles. It was a bit cramped for me with my legs, but not too bad. Dinner on the plane was decent, so was breakfast. It was a good flight, very little turbulence, and most of that not until we were descending into Dublin to land.

Ireland!

Customs was a breeze, the Garda agent I talked to was not very talkative, but polite. We originally had a two car rental for our trip, but after talking to the rental agent, we got bumped into a mini-van instead. It worked out much better, we could all ride together, and save on fuel as well.

Let's see, it was about 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit when we stepped out of the terminal, but it was beautiful out, bright and sunny.

Ireland is green! Everywhere it's green! After one look it's easy to see why Ireland is known as the "Emerald Isle" Ireland enjoys a temperate maritime climate, due mainly to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the presence of the Gulf Stream. This also means that it gets a lot of rain as well.

The drive from Dublin to Adare was about 211 km, or about 131 miles.

Navigating for my sister as she took the first turn driving on the wrong side of the road in a mini-van with a manual stick shift left-handed was interesting. We have a new key mantra while driving....stay in the left lane....stay in the left lane.....stay in the left lane...Round-a-bouts are another added layer of challenge. There are a million round-a-bouts here. I think there are probably more round-a-bouts that people here, though I could be wrong. :D

We drove through some beautiful country. Actually that is an understatement really, Ireland is absolutely beautiful. I know I've used that word a lot but it fits. Ireland has a long and rich history, it's been cultivated for a very long time. Farms, low stone walls, very dense forests between farms, the ruins of towers, buildings and castles. There is a lot of history here. 

We stopped once about halfway for a rest, caffeine and snacks. We arrived in Adare around 11 am local time. Btw, Ireland is 6 hours ahead of central time. The Manor where we are staying is amazing! The grounds here are beautiful! We have not even made it to the Manor House itself yet. The villas we are staying in are in another part of the grounds. After checking in, negotiating for who gets which room, I got the one I wanted, we decided to do a bit of exploring.

The manor grounds butt right up against Adare, so we were able to park in the grounds, and walk through a small gate right into town. I have pics of some of the thatched-roof shops, and some of the local buildings, and even a local church. There is a park right in the town, but the weather started to get wet, and colder so we didn't linger there. Did some shopping in a local store, then hit up Collin's pub just across the street from the town hall.

The food was amazing! I had the Pat Collins Burger. It came with bacon, chips(french fries to us Americans), a special sauce, a small salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, and a very unusual cole-slaw, that was not sweet like I'm used to, but it was a great compliment to the rest of my meal. Everyone agreed that the food was very very good.

It's been a very long day for us, looks like we are turning in very early here this evening. Photos are up, follow the link below to my album. I'll be posting pics and videos.

https://plus.google.com/photos/101108978688444895068/albums/5813374502151102753