Hello! Finally, my first real story about Ireland. Thanks for being so patient ;)
We flew into London and spent a day there - walking all over town with our luggage - trying to find the National Gallery and then go see Les Miserables (yeah!). It was fun, but we sure were happy to get to our hotel in Nottinghill. The park just over the street looked just like the park in the movie Nottinghill. Should have taken a picture - but I was so tired. I did say "whoops-a-daisys" like 50 times. The tube ran under our hotel - but I was too tired to notice. The next morning we ate breakfast then worked our way to the airport. Whoa - we had no idea how long it would take! When we arrived at the airport we had 45 minutes to get thru security and to our gate on the other side of the terminal before it left us. You know those movies where they run to the plane...that was us.
Once on board the plane, the stewardess started talking and her accent was so strong - we were excited to hear more of that in Ireland :) When we arrived at the airport, we went to get the rental car. Their computers were down so it took a while. One super good thing was that we also rented a Garmin to help us get around - that was fun and occasionally annoying. (It didn't have the street that Bryce's aunt lives on, so it would get really annoying when we would get close..."recalculating"). We walked out to where the car was and where we were planning to meet back up with Bryce's aunt and uncle to follow them to their house. We got to the car and we were staring at the door. It didn't have a key hole. The key didn't have a button to unlock the car. We were just so confused staring at this locked car and useless key. Finally, I said we should try the DRIVER'S SIDE. The right side of the car had a key hole. Wow. This will be an adjustment. Wait til we start driving on the road - yikes!
See how happy he was to find the right (correct) side of the car?! Notice how tiny this car is. Good thing. The roads in Ireland are SO tiny. You can forget about a shoulder.
The speed limits here were insane. The roads are narrow, windy, and not very well kept - did I mention there isn't a shoulder? Rarely is there a sign to warn you about an upcoming curve. The speed limit was generally 80 km per hour (about 50 mph - but it feels like 80). We saw a huge Semi turn off down this road that was the size of one lane, whose speed limit was 100 kph! Bryce's uncle Steve said that he felt like the speed limits were a challenge. "I dare you to go this fast." Bryce thought it was more like a goal to try to reach once before you die.
Here's a little video to give you an idea of what it was like. Remember that our car is tiny (and this was a pretty decent road).
We saw several funny road signs. Well, I thought they were funny. I was getting pretty silly after spending lots of time on the road. This was one of my favorites:
I don't really know what it means...I guess the road is getting smaller...If so, that doesn't calm me. Another one I got a kick out of is "Hidden Dip Ahead". I often imagined a not smart person hiding behind a rock fence or a bush just waiting to jump out in front of us.
This was a classic sight. We were driving along this little back road with Bryce's aunt and uncle, when we saw this. Bryce's aunt slowly brought up her camera and snapped a picture - perfect. This should be a postcard or a some other "typical sites in Ireland" advertisement.
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I hope you enjoyed this, my first installment of Ireland. Please remember to check Bryce's blog for some pics and stories - I can't do them all.
Happy St. Patricks Day!!
