Ireland Travel Day / Dublin Day 1

Why Ireland?  Well, my kids have been bugging me since our first trip to Europe 4 years ago to take them to Ireland.  We flew through the Dublin Airport on our way to Paris and that was enough to make them want to come back.  They also wanted to visit a place where "we are from."  On my side of the family the kids have a lot of Irish relatives.  My father's parents both immigrated to the United States from Ireland in the 1920's.  I was lucky enough to visit Ireland as a child on several trips with my parents.  I met all of my grandmother's siblings who still lived in Ireland.  I have no great reason why it has taken me so long to get my own kids to Ireland.  I think part of me was feeling like I'd already been here so I wanted to travel to new places, another part of me felt like I wouldn't be able to give them the same amazing experiences I had in Ireland as a child.  Obviously though in the end the kids won me over and here we are in Ireland!  A fabulous deal on plane tickets helped seal the deal.

In July, when I booked our tickets to spend Spring Break in Ireland it seemed like a great idea to book the Friday 9:00 pm flight out of O'Hare.  It would get us to Ireland almost 24 hours before any flight that left on Saturday.  The Thursday night before we left, when I was frantically packing, that plan I hatched in July didn't seem nearly as smart.

Dan and I both worked all day Friday and the kids were at school.  We all met at home at 3:30 and left for the airport.  Luckily even with the construction near Chicago we still made it to the airport in plenty of time.  The lines for security were long, I can see why they suggest arriving 3 hours early for international flights.   The International Terminal at O'Hare is actually a pretty busy place between 7:00-9:00 on a Friday night with lots of redeye flights leaving for other parts of the world!

I had been preaching to my family all week that they needed to sleep on the flight because we'd be arriving in Dublin at 9:15 and our hotel room wouldn't be ready so they'd need to be ready to be awake!  I had good intentions of sleeping on the plane but the universe just wasn't very cooperative.  First off, we left O'Hare at 9:00 pm, at around 10:00 pm they came through the cabin to serve dinner.  I really didn't want dinner but with all the commotion of the service and with the cabin lights on it was hard to sleep.  The airplane food was pretty yucky as always but I ate a bit.  Finally an hour or so later after the meal service was cleaned up they turned off the cabin lights.  I tried my best to sleep but I just couldn't.  The first problem was the temperature, it was super hot!  I'm always cold on planes but not this one.  It was so hot!  The other problem was that the arm rest between the seats couldn't be pushed up all the way.  This made it hard for Ali to get comfortable to sleep so I had a wiggly 11 year old sitting next to me.  I know I dozed off some and I'm sure all combined I slept for a couple of hours.  It just wasn't the quality of sleep I'd been hoping for.

We arrived in Dublin a couple of minutes late around 9:30 am (4:30 am in Wisconsin).  The airport was easy to navigate and we got our bags quickly.  Ali was pretty excited to get another stamp in her passport.  The Dublin airport was all decked out in Saint Patrick's day decorations.

St. Patrick's Day Decorations at the airport

We went to the counter to pick up our rental car and was told we'd need to take a shuttle to the rental facility.  It took about 10 minutes for the shuttle to come but the rental process was easy from there.  I'd rented through a 3rd party that works with Hertz.  The company is called Easy Tour Ireland Car Rentals, I used them because their pricing is inclusive of all the insurance you'll need.  We never take the extra insurance with rental cars but for Ireland we did.  Everything I'd read just made the extra insurance seem like the best choice!

Now came time for the test!  How would Dan do driving on the wrong side of the road? Considering he'd hardly slept in the last 24 hours he did very well.  We got a little lost on the way to the hotel which was a little stressful.  We ended up stopping at a shopping center to ask for directions.  We got directions but the person also directed us to a mobile phone store where we could buy an Irish SIM card for our unlocked phone.  Yippee!!  After buying the SIM card we were good because we could use Google Maps to get to the hotel.  We arrived at the hotel quickly after that little stop.

I check in at the hotel but the room wasn't ready yet (not a surprise).  We dropped our bags and parked the car.  We wouldn't be using the car for our 2 nights in Dublin.  We talked about what we should do, everyone was hungry so we decided we needed to find a place to have lunch.  First, we thought about going to a pizza place near the hotel but then realized it didn't open until 5:00 pm.  Then I suggested catching a bus into town and heading to the National Museum of Archaeology.  We decided to go to the museum and plotted our course on Google Maps.  We had already purchased a bus pass before leaving home so we were ready to go! 

It was about a 5 minute walk to the bus stop.  We stayed at the Croke Park Hotel which is across from the Croke Park sports stadium.  It is about a 20 min walk to downtown or a short bus ride.  We opted for the bus which took us right to the museum.  The kids were tired but excited to take their first ride on a double decker bus.  Of course they wanted to sit upstairs.  The ride gave us a nice view of some of the sites downtown.  Dublin is incredibly busy this week with Saint Patrick's Day being just 10 days before Easter.  This year is also the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising that took place in Dublin.  We saw a lot of signs and banners for the 1916 Centenary. 

We arrived at the museum and headed straight for the café.  The museum has a lovely little café called Brambles.  Everyone in my family was able to find something they wanted to eat.  We had a lovely lunch!  The museum is quite small but has some very interesting pieces of Irish history.  Connor was taken back by how old everything was.  They had pieces dating back to 700 BC.  The museum is free so I'd say it is definitely worth an hour or two of a Dublin visit. 

After our visit we walked a bit and then found a bus stop and headed back to the hotel.  At this point it was about 3:30.  We made a plan to head to an early dinner at 5:00.  Then I made the biggest travel day mistake ever!  Ali and I laid down and fell asleep!  I knew better but I did it anyway.  5:00 came and went and when Dan woke me up I told him I didn't want dinner.  Dan and Connor headed down to the hotel bar for dinner and Ali and I stayed in the room.  I paid later for that 2 hour nap when I had a hard time sleeping through the night! 

Overall it was a good travel day/first day.  We didn't have any major mishaps and we were able to get a few things done.