First Ireland Post: The Flight and Our Dublin Apartment

The trip got off to an interesting start, as all exciting things do.

Uncle Z was due at our house at 7 a.m. to take us to the airport. At 6:50, I took a bag of garbage down to the curb. As I was walking back into the garage, I heard a sound like popping plastic. “No way,” I thought.

Stepped back outside…yup, a car accident right at the end of our driveway. No injuries, and a relatively minor rear-ending, but enough to stop traffic coming from one direction.

I ran back inside yelling, “Call Zach and tell him to come on Sneed Road!”

Thanks to quick action by Buds and Zach, we weren’t far behind schedule.

Things moved a little slowly at the airport, although I inadvertently engaged in line-jumping. (If there’s an open machine to check in, it should be used, don’t we agree?!)

At security, I had some ‘splainin’ to do about the jars of spices that I’m sure looked like drugs on the scanner, and the jar of boullion I was bringing over was confiscated since it was technically a liquid. The TSA agent was very kind, even after he asked what the spices were, and I said, “Just something I’m taking for a friend.” (Note to future self, never talk about your “friend” when being questioned by a TSA Agent. Also, be sure to remind the children not to make jokes about bombs in the TSA line. We learned many lessons this trip!)

The kids took everything in stride, and I seemed to be the only one showing nervousness.

On the flight from Nashville to Newark, we had the two seats in the last two rows, then Buds had the window seat in the row in front of that. He was glad for the time to work, and the kids and I were happy to be close together.

As we were taking off, I reached behind me to hold Zachary’s hand since I thought he was most likely to feel anxious. His hand felt warm and soft, and he had a grip on mine, so I kept holding on. After awhile, I noticed that the man across from me, and the women in the aisle behind me were commenting on something. I turned to look back, realizing that I was holding the hand of the woman in the row behind me, not Zachary’s sweet little hand. She said, “I wasn’t sure if I should let go or not.” We all had a huge laugh about that, which greatly reduced my tension. Zachary didn’t even notice anything amiss, so he was obviously doing just fine.

We had several hours of layover in New Jersey. We had originally planned to go into the city, but Buds and I realized that any anxiety we felt would not be lessened by adding an extra leg to the journey, plus it was a rainy, blustery day, which gave us concern for our flight times. So, we hung out in Liberty Airport which led to:

The flight to Dublin was long, but uneventful. Buds and Monkey got a little sleep, the youngers and I did not. They were entranced by our individual video systems and watched many, many movies. I tried to sleep, but just couldn’t seem to.

This led to immediate exhaustion as soon as we landed.

It took awhile to get the rental car all sorted out, but when that was complete, we loaded into our tiny little “Micra,” and headed for the Dublin Apartment.

This happened on the way to the apartment:

After we got to the apartment, these two simply moved to new, more comfortable, sleeping accommodations, while the rest of us explored the apartment.

We were tickled with the apartment: beautiful, spotless, and petite.

Eventually I collapsed on a horizontal surface somewhere, Buds and one of the children wandered out to find some groceries, and we all slept on and off for the rest of the day.

We woke up in the evening to go try out the nearest pub: The Black Lion. It was close and delightful. Buds tried his first Local Guinness, everyone had food they liked, and we started to feel a little more human.

Next post: We venture out into the Dublin world! Double-decker buses, here we come.