Ireland Chaos

Right now there are so many things that are just not right: The backward hours that we're temporarily stuck in. The opposite driving. The strangeness of the roads, narrow lanes with myriads of roundabouts. The lack of street signs and addresses. The jaywalkers...

We arrived in Dublin yesterday (even the term "yesterday" is not quite correct, it was about midnight our time that we landed and now, 4AM Ireland time is 8PM our time) and got our rental car. We had to upgrade from the tiny car we'd reserved and find ourselves driving a Saab. Nice car but some learning involved. Like reverse - how do you get into reverse?!?! I wish I'd started the video camera rolling the minute Rick sat behind the wheel. He killed it twice, then made a wrong turn and had to loop around just to get out of the parking garage.

We'd asked how to get to downtown Dublin and got a reply that included at least 2 roundabouts and a toll. We did a lot of wrong turns and turn arounds but did finally find our way to something that looked like the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Brewery that's near the top of the list of tourist attractions in Dublin. It turned out to be the Jameson (Irish Whiskey) distillery, not planned on but not uninteresting either. A nice lady spotted Sarah in particular walking around with her good camera in hand and warned her that this was't the best part of town and to be careful. We meandered the streets of that part of town enjoying the mix of new and old - not just "old" but, rather OLD, like 1000 years old(!), architecture living side by side in even the seedier part of town.

Since, like Seattle, there is no free parking in Dublin, we had to pay to park even there so we used up as much time as we could and then figured out how to follow a map to the area we really wanted to see. . . and it was only about 4 or 5 blocks away.  We moved the car to another parking garage and enjoyed visiting some planned sights.  The weather was beyond perfect, I had to shed my sweater and Sarah got a little sunburn on her shoulders!

By late afternoon we were in serious need of some food and sleep so decided to put on our big girl panties and find our hotel.  There didn't seem to be any maps that could show us road-by-road just how to do this so we ended up using the sun.  We needed to be south and west of Dublin on the N7, which would be a bigger road so we just started heading toward the sun and it worked!  We found our hotel.  Our room was on the west side of the building so the afternoon sun had warmed it up and we could find no way to cool it off.  We picked up a fan, about an 8" fan, from the font desk to move the hot air around the room with no a/c or windows that open. We also couldn't get most of the lights and plugs to work until I noticed a box on the wall just inside the door that had a slot and red lights, it looked like the key card should be used in it.  So we swiped it and that worked!  But after a couple minutes everything went off again so now that card is living in that box on the wall.

I videoed our drive to a restaurant to capture some of the less stressful, albeit confusing, drive through the suburbs of Dublin.  We didn't end up eating at that restaurant but I think you can see what we're dealing with, driving-wise.  We were trying to find a shopping area where there were more food possibilities and eventually did so.  We ended up eating in a retro "American" burger joint called Eddie Rocket's.  They're all over this place.  We ate at a similar place in Iceland - how do we always find these places?

My decision to shower last night made the room even hotter and muggier so we're sleeping in as little clothing as possible with our 8" fan blowing straight across our beds...

So the chaos - some of it is in my head, feeling drugged from lack of sleep and being up opposite when my body wants to be.  And some of it is the backward driving, suddenly there appears to be no organization at all.  The cars sitting in the middle of the road to turn right - to the far side of the road, all just adds to the confusing, chaotic feel.

I'm sure this swirling feeling will abate and only the enjoyment of this visit will color the rest of our trip - and my blog....