Ireland Dreams Come True: Ireland Vacation 1

Paige Harwood, Douglas Strait, T. M. Strait and Alison Strait.  At MARTA in Atlanta, waiting for ride to Airport. Yes, I know.  I struggle with opening my eyes for pictures.  Makes me look like I'm half drunk before even getting to Ireland.

We talked about it for two decades.  But this May, we finally did it.  Our dream trip to Ireland.

We decided to fly there.  Walking or driving seemed prohibitive. posing both time and practicality problems.  Even a passenger boat would take up too much Ireland time.

My son, Doug, was kind enough to use some of his Delta Sky miles on us, thus saving us a considerable expense in getting over there.  I also had a small amount of money I inherited from my father.  I think he would have approved of us using it this way.

We arrived at the Atlanta Airport way early, in order to accommodate any security delays.  It was crowded, but we were on time, and made the first stage of our trip, to JFK, easily.  Our layover there was a couple of hours, not long enough to take in a Broadway show, alas.

We tried to find an Airport restaurant that would be playing the Atlanta United/New York Red Bulls game but was unsuccessful.  You would think with the Red Bulls being the team geographically nearest to the airport, we could find someone playing it, but alas, that was not the case.  We were able to catch parts of it on Paige's phone.

Sitting at the terminal near our gate, we found ourselves being serenaded by a very talented group of young people, playing Irish tunes, mostly violins and other string instruments.  It was amazing, a real introduction to our Irish trip.  They must have been going to Dublin to perform.

I have a video of them performing, and if I ever get smart enough, I will put it on the blog.

My first shot of the streets of Dublin.  Our taxi cab driver was an incredibly nice man, elderly, talking very slowly, I think he said he had recovered from a stroke.  This was good, but the streets were narrow, and everybody was driving on the wrong side of the road.

He had trouble finding our hotel and went down some streets that I did not think it was possible to go down.

Here is a picture of another Dublin building which, of course, I did not get the name of.  Notice the bird flying in front of the building. It's almost like a quasi-professional photography shot.  OK.  I admit it.  With photography, I really have no idea what I'm doing.  I'm really hoping to steal some of Alison.s pictures for some future blog posts.

For me, an early highlight of the trip was a visit to the Trinity College Library.  This was an awesome, humbling experience for me.  To be surrounded by so many books, covering so many centuries, was a dream come true.

In pictures, it gives the optical illusion of going on forever.  Seeing it in person, you do realize it is finite but trust me, it was big enough to be one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.

Alison and I posing in front of one section of books.  The bottom shelf has the largest books, and then they get progressively smaller as they go up.  This is to make sure the top shelves don't have the strain of the larger books.

Our first castle sighting!  Dublin Castle in downtown Dublin.

Doug and I end the evening with a pint at Ireland's oldest pub, The Brazen Head.  I only had a few beers the whole trip.  They were okay, but I'm not much of a drinker.  I tend to lose interest, and prefer the taste of soft drinks.  Big in Ireland are orange sodas, and I rediscovered an affinity for Fanta Orange.

I had one of my favorite meals of the trip at The Brazen Head.  It was a Guinness Beef Stew.  I should have taken a picture.  But I rarely take pictures of my food.  I start eating before I even think about it.

And this was just the first day!

More postings to come!