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O Ireland! I have been waiting for you my whole life. Literally I have. My birthday is St. Patrick's day. I have always dreamed of spending my birthday in Ireland. Finally! After 30 years I made it!  After a flight that left JFK at 10:30pm to arrive at 8:40 am you would think that is perfect. You get to sleep and be ready to hit the pavement. I hit the pavement alright. I cannot sleep on planes. My body is so finicky! It can only sleep if I am laying down, it's dark, and complete silence. Yea...I don't have that first class money. Therefore I was sitting in the way back by the toilets. You wanna know what's worse?! When we were checking in my friend Kim was pulled aside by one of the agents. Now we were all scared. Were our bags too big? As she is talking to him she looks over at us and shakes her head. What the hell is goin on!? She comes back and tells us the agent wanted to upgrade us to first class. Hell yay! BUT...We would have to be wearing anything else besides jeans and leggings. What?!?! That's the only way to fly. Lol We were devastated. My body yearned for a seat that could fully layout. Tear...Lesson learned. From now on we will always travel with dress pants! Alright! We are off the plane and heading through customs, which seems like the quickest of all time. The car rental was the exact opposite. We landed at 8:40 am and didn't leave with our car till 12pm! Now for this trip we found a good deal on Groupon. It was 6 nights at different bed and breakfast places of your choosing. It also came with a car and airfare. It was only $699. We jumped on that so quick. My birthday is on St. Patrick's day, which is smack in the middle of spring break season. We surely thought it would be beyond expensive to go at that time frame. So we couldn't pass this by. Now this groupon did not cover insurance. Which ended up being $188US, plus a $80US fuel charge, and taxes! The $80 would be refunded if you brought the car back with a full tank of gas. Geez! There is also a $1,900 plus tax hold place on your card untill they make sure there is not a scratch on the car after you return it. What the &!&!^!^$*@&^@£!!!!!! Good God! That's not all! If you want an extra driver it is an extra $10 euro a day. If you go through any tolls the cost varies but you have until 8pm the next day to pay it or I guess you get a ticket. Anything else!?!??! You better believe I will be driving like a grandma to get my $2,000 dollars back! I couldn't wait to get out of there. Have yall ever driven on the other side of the road? That wasn't the nerve racking part. This car was huge! It was like driving a boat. I have a small little car. I haven't driven anything else in years. So I had to be more cautious then I originally planned. Our first stop was Kilkenny. Which is about an hour and a half from the airport. The drive was majestic! The rolling green pastures, there are sheep and cows everywhere, and did I mention all the green! I was falling in love.  We made it safely to our destination. Ah...yea! I got skills ;-) We were starving and what was in the parking lot in front of the hotel...KFC. Welp...KFC it is lol. Of course this tasted nothing like KFC in America. There sides included gravy and curry sauce as one of the sides. So...if you got a two piece with two sides mash potatoes and gravy would be it. Huh? How is gravy a side?! Sides are vegetables! !!! I digress... The first night was included. It was at the Aspect Hotel. It was a very nice and modest hotel. I have no complaints about, and would recommend a stay there. We were beyond tired at this point and decided to take a two hour nap. Dang that alarm went off too fast. The others can sleep on planes and yet I was the only one up after two hours. Smh... We really should have got up and went exploring. That did not happen. I couldn't go back to sleep so I looked up places to have our first authentic Irish meal. I gave them another hour or so and then it was time to move it along. I was hungry!  Loved having the streets to ourselves. So by the time everyone got up and ready it was 9pm. We get to downtown and park and all the restaurants are closed. Apparently, all the restaurants close at 9pm. Grr...that's not was Google told me. Darn google. We were told by a bartender that the only places open was a pizza shop and a gyro place. The gyro place won because it was closest. It was called Abrakebabra. So if you find yourself out past 9 head on over. I had the chicken kabob and it was pretty tasty.  We ended up going to Matt The Miller Bar for the first Irish beer of the trip. Now I hate beer with a passion. It's the nasty stuff I've ever tasted. I know there are so many die hard fans, but I cannot force it down my throat. So I just watched my friends enjoy. They had the local Kilkenny beer. They wanted to save the Guinness for when we got to Dublin. They thought it was tasty. The bartender was super nice. He came out to chat with us at our table. I asked what time they closed. He said 11:30pm. It was midnight. We apologized to death, but he was really cool. He told us there was another place not to far that played music and was open to 2am. So they downed those drinks and off we went. The place was called Langston's Hotel. They were playing Rihanna when we got there so we knew it would be a good time.
It was like we were celebrities or something. Everyone was curious who we were and what we were doing there. I have never had so many random people come up to me and ask me where I was from. It was kind of overwhelming. Once we started dancing everybody and their mom wanted to dance with us. We were like a rare species that they have never seen before. Everyone was super nice. We danced and talked to locals (and people from Oregon) the whole night. You also have to try that cider that is pictured above. It's called Kopparberg with strawberry and lime. Yum! We closed the place down. I never expected a Tuesday night in Kilkenny to be so much fun. You have got to check it out if you are ever in town.
Time to hit the hay and get ready for the next day's adventure.
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Since the embargo has been lifted from Cuba, it is now easier for Americans to get there from the states. Here are some quick tips that I learned from my recent journey.
1-Visa. You will need a visa for entering and leaving the country. We took Jetblue and were able to buy the visas at the check in desk. I’m not sure how it works on all carriers that travel there so just make sure you're prepared. It’s $50US. 2-Offline Map. Download a map of Cuba so you have it offline. There is no wifi readily available unless you go to a hotel or wifi park. I recommend Cuba Travel Guide by Triposo. Very handy. 3-Money. Take out all the money you will need for the trip prior to leaving the country. You may have heard that no credit cards work over there. My friends Mia and Kim went to their banks and requested Euros. Canadian dollars and Euros are supposed to have a better exchange rate. I on the other hand am a slacker at life and didn’t make it to the bank. 4-Allow time to receive Euros. Don’t be a slacker at life like me and not go to the bank. Make sure you allow time to get the money. Mia said it took her bank 3 days to get the Euros. They opted for Euros instead of the Canadian dollar because if we had left over money we will be in Europe next month. 5-Toilet paper!!! Bring a roll. Heck bring several, because it is a rare site to see. Sometimes you may have to pay a peso for a few thin sheets. Don’t do it to yourself. 6-Hand sanitizer. Half the time there is not soap. If there is soap there is no paper towels. If there is soap you can always use your handy toilet paper to dry your hands. 7-Sunscreen. If you can check a bag I would highly recommend doing so just for sunscreen. We hardly saw any stores, let alone any selling sunscreen. That sun is no joke. |
AuthorTraveling makes my heart happy. My mission is to use words and pictures to inspire you to get out there and take in the beauty of our world. Archives
December 2019
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