Things n' Stuff Thoughts about the universe in general

Hugs, everyone!

I hope none of you have been worried.. We will hopefully get decent internet access as of tomorrow (Oct 9th), but until then, we haven’t really had internet access so I haven’t written anything..

So we all know planning isn’t my strong point.. Nor is it Oded’s – quite the contrary.. So there has been much planning messes – including what to schedule when, which is going to cost us probably 250 *pounds* more than it should.. Never mind..

We started the trip badly, with us leaving the house late, missing the call to skip the lines and go through check-in quickly and getting stuck with no seats.. Then, since I’m an *idiot* and managed to forget/lose/not remember I even had an Israeli passport, they almost didn’t let me leave the country.. I am extremely grateful to the anonymous employee at the Ministry of Interior that decided that since it’s Yom Kippur, we’ll forgive her just this once and let me get on board my flight. YAY!!!!

So we *run* – literally – to the gateway, since it’s 4:05 PM and the flight is supposed to *take off* at 4:25.. Now, remember I said we didn’t have seats? Guess what – they had to determine our seats *at the gate* before we boarded.. This means we were one of the last people on board, and sitting on opposite ends of the plane..

Never fear – We managed to convince a single passenger to move somewhere else, enabling us to sit together! Then the flight attendants moved us to a different seat, so we could help out another couple with space issues – I didn’t ask, so I can’t explain it..

Anyway, we ended up having a pretty decent and relatively hassle free flight (which is pretty miraculous considering it’s El-Al), with a very amusing Brit full of crazy over-the-top and barely believable stories about his relationship to Israel.. Relatively hassle free meaning that among the 3 of us there was a single working tv screen and wine got spilled on the 2 boys, not anything serious like a leaking a/c or a shut down engine! 🙂 Fun flight though.. Managed to sleep about 3 of the 5 hours..

We land, get to the border crossing, and discover that not only do we not know where our friends live, but we can’t explain how to get there, either – even though we called them and they explained it to us about 10 minutes before! Border guard was laughing his head off from us, but let us in with no trouble, after trying to help us figure out where we’re supposed to go! Oh, and what’s the first thing that I bought when we went through the post-baggage-claim stores? You guessed it – chocolate! It’s hysterically funny to me that I fly abroad to get chips, candy and chocolate!

We took the Tube to our friend’s place, which was a long (though relatively painless) affair, ate a Shish-Kebab (Shishlik for our Israeli friends who have never encountered it abroad) in the local grill outside the tube station, said hello and goodnight to our friends (since we got there at a quarter to 1AM) and ended a hectic, but overall good day.

Right, let’s get back to that inability to plan.. We know we’re going to drive cross-country to Holyhead (it’s important to note that this Holyhead only has one l – Hollyhead with 2 l’s is a completely different place on the other side of England) so we can catch the Ferry to Dublin tomorrow.. Except we don’t know where we’ll sleep.. So we spend the morning looking for a place to stay.. Which we find, eventually… Yay! Then, since my legs have cramped up to the point where I can’t walk, Oded goes to pick up the car and I try to make my body start working again.. Except Oded forgets to take my driver’s licence, so I can’t drive the car.. Not a big deal, actually, since as soon as we get to Dublin we’ll find a relevant rental booth and add me as a driver.. On the other hand, it meant that Oded was doing the cross-England drive on his own.. So when Oded gets back, we pack everything and leave – only to discover *a minute after we shut the automatically locking door* that I’ve forgotten my bag with all my ID and money inside..

Great – at this point, even when we make plans we can’t keep them.. We meet our friends for lunch (thankfully one of them took a half day off and was able to come back with us so we could get my bag.. 🙂 Was lots of fun – I haven’t spent time with these friends in almost a year and I was *really* happy I got some (albeit a very small amount) of quality time with them now.. Ate at a nice Thai place, too.. When I find out what it was, it comes highly recommended – though you must like rice to get a filling meal there.. Anyway, all in all, we were delayed about an hour on our road trip.. Then, we got lost and spent about half an hour finding the exit from London.. *Then* we got stuck in traffic for nearly 2 hours.. Once that was done, road trip was fantastic! Beautiful greenery the whole way (while there was light), wonderful pit stop stations with *everything* – including some books and a tourist attraction free magazine for Ireland – and decent food.. We had a great time driving to Holyhead.. Then again, we planned on getting here (Holyhead) at about 9-10PM – and actually entered our B&B at midnight.. As far as I can tell, it’s a nice B&B.. Fairy Lodge in Holyhead. (Yes, for those of you who haven’t noticed, I *do* market *everything* I come across!)

So far, now that most of the hysteria has passed, this trip has been great. My man is wonderful and I love him like mad (even when he doesn’t let me sleep!) Once we get some form of internet connection, I should be able to let you know more (and more frequently..)

Love you all and miss some of you badly! Hope you’re all having fun, that those of you who are fasting have a good fast and that you’re all taking care of yourselves..

Hugs!
Karen

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 23:43 and is filed under Ireland - אירלנד, Tourism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.