Not Luck of the Irish
Day 10
Bill and I went to the car park and brought the vehicle back to the hotel. We were able to get gas and drop the rental off before 8am. Bye Bye Tuscon and your Terrible navigation system and super chattiness about lanes, getting close to things, and not staying close enough to the vehicle ahead of you… UGH!
I bought my Glasgow Starbucks mug and a drink and join Sheila, Doug, and Bill at the restaurant outside of security because we can’t check in until 10am. The breakfast pizza looked great and Sheila won her second game of Bitch Rummy.
We had no issues going through security and then had a wait in another area until just before our departure and then we could go to our gate. We spend our last pounds buying water, coke, beer, and snacks.
Everyone had a nap on the plane except Doug. We landed on time but then had to take a shuttle to the terminal, then wait for our baggage, then the rental computer was down, so we waited for the shuttle to get to the main rental sight, watched a bunch of people jump in line ahead of us, were helped by a lovely agent Robbie, finally got our rental, Seat Ateca, and headed out… only to get stuck in traffic behind an accident on the M50.
We landed at 1:15 and left the airport at 3:30. UGH!
The rest of the drive to Ballinspittle was uneventful. The views in Ireland along the highway are not as spectacular as Scotland so far because of the walls and lots of trees but the straight, wide, 120km/hour speed limits, and well-paved roads are greatly appreciated. Especially since I am now one of the drivers.
That luxury ended when we got off the highway and I had my first taste of driving on narrow roads with a manual Seat Ateca (mid-size SUV) on the wrong side of the road.
We ended up arriving a bit early for our reservation and they did not have room for us, so we had our first pints of Guinness at the bar across the road at Hurley’s.
Our meal at the Wild at Cork restaurant was really good. The young servers were a bit disorganized but everyone was very friendly and attentive. We enjoyed the pork belly, Sheila loved the lobster and Doug loved the sticky toffee pudding.
I handed the keys over to Bill to get us safely to our hotel, River Lee, in Cork in the rain & dark. He did good! We had a nightcap in the hotel lounge and were in bed by midnight.