Ireland

Travel Day

Just for a change, we decided to fly late in the day to see how that would work out, and we loved it.  Having departed Regina at 4:00 pm we were on a great plane to Toronto, the E90, which took less than 3 hours.  Then we had a 4 hour wait in Toronto because we are cheapskate travellers and would not take the two earlier flights to London Heathrow.  We saw the mob lined up for both of those flights; whereas, our flight at midnight on the 77L had tonnes of empty seats.  Obviously, nobody wants to fly out so late, so we had three seats for ourselves and some lucky people had four seats to themselves and they took advantage of the room.

The 77L has been totally revamped so the lighting, seats and the entertainment system are all new and much improved.  I caught about an hour of sleep, as I could actually lie down on two of our seats.  The food remains to be rather horrid, it is always chicken or pasta on every flight we take with Air Canada.  The chicken tastes synthetic, especially after we had previously dined on our own chicken that we raise.  We have learned to pack our own food and we take enough to last the flight day.

It is crazy that we flew right over Dublin while enroute to London, but I didn’t want to take Rouge to Dublin, which most people absolutely hate.  However, we are going to suffer through Rouge on the return as we are rather desperate to catch the early evening flight to Regina this time, after having missed it the last two years due to late departures in Europe, which necessitated an additional 6 hour wait in Toronto, and a very late arrival in Regina.

We took the Irish airline Aer Lingus from London to Dublin after a two hour wait in London, the plane was packed.  The Aer Lingus flight attendants wear lovely green outfits and the planes are green and white with a shamrock painted on the tail.  We were so tired on the flight to Dublin, that we kept dozing off, although the seats were really uncomfortable and leg room is fairly tight.

Upon arrival in Dublin, the terminal was dead, so we retrieved our luggage straight away and then wandered outside to catch the airport bus to the city centre.  Thankfully, there is free WiFi on the bus, so we could message our Airbnb host to keep her updated on our whereabouts.  She met us at our bus stop and gave me a big hug right away, the Irish are so friendly, it is shocking.

After we got the necessary details regarding gate codes and keys and whatnot, we headed for Tesco, a British grocery chain, to get a SIM card and some groceries.  Getting the SIM card literally took us seconds.  No handing over of passports and no assorted problems with SIM cards that don’t actually work, as was the case in Spain.  We were shocked at this, as we had forgotten how easy things are in Scotland and Ireland, it also helps immensely, that we can babble on and be understood.

It is really cool in Dublin, rainy and windy.  By the time we headed out to Tesco, it was dark, but I had a google map printed so we could easily find our way.  We came home and had some tea, then drank some crappy wine and cooked dinner.  Now, we are completely bagged and have to retire to bedlam.  Tomorrow, we plan on a mad dash around Dublin, as we only have one day here before we get a car and take off.