Ireland travel thoughts and photos: Days one and two -- Egad

Glen's travel diary

Near Disaster!

11 July SeaTac and Chicago

Somehow neither of us brought our billfolds.
Every credit card and Glen's drivers license are at home! We have our passports.
We have photocopies(!!) of our credit cards and Glen's drivers license,
(and passports ...).
Janet has her license, but probably won't drive.
Glen has his international drivers license only.
We have in cash $30 and €100. We have travel food.
We have phones.
We have Janet's sister Nancy.
We have plane reservations.
We have a (new) plan.
Off we go as far as we can get.
Egad.

Our inauspicious start continues: someone is sitting in my seat.
His ticket and mine both match the seat he is seated in.
They find him another seat but a whole lotta drama is going with us it seems.
One more phone call just before take-off.
The flight is fine.

First stop Chicago O'Hare, about 2:30 pm Central Time.
Here we are on the phone again with Nancy and I traverse the airport trying to find solutions.
Also on the phone with the bank. Is there a bank in the airport and will it cash a check?
(Although I left behind the plastic, I DID bring my nearly useless checkbook. Reason to hope?) The answer (No) takes at least 30 minutes and many distant stops to learn.

I do take some cool photos, (a full Brachiosarus, Wm O'Hare's WWII plane); these will be lost next week, but other people post photos from O'Hare too.

Brachiosaurus at O'Hare, from Wikimedia commons

Nancy gives Janet details for our arrival in Ireland: she is wiring money and express mailing our cards.

I have located the departure gate a loong ways from our arrival. We have time, (one thing in our favor),
and they have transport -- oversized electric golf carts.
We use two freight elevators and travel in a pedestrian tunnel (like everyone else) under a runway.

Ohare pedestrian tunnel, from Wikimedia commons

We depart for Shannon after 70 minute tarmac delays.
For takeoff I have to change chairs, because my chair won't stay upright and locked.
I return after takeoff, and keep my mouth shut for landing. The computer screen also doesn't work.
Read write sleep eat fidget. Again. 7 hours.
We watch (on Janet's screen) a map that updates the trip -- Newfoundland, Greenland, Atlantic, Ireland.
We also watch distance and speed. The pilot makes up time, full out over 600 mph. Arrive next day.

12 July -- Shannon Airport and Limerick about 8:00 am Ireland, midnight Olympia.
How did we get here and where do we go next? Entry is smooth enough -- we have passports.
But Hertz, though kind and fairly sympathetic, is also flabbergasted that we can arrive with photocopies only. Ultimately it is agreed that the if we pay the supplemental insurance in cash (the part of the agreement not paid in advance) we can get the car. This will not be today.

So we sit, collect ourselves and take a Taxi to Castletroy hotel.
Our driver is funny, informative, takes us through Limerick to show us sights on our way to our hotel on the far other side of town (the location seemed a good choice WHEN we had a rental car).

Here again we have to charm ourselves through our self-imposed mini-disaster.
The hotel staff (Travelodge Castletroy) is very kind, helpful in our predicament. First they agree to accept our payment without an actual card, only our copies and previous online reservations.
On top of this the VERY kind manager drives me to the nearest Western Union / Post and waits while we get the cash through Nancy. Thank You Paul!!

The staff give us our room WAY early - 10 am or so. Because I slept on the plane I am doing ok.
But, we are disoriented. Ireland is 8 hours ahead and so it is the wee hours back home.
Electricity, water spigots, phone, money, measurements, terminology, accents: all different here.
Ground floor is 0 (zero) floor but in the states we call it 1st floor, (and so on).
And ... there is this money thing.

Janet crashes. I last until afternoon getting money, buying a phone, etc. then I also crash for 2 hrs.
are loaned one of the last portable fans in the hotel (NO a.c. in Ireland).
The fan barely holds on, but it saves us:
The fan and a window that opens, a hall door we prop ajar, and a very pleasant fairly cool ground floor cafe with ice and tasty light fare.

Come night we watch Irish tv, sleep on separate beds in our street clothes, under a sheet if that.

The hotel is almost new and yet barely holding on -- above us are two unfinished floors and apparently an unused conference center that crowns this building, in an area abandoned mid-boom.

A small shopping mall nearby is dwarfed by an abandoned new intention rusting and rotting before halfway built -- a modern relic, an Irish shopping cathedral lacking only ivy, moss, and tour guides.

I wrote that the area needs a rebel artist with a purpose and a sense of humor. What do you know, turns out there are some visionary artists.

The first photo is of the abandoned mall project. The second photo is one of several photos which show off the billboard's vision of something better.

Urban Tree Project