Erin's Green Shamrock Shore

bhruacha seamróige glas erin ar

Erin's Green Shamrock Shore

We had our first glimpse of the Irish shoreline about 9:15am from our airplane window (with any luck we'll be able to post photo tomorrow). This first look at Ireland was preceded by a technicolor sunrise in shades of orange, pink, and maroon. Spectacularly beautiful (ditto on this photo).

We are also spectacularly tired. It was a long and cramped flight even with the extra leg room and extremely fortunate bulkhead seats. A plus for leg room but a minus for not being able to recline our seats.

We have had a problematic start due technical issues. Mike's phone and the iPad headed south as we headed east. We have unraveled some of the problems but a trip to the Apple Store on Grafton St is in the plan for tomorrow.

Kate got her sim card for her phone but the shop ran out of minute credits(?????) so it's off to Vodaphone tomorrow to get some minutes. Between these two trips we might actually get to see some sites.

As we are sitting here in the hotel lobby typing this blog posting because wifi is out in all the rooms here (of course it would be out, is it technical?) there are several hundred boisterous Trinity College students in the street outside waiting to get into a club for cheap drinks. Our room is in the back of the hotel - hurrah for that!
Kate

3-2-1 Launch

Táimid ar ár mbealach

(We're on our way)

Travel Day is here. With a stop and brief layover at JFK (New York) the trip should take just over 13 hours. No meals on the first leg, but we do have a served meal on the JFK-Dublin leg. You've gotta love overseas travel. (The same pattern applies to the return with a meal on Dublin-JFK and crackers on JFK-SAN).

We've each got a pair of compression socks (recommended for any long sitting period, especially air travel.) So now our legs will be as compressed as our bodies in Delta's tin can.

Our friend Lucille in Dublin sent instructions for how to get our phones set up in Dublin. She says, "Get a local SIM card, probably best to get it at the airport, and phone the provider (O2's the biggest, then Vodafone; 3 and Meteor don't have good coverage so avoid them) to set up iMessage if you're using an iPhone. Be careful of data usage; you get a certain amount (250MB usually, but make sure you know) free per month, but if you go over that, for instance by using Skype, it's very, very, very, very, very dear." Thank you, Lucille!

And another thanks to Google Translate for providing the Irish equivalent of our post headlines. You didn't really think we'd learned Gaelge already, did you? And especially, a big Thank You to Mary and Eddy who've been there from the minute the idea for this trip appeared. It's armed with their love, books, and maps that we set forth on this adventure.

We want to thank all of you for your wishes for safe travel and a special thanks to Tamara for feeding the cats and to Roy & Suleka for limousine service this morning.

MM