The Emerald Isle.

We finally were able to depart Philadelphia at 12:30am, 3-1/2 hours late, still the waiting time passed reasonably quickly due to a very funny and entertaining departure lounge hostess. This black lady had a wicked sense of humour and the delay announcements she made from time to time were definately not out of the procedure manual. As the flight got airborne, believe it or not, everyone was offered a full meal - at 12:55am. Obviously the inflight procedure calls for a meal to be served upon departure - irrespective of the time of day.
Gail and I declined the meal and settled down to get some sleep on the six hour flight across the Atlantic to Ireland. Sleep was disturbed by the arrival of daylight after about four hours and the increased activity this brought. The five hour time change meant that it was around 11:30am Sunday when we landed at Shannon. Ireland from the air is a perfect patchwork of small squares in all shades of green, seperated by dark green strips of hedges, a really beautiful sight. The Irish are very laid back when it comes to customs procedures, we simply passed through imigration, collected our luggage and walked free. Our rental car - a Chevrolet Kalos, 1.6 litre 4 door manual sedan. Although it seemed quite small after our Chev Impala in the States, it is quite adequate and certainly more suited to the very narrow country lanes of Ireland. We drove north to Galway where we had originally planned to stay overnight, but found a massive parade under way so decided to continue on to th!
e Connemara Peninsula and the township of Clifden. Located a nice B&B, then looked around the township. Monday we continued north through Westport and Castlebar to Sligo where we spent some time in a small church yard - the resting place of W.B.Yeats, the Irish poet. A little further on we booked into another B&B near Grange. Tuesday we passed through Donegal, Strabane, into Northern Ireland and on to Londonderry then Coleraine on the north eastern tip of Ireland, where we had lunch and a lovely walk around this very pretty town. Then south via Dungannon and Armagh to Newry. We elected to bypass Belfast as the size of this city and the lack of accurate signposting makes it difficult to find your way out. Besides we felt we had a good taste of Northern Ireland towns and cities from those mentioned above. Another lovely B&B on the outskirts of Newry, still in Northern Island is our overnight for Tuesday. Dinner at a nearby country pub, called Murphy's of course. The scenery t!
hroughout Northern Ireland is extremely pretty, set off by the lush gr
een fields and colourful flowerbeds and pots everywhere. A very confusing factor at present is the change in currency. Initially we were in the Republic Of Ireland where the currency is the Euro. then we crossed in Northern Ireland where because of the British presence, the currency is the Pound Sterling, then tomorrow back into IRA territory and Euro again. The notes are ok but the coins are very similar, therefore it's a case of Euro in the left pocket, Pounds in the right or whatever. Tomorrow we intend to visit the Wicklow Mountains and generally stick to minor back roads on our way to Dublin County, then onto Wexford on Thursday for a few days of mahem with our Irish friends, Florrie & Jack O'Leary and Renee & Thomas Cleary. We are really looking forward to catching up with them all.
Kevin & Gail.
www.alaska-2006.blogspot.com

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