ireland-starting out

Two for the Road (I thought you had the map!)

So my son and I decided that we really wanted to see Ireland, and we had not had a vacation in, oh, ten years, so now was as good a time as any. Well, now what? We have a destination but what did we want to see, how long should we go for, should we try to drive, it is our first international trip-what do we pack, and how would we even begin to start a trip like that? Time to hit the bookstore!

Friends and family recommended going to a travel agent, looking on-line through the travel websites, and several people suggested taking a tour, but honestly my son and I just are not that structured. We got to talking about a few of the things that we really wanted to see, and we had picked up a couple of guidebooks and a few maps at the bookstore. Well, they speak English there, and it is a relatively small country, perhaps we really did not need to plan that far ahead? Maybe we could just kind of ‘arrive’ and see what whim might take us once we got there. The more I pondered this idea, the more I liked it! I hate planning, so the appeal of just striking out on an adventure with no schedule, no timetable, and no pre-set course began to grow on me. At first my son, who is far more goal oriented than I, was a bit less enthusiastic, so I arranged a compromise. I would book us in and out of Dublin, so at least the first and last days we knew what we were doing and where we were staying, but then the rest of the time we could improvise. After all if the worst came to worst, we could always sleep in the rental car that I smartly booked at the same time as our flight.

Good plan!

The myriad of people that I spoke to of our trip sort of shook their heads, with an expression somewhere between ‘wow, that is brave.’ And ‘gee what a lunatic.’
So here is the story of our adventure, two for the road. (Driving on the wrong side, in a mini-car the size of a matchbox, no deadlines, no reservations, just our wits, Gaelic street signs, and oh yeah, did you bring the map?! No, I thought you had it! Oh, boy!)