8th – 10th June

Our 400am wakeup call was lovely, said no one EVER! But we got up, sorted ourselves out, hopefully did not wake up our hosts, drove to the airport, dropped off rental car, checked in, and relaxed. All by 530am J That, my friends, is a productive day!

We were flying with Swiss air and it had been a while since I had done that, I forgot how great they could really be. The flight was on time, efficient, and came with croissants. Dream trip really.

Our wonderful friend Gavin had offered to pick us up from the airport and take us to his family home. Where we will base ourselves over the next week or so.

Gavin, his lovely wife Sandra, and Sir Carter (age 5) live in Ruislip. These wonderful people offered us a place to stay, storage of baggage (no, not me you cheeky people), and airport transfers where possible. How god damn kiwi can you get!

At first I was concerned, would I recognise Gavin, it has been a wee while. But there is no mistaking that face! Massive hugs, relief to see him, still the same awesome dude I remember.

Gavin drove us our to his home where we lugged the bags up the stairs to our new accommodation, the lounge, poor people probably had no idea how much shite we were lugging around when they made the offer 😛

On the upside, dispensing of the chocolate and lollies I had bought over for the Honey family, definitely made the bags a bit lighter. Wahoo, room for more shopping! KIDDING, not…

We were both really tired from our late night and early morning so were not in a rush to do anything, at all, not a single thing. So we sat about the lounge talking shite and shooting the breeze.

Our stomachs eventually got the better of us and it was off to the local “greasy spoon” for lunch. Jason was especially excited by this idea, it had been a while since he had food he could pronounce and recognise!

Jason and Gavin indulged in the big breakfast whilst I settled for the bacon and egg sandwich. Delicious, hit the spot, we could have all napped I am sure.

The rest of the afternoon we prepared our suitcases for Dublin and Iceland, tried to organise ourselves bags so not to leave too much chaos in the Honey lounge, and decide what we wanted for dinner.

There was really only one option, for Jason – and I do owe him for his shopping patience, and that was curry. He was hanging out for a decent curry! Luckily there was a curry shop just down the road.

We suited up, essentially put on shoes, and headed out for dinner at around 600pm, 700pm Geneva time and our energy was waning. The restaurant was very quiet, but the only one in the area so we braved it and went in. The waiter, Pedro (strange Indian name, but that is what I am calling him) was very surprised when we said we wanted to eat in.

Quickly sorted and seated, onto YouTube to find background music, yelling to warn the kitchen of our arrival, we settled in for some food.

A good sign was the phone kept ringing with takeaway orders. Can’t be too bad then.

There was no saagwala, much to Jason’s disappointment, so he had to choose something new for him! Ohhhh, branching out on the Indian menu, but not really, he went with Chicken Rogan Josh. Essentially he ordered an Indian casserole. I opted for lamb dish, it sounded exotic and different so why not.

YouTube finally found the Indian background restaurant music channel so the ambience was set. The drinks came – wahoo. And we were left to our own devices.

After about 30 minutes the food arrived and it was lovely, the flavours were fantastic, enough to make Jason’s face sweat but he could still eat it.

We enjoyed our meal, got the leftovers as takeaway and went to pay the bill. As we ate in, paid in cash, it was 40% off! Yes really. Quite an inexpensive meal in the end BONUS.

We wandered the short distance back to the Honey Abode (I shall refrain from calling it a hive, yes I shall). Sandra was home from work and it was so great to see her and catch up. She had a massive exam the next day so we were all very sensible, except for Gavin, he was out partying ha, ha. Not really, but kind of J

The airbed was blown up, the blankets prepared, showers had, head pillow. Yet another early start tomorrow.

This time, Dublin.

Gavin, chauffer of the year, was driving us to Gatwick airport. God bless him.

Dublin and the Curry

Thanks to the amazing skills of our chauffer and his faithful steed we made it to the airport with lots of time to spare.

I had paid for priority check in and boarding. We are so over standing in queues, the ability to bypass them sounded irresistible. Our bags were checked in without an issue, we went through security with no issues, other than Jason’s bag getting a random check. Well, he can be random.

We were flying with Aer Lingus. When booking I added the priority check in, boarding, and lounge access. What I wasn’t aware of was the lounge access was only for Dublin not London, so we were out in the cold.

A touch hungry we went in search of breakfast. Jason found an amazing airport restaurant. I had spinach, salmon, and poached eggs, and Jason had eggs Montreal. The service was great, food SO TASTY, and price – well we won’t talk about that. But it was well worth it.

I had started to feel a bit queasy before breakfast so Jason had to have half of mine – he managed the hardship though. Good man.

Our flight was on time, exit seats with lots of room, nice service, and an easy flight into Dublin. Would definitely fly Aer Lingus again.

There was a stag party on the plane. They were quite entertaining. Snow White and her 20ish dwarves. These boys were partying. I did feel a little sorry for the groom to be, but only briefly. I am not sure what the boys had done to him, but he was the last to get on the plane, was not thrilled and they all just whistled “hi ho hi ho”, brilliant.

We arrived on time and, thanks to Gavin and his contacts, we knew we had to find the Green 747 bus to Dublin. Easy peasy, it was right outside the door, there was a lovely young man making sure everyone had tickets, their luggage was stored correctly, and everyone knew where they were going. Service A+. Return trip to the city 14 euro each.

The bus into town took around 1 hour, this was mainly due to the massive roadworks going on around Dublin. Every roundabout seemed to be under construction – a theme that continued throughout the entire city, buildings, railways, tram lines, everything.

We arrived at Heuston Train Station and walked the massive 210 meters to our accommodation the Ashling Hotel. Wow, wow, and double wow. Recommended! Stay there, service, food, rooms, location, everything. And the bed, the best bed we have encountered so far. You do not need to worry about roll-together! You only need to worry if you are still in the same timezone!

A quick unload of bags, orientation, gathering of maps, outlining of the major attractions and it was time to fill in the afternoon before the arrival of the much anticipated, Kylie Smith.

Out and About

Other than the construction and road works the second thing I noted about walking around Dublin is the crossing signals. Or the lack of them. It’s like an orchestrated game of chicken.

Half the streets appear not to have them and none of them seem to make any noise. So half the time you are unaware if you should actually cross unless you stare at them intently. Eventually you think “feck it” and just make a move anyway. Surely they wouldn’t run us over…

We had decided we would wander around, see the sights, and find a quiet place for lunch.

We crossed the river and walked towards the Guinness Storehouse – that place is freaking massive – and stumbled across one of the oldest pubs in Dublin (which is a claim they all seem to make…). The food options, stapled to the door, looked ok so in we went.

Holy shite! We were not entirely sure what we had walked into. There was a group of blokes taking up 50 percent of the bar, not a large space to be fair, and they were singing, chanting, laughing, and cheering! Ah well, it all adds to the experience right.

The bar tender, just the stereotypical bartender you want on your first outing in Dublin, was very nice. Apologised for the noise, and asked “what can I get you sweetheart” with the loveliest Irish accent.

We ordered drinks and food and continued to watch the hilarity happening with the blokes next to us. Turns out it was your standard Irish stag do, no costumes required for these boys.

Jason ordered the beef and Guinness stew with a pint of Guinness of course, and I ordered the Irish salmon salad with a glass of wine.

As we ate, the food was tasty and filling, we started to chat with some of the stag do boys.

They were playing several drinking games, which all came with a song of some sort, and they were downing pints of Guinness. Like skulling, chug, chug, finish it up.

One game consisted of dropping a coin in the other guys drink, if you could get away with it, that guy then had to empty his drink to rescue the queen from drowning, there was a song that went with it, but I cannot remember how it went. All very amusing.

Being the good sports that we are, and I just cannot help myself, I asked our new friends who the stag was. When he was duly pointed out, I said, well I could drop a coin in his glass on my way out.

They were ecstatic and quickly ordered another round even though they were ready to head off to their next location.

The stag had started to get a little protective of his glass so this was not going to be easy. My new friend Mike, I have chosen Mike for several reasons and it suits him well, passed me a coin and the plan was put into action.

Due to the stag being hyper vigilant, for a dude three sheets to the wind, Jason was to run distraction and I was to do the coin drop! So we gather our things and slowly make for the door. Jason says “mate, congratulations” and holds out his hand for the handshake.

Groom to be lets glass out of his site for 5 seconds and BOOM the coin is in. The rest of the stag boys, who had no idea about the plan we had hatched with Mike, launch into massive cheers, singing, and laughter.

The stag just cries “you bastards”.

As we leave the bar we turn and get a photo of the stag party cheering us out the door.

I love the Irish. I really do. We could hear them all the way down the road and around the corner.

Thanks Mike and friends, you made our day.

We continue with our site seeing and crowd dodging, keeping in touch with Kylie as she lands, gets on her bus, and heads to town to meet us.

We attempted to see a few of the key sites but most were covered with construction, or road works which really detracted from the beauty. However, we had a list and we stuck to it. Including the main shopping street Grafton.

Dublin is very deceptive, you do not realise how far you have walked. When Kylie said she was close we were still a good couple of kms before we were anywhere near our hotel. Time to pick up the pace. Quite necessary too as both Jason and I had very, very queasy stomachs – no details required. Do not try the curry, is our only thought.

Kylie arrived around 530 and we have drinks and nibbles in our hotel room. The intention was to go our exploring and find a place to eat, but instead we opted to eat at our hotel.

So glad we did.

The food was great, the service was so awesome, thank you Lauren (her actual name, I did not make that one up) for your attentive service and celebratory champagne.

I made the mistake of ordering the venison burger (damn it) which was nowhere near as good as home. Whilst Kylie and Jason ordered the steak, food envy for sure.

Back to the room for a nightcap. Kylie calls her uber and disappears into the night.

We prep for sleep, a big day tomorrow, driving to Killalea, exciting.

And climb into our bed that could also double as a barge!