Day 0 and Day 1 – August 4th-5th, 2014
Taking the red-eye was a good idea in theory. My parents dropped us off at the airport much earlier than needed so we started the trip at an airport bar. We took the 6pm out of Charlotte and headed to JFK. We grabbed a bite to eat at JFK and walked around a little and around 11:30pm we boarded the plane to Ireland. Apparently sleeping on planes isn’t as easy as it sounds. The bumps from turbulance, the flight attendants, and the people around me all made for poor sleep. After only a few hours of sleep we landed in Shannon, Ireland at 11am (6am EST), grabbed a snack, and hopped on the shuttle to pick up the rental car.
After a little confusion about the rental car we were on our way. And almost immediately we started having some hiccups. The GPS would not stay on unless someone held it and gave the driver directions. Which really meant I had to hold it while my cousin drove because she get car sick. Then the car would randomly cut off while sitting at stop lights or stop signs. After a call to the car rental place (I’ll get to the real reason for the call later.) we discovered the car was supposed to turn off. It was some kind of econo-feature to save gas or some crap. It just would have been nice if the lady at the rental car place had mentioned it when she gave us the keys.
Leaving Shannon we headed north and made a quick stopped at Ennis Friary. This was the first historic site we got to see and being the first, it really was amazing. Once we finished up at the Friary we continued north toward Doolin. The closer we got to Doolin the roads became scarier with each mile. The roads on the west coast of Ireland are narrow and typically do not have a shoulder. What they do have on the side of the roads though are stone wall about 2.5-3 feet high.
Once we made it to Doolin it took us a while to figure out how to get to the Rainbow Hostel. Ireland also does not use street signs in many places, and when they do, they are not easy to read. Because of this we ended up driving around in circles a few times. The last time we encountered an oncoming car. So, oncoming car + narrow road + rock wall = flat tire. A rock from the wall caught the front tire and ended up causing a flat. Luckily we were able to limp to the hostel.
Once there we not able to check in because the people that ran the hostel were not there. We ended up walking down the street to a pub and got some dinner at McDermott’s Bar where I had my first Irish meal of Fish and Chips. When we got back to the hostel we changed the tire and were finally able to check in. The hostel owners were nice enough to bump us up to the BnB located beside the hostel. It was around 6pm by this point and Jessica crashed and slept through the night and after making a few phone calls I was not far behind.