We Have Lift Off
WE ARE DOWN TO THE WIRE. We take off tomorrow for a very long day of travel…waiting…more travel and a landing in Dublin at 8:30 AM local time in Ireland. Then comes the not so much fun part of our trip – getting the rental car and relearning to drive on the left side of the road in a car with the wheel on the right side. (There will be moments of screaming for the first twenty minutes.)
Our first destination will be in the town of Enniscorthy. We will have it to ourselves for the first few days until “The Cousins” arrive from anchorage, Alaska. Then we morph into tour guides/relatives. Our first attraction to show them will probably be a Tesco Extra supermarket – a true sight to behold with the 37 different flavors of Potato Chips (Crisps) and to join us in the Applesauce Hide and Seek Treasure Hunt in the store.
We have landed! We arrived in Dublin, picked up our rental car (A KIA Sportage) and almost immediately got lost. Dublin is a big City, founded by Vikings and not designed for modern traffic. The streets are crowded and everyone drives as if they are late for their own funeral.
Dawn does all of the driving here. With the cars all right hand drive and the traffic moving on the left me being totally right handed this part of Irish Life is not made for me.
Eventually my Navigator skills got us on the proper road and we headed south, away from Dublin, into the countryside on some wonderful and modern highways. The American Interstate System could learn a few things from these Irish Highways.
Our first week is in Enniscorthy in County Wexford. Our rented house is outside of town on a lonesome looking country road. We stopped along the way to buy groceries and a few amenities so we will not starve in our own personal famine.
When we arrived at the house we were greeted by two cats that do not, according to the contract, come with the house. That’s a good thing because Dawn is not a “Cat Person.” While we were unloading the car the cats got into the house and we spent twenty minutes herding them out of the front door. Now it has become a challenge for us to go in and out of the house without having the cats get back into the house. We have also had to get one of them out of the car itself.
After just one day in Enniscorthy I have decided that the town is a perfect model of the Human Bloodstream. The very narrow and twisting streets are clogged with cars like corpuscles that never stop moving through the veins and arteries. Parked cars on both sides of the streets threaten complete blockage at any moment, The town is in a constant traffic jam in all directions. Farming villages that become bigger towns just can’t handle the traffic.
Our journey has just begun and I’m sure that as we become more acclimated everything will become calmer, less frantic, and more like the Ireland we have enjoyed in our past visits.
Down the Hall on Your Left 