Continued from Kilkenny Day 2.

I woke up at 5am this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep until hours later. Needless to say, I missed breakfast. RL did have breakfast and there were a lot of other guests staying at our B&B so I didn’t feel bad for missing breakfast today.

Last day of driving in Ireland!!! Everyday of driving here is stressful, so I am happy to be turning the car back in. Photo taken on the way to Dublin. We’ve driven for 32 hours already since the start of the trip!!

This part of Ireland looks almost like Texas. Loving the freeways over here, I feel like I am back in America.

Winter is coming.

TXFM, ha, it’s reminding us of home.

Of course, the drive wouldn’t be complete without some traffic due to road construction.

That’s kind of an odd slogan.

In about an hour and a half of kind of bland scenery, we’ve reached the area around Dublin airport. Thus begins the diesel fiasco that took us 30 long minutes to fill up our tank. We visited one pay at the pump station, and my card was refused….that’s never happened before on this trip. Visited yet another unattended gas station, and my card was also refused. So, I asked for assistance, and the guy told me that gas pumps sometimes don’t like American credit cards….fuck. I was then given really vague instructions on where to find a gas station where I could pay the attendant…

The gas station is located just outside of the airport…seemed easy enough. Except!! In order to reach the gas station, you’ve got to go into the airport and pass through the terminals and make a giant loop. Why is this so difficult?

Of course, the first time we turned the wrong way, thinking that we found a more direct route, which led us to a parking garage. Let’s try again, this time we are taking the long slow route…sigh.

Yes, finally!!! This was way too difficult. We could see the gas station from the entrance to the airport, but these damn one way streets gave us no way to enter it. Ugh!!! Now, I need to remember to put diesel in the car…I had a nightmare the other night where I accidentally put a gallon of gas in the car and ruined the engine….

Then of course, getting out of the gas station is another convoluted way out. Terrible road designs here.

Dropped off the car!! We drove 2052km which is 1275 miles!! Not too bad for 2 weeks of driving, and that’s with some days where we barely drove or not at all. I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of the final number of hours that we drove in the car, but I calculated it to be just a bit under 35 hours!!

The Seat Leon(Seat version of the mk 7VW Golf) car treated us pretty well this trip. We weren’t one of the narrower cars on the road, so sometimes the narrow roads were dicey, but with the upgrade in car size, we also got a larger engine for passing. Car handled very well and I felt very confident driving it.

Took the Hertz shuttle back to the airport. Here we’ll catch a bus into the city.

Bus was here waiting for us when we got dropped off by the Hertz shuttle.

Hey driver, KNEEL FOR ME!!!

Pretty packed ride.

Of course, it starts raining. I guess at least we are staying dry in the bus.

30 minutes or so later, we’ve arrived in Dublin. They also have these sidewalk skylights like they do in Seattle. The glass also turned purple here!

How nice, our bus dropped us off right across from our hotel(hiding behind those trees).

Short check in line, but took forever.

Pretty small room, but it’ll do. It’s got a desk and actually enough floor space to store our backpacks, unlike our super small room in Amsterdam. This is what $143 a night gets you in a pretty good location within walking distance to nearly everything in Dublin.

Small room, but the shower is normal sized, cool.

The window looks out into an uninspiring courtyard. I am happy to announce that our room has AC. Almost none of the rooms that we stayed in during this trip had AC. That itself wouldn’t have been a big issue since the temperature is cool outside, except now that we are in Ireland and we are getting attacked by Giant Spiders!! AC means the windows can stay shut! Yay!

Time to walk around and get some lunch. We are famished.

Spire of Dublin.

Weather isn’t too great. It’s drizzling.

Is that a full can of beer rolling down the sidewalk?

Found our lunch spot. Recommended by RL’s family friends, who have lived in Ireland for 7 years now.

Bread with paper thin slices of cured pork fat. This was very good.

RL’s dish, something with ground rabbit.  This was also very good.

The food was excellent. It’s so authentically Italian, even down to our Italian server who, in typical Italian fashion, embellished everything to be “very very special” or “the very best.” It was only a small embellishment because this meal was indeed very very good.

I started fading halfway through lunch. I am so tired from driving in this morning, I just need to go take a nap. We decided before showing up to Dublin that we’d like to make our stay in this city mostly about eating. None of the attractions that we researched for Dublin really appeals too much to us. So far, 1 for 1 on finding excellent food.

I want!

Doesn’t it look like the sightseeing bus drawing is giving you the finger?

It’s raining, perfect for a nap…We discovered that the walls in our hotel are paper thin during our nap. Our nap was constantly interrupted by people talking in the hall way, slamming their doors shut, and our next door neighbors talking. I expected thin walls at a B&B, but not thin walls here in a more corporate styled hotel. What a let down.

Woke up after fitful nap by our ridiculously loud neighbors, it’s time to get ready to head out for dinner. We made a reservation at The Winding Stairs for 8:45pm. This restaurant came recommended from JB, who was here in Dublin 2 weeks ago and it was also on the list that RL’s friends sent us.

Not sure why I didn’t realize this before, but we were doing some inventory on our cash and realized that the Sterling in Northern Ireland vs. the UK are issued and printed differently.

Ugh, it’s raining. Man’s gotta eat, so gotta brave the rain for some dinner.

Rain rain rain.

Here, and out of the rain.

Good thing we made a reservation, this place is hopping.

I love lively restaurants such as this one. There are nice restaurants that are hush hush and quiet, then there are lively nice restaurants such as this. This is more my style.

Still raining outside.

Some Irish craft beers. The craft beer craze has yet to engulf Ireland although it is starting to become a thing here.

Seafood chowder!!! This is a little different than the seafood chowder from Out of the blue in Dingle, but it’s just as good!!! Sooooo delicious!!

More local brew.

Hard to tell from the photo, but my ribeye was giant. It’s about a 16oz ribeye I’d say.

RL’s beef cheek was equally giant. Neither of us could finish all of our food. Just like the seafood chowder, our main courses were super delicious. 2 out of 2 on eating in Dublin!!! Yeah!!

After dinner, the rain had stopped, so we decided to go to Temple Bar and get a drink in that area right across the river.

This place is crowded, it’s Friday night. It feels like Dirty 6th in Austin over here. A lot of bachelor and bachelorette(they call them hen and stag) parties here. I think most of them are from the UK as we could hear their English accents.

The night was relatively young at 10pm, so most places were kind of empty. This place with live music was, for some reason, super crowded, so we followed the crowd here…can’t say I am the biggest fan of this. This feels just like Dirty 6th in Austin. Everyone seems to be eying each other for possible hook ups here…this is a meat market.

We stayed for one drink, realized that we are married and old, then left to go home to bed…yes, we are boring and lame. We’ve just traveled for too long to want to party hard, or party at all really.

After we got back to our hotel and got to bed, we were woken up by our super loud neighbors next door coming back from partying late in the night. They were a couple and they were having an argument inside their room….please, just shut up already and go to bed!!! This went on seemingly for an hour before things got quiet again. Dublin…great food, but not sure if you are for me…

To be continued at Dublin Day 2.