We walked off the plane, did a little excited dance, took some phone pics of the plane and us on Irish land, and headed inside. The weather was great it was only about 5:15 pm and it was already dark, but it wasn't too cold and was not raining either :] Once inside the first thing we saw was a black sign that said disabled toilet and male toilet with arrows pointing in the right directions. On a totally separate bright yellow sign it said ladies toilet.We found it odd that there were separate signs for the different sexes and a totally different one for the disabled as well?
Then we went to a woman in a booth to check us in to the country, She asked for my passport and what I was doing in the country and all those questions. Shasta was checked through in about 30 seconds, my woman took her sweet time. She took a look at my passport pic and asked if that was me, I said yes, about 4 years ago. She looked at me with the most serious face and said "what happened? hmm.." then proceeded to type on her little computer. I have been here about 3 days now, and still cant figure out if that was Irish humor or just a rude comment? I know I probably looked a little rough after 12ish hours on a plane and not sleeping for over 24 hours, but I still don't think that was necessary. A man walked up to us as I was still waiting for her to approve me, and he had our bags already off the carousel for us. Not used to that kind of service!
Shast and I walked to the car rental place to see what the age was to rent a car, still 25. So we walked to the taxi/bus area, and the taxi drivers were all ready for us to come over towards them. Michael offered to take us to the Bed and Breakfast we had planned on staying at. Well somehow throughout the drive he convinced us that Ennis was the place to stay for the night, he said the night life was great and that it was closer to Limerick. After showing us around and kind of explaining little things like the price of petrol ($11 a gallon!) we arrived at a hostel that he suggested. He charged us a ridiculousss amount of money and was on his way. Come to find out we were ripped off, and went 25 minutes in the opposite way of Limerick. So instead of getting to Limerick in about 15 minutes from Shannon, it would be closer to an hour on a bus. Oh well, that's what we get for saying we were from America I guess.
Once in the Hostel we reserved a 10-bed dorm for 16 euro a piece (half the price we would have paid in Shannon, Thank you Michael! for one thing at least). We were lucky and got a room with 10 beds to ourselves, it is a slow time of year here in Ireland, so we did not get any roommates. We were so excited to shower and sleep. We set off little bombs in each of our bags and immediately our clothes were everywhere and we were walking down the hall to the bathroom.
The showers in this country are operated by a push button, so are the faucets. it stays on for about 30 seconds, before you have to press it again, I am assuming this is to conserve the water, but they have running water in the toilets, all of the time? The temperature of everything is in Celsius, come to find out 50 degrees Celsius will scald you (in case you were clueless like us). The sinks have a button with a red dot and one with a blue dot. The blue dot (supposed to indicate cold water) is actually pretty warm, and the red is scalding and stays on for like five seconds at a time.We have been learning everything by experience in this country for sure. After our shower we realized we were not as tired as we thought we were. So we asked Harmmony at the front desk what there was to do on a Friday night in Ennis. She suggested a few pubs that were going to have live music and good food. We were starving and that definitely sounded like what we wanted to do. We went upstairs to our room, still no roommates, and tried to plug the phones in and access the free WiFi the hostel offered only to find that our adapters were the wrong ones! (awesome, right?) So back downstairs we went to find out where to buy adapters for American plugs. She suggested Dunnes, and department store near Brogans (a pub).
We headed out, I think it was only 7pm, and we wanted to get to the store before it closed so we did not bring an umbrella or coat with a hood, and of course it started to rain (always learning the hard way when in Ireland) It stopped raining after about 2 minutes of walking, and still was not cold, luckily.
I did not know that men let out cat calls and blew kisses anymore at chicks walking down the street, but in Ireland it is very common. I found it uncomfortable a little, but Shasta soaked it all in :] A few older men said "wow" as we walked by, but most of them just kept their distance and blew kisses and forced too many winks at us.
We had to ask where Dunnes was ( I could not understand Harmmony when she told us the name and so I guessed and pronounced it as dunes or dunness- it's duns- I sounded like I was clearly from America). We finally found it and they were "out at the moment" of adapters. Everything else was closed so we went to Brogans restaurant a few doors down.
Brogan's was amazing! Shasta and I ordered our first legal alcoholic beverages-or should I say our first alcoholic beverages ;) I ordered Malibu and Lemonade, well in Ireland they have red or white lemonade and it is only carbonated (just my luck), Either way it tasted good. Shast ordered a Bud Light. For food, we went with something a little different but that we knew we would like. I got the seafood linguine (Ohmygosh!) and she ordered the Salmon. So great, we ate it all up! The couple next to us had been staring for a good 10 minutes at us, we felt so awkward, until they finally said something. They were a very nice couple, Michael and Tina. They gave us a lot of tips, activity and destination ideas, and numbers to call in case we ran into trouble or just had questions. They were sweet and go to the "states" about 3 times a year, so we had a lot to talk about. By the time we finished eating we were exhausted and could barely keep our eyes open, so we walked back to the Hostel about 10 minutes away- it poured the whole way back on us. We were glad to see no roommates when we returned, and fell right asleep.
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