Traveling to Dublin

My mother made me promise to take a trip to Ireland. Thanks Mom. We made it to Dublin.

We got to the Buffalo airport plenty early on that Monday afternoon around 5 pm but found out the boarding time was changed to 6:30.  There was a scheduled two hour layover in Philly before flying on to Dublin. Unfortunately our flight out of Buffalo was delayed by two and a half hours. Our plane was coming from somewhere else and had some weather issues. We finally boarded and took off for Philly which was only about a 45 minute flight. We got to Philly where our plane to Dublin was boarding at 8:15. We had to run through the airport and grab a shuttle in order to make our connecting flight to Dublin which was scheduled to leave shortly. We arrived at the gate just as the end of the boarding line was getting on the plane. This was about 8:30 pm. We were already exhausted.

It was a six hour flight to Dublin and I got little or no sleep. It was a large plane and we were located in the middle row towards the back. There was a nervous teenager in the seat in front of us that kept biting on a plastic bottle the entire flight while his sister sat there playing video games and movies all night.

We arrived in Dublin and because of the time difference it was 9:30 am. We also found out our luggage was still in Philadelphia and had not made it on our Dublin flight. We learned it would soon be on the way to London and then transferred to Dublin. The airline promised we would have our luggage by 1 pm the following day.

We had a problem going through customs in Dublin and there was a large crowd from several arriving planes that converged on the customs area at the same time. There was a customs line forming at the top of an escalator and there were too many people going up the stairs. A pile up formed at the top of the escalator that kept bringing more people into the crowded area. Becky cut her hand on the escalator at the top of the stairs as people were squeezing into each other. There was almost a panic but then suddenly it cleared. Becky was bleeding while going through customs. She then went into a restroom and bandaged her hand.

We also realized we left our envelope of Euro cash at home so we had to get some cash at the airport kiosk. We couldn't find the Leap Card kiosk for the public transportation system.

We took a shuttle bus from the airport to our hotel but the bus dropped us off at the closest bus stop "The Point" about two blocks from the hotel. We had to walk along a not very pedestrian friendly street.

We got to the hotel and was able to check in right away with no waiting. We went upstairs to our room and collapsed on the bed for a nap. It had been a long day with still a long day to go and we were in Dublin, Ireland.

We stayed at the Gibson Hotel along the quay of the River Liffey. We found out later that the hotel was owned by Bono of U2 but that's another story.