Chapter 2-Mom said......The Journey Begins

I hope I can get through this chapter without falling asleep. While Sam was typing his, I managed to drift off several times. Once waking myself up as I dropped the remote to the TV I was holding. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Let me go back to where my adventure actually begins. I get to go see my family! I flew out to Wisconsin on Tuesday. I packed Monday night, so I had the potential of working on Monday. I think I did fairly well, but I will admit I was so excited for this journey to begin; it was very hard to focus at work. I had my daughter give me advice on packing and she claims I am hopeless. With my comments about not caring about the cloths not being important to me, I was trying to pack half my closet! She made me take some cloths out and leave them home. This turns out to be totally hilarious to everyone later. After getting to the airport plenty early, I was dismayed to find my checked luggage was 2 pounds overweight. After quickly pulling out a pair of jeans and my Bears hoodie, I was under and was ready to go to the security area. Did I mention I was early to get to the airport? When I got up to the security area, there was no one in line. After looking at the mouse maze you are supposed to go through to get to the front of the line and thinking about it for a second, I decided I was not going to be a mouse. I did what it took to get to the front of the line without running the maze. I could probably get in trouble with TSA for that, but even they weren't standing there, so I took matters in my own hands. Of course after I went to the head of the line, I had to stand there and wait for the TSA agents to get to their stations. At least I didn't feel like a fool for playing mouse in a maze for no reasons.

My flights all take off and land smoothly and I make it to Minneapolis without a hitch. Did I mention my suitcase is big enough for me to fit in if I needed to camp out for a time? Yes, it is huge and thanks to my daughter and the over weight problem at check in, it is now barely filled with clothes anymore. The look on the shuttle driver’s face when I brought my suitcase up to him to load was hilarious! He couldn’t figure out how little old me could lift that monstrous thing. It really isn't that heavy; just a little hard to handle to do the size.

My son Sam met me at the drop off point and brought me at my mom's house. My sister Nicole was there with my mom waiting for me at their house! It was so nice to see them and gave them a hug! I do miss my family, but really don't want to move to Wisconsin to be closer to them. I keep hoping maybe they will tire of the snow in Wisconsin and move back closer to me... My brother Mike came over with his two children and we all visited for a while. The kids had school the next day, so they could only stay for a short time. Everyone was kind of tired and Sam had to work the next day, so he left and we all went to bed. I slept well and got up fairly early the next day. I always get confused on the time change. It looked like I had slept in, but in reality had waked up closer to my regular time. I visited with my mom and sister, had breakfast, took a shower, and helped get some food ready for family dinner night. I knew I supposed to go to Sam's work and meet his co workers, so I went to go finish getting ready. I went to get my makeup and searched all over for it. I got to thinking I hadn't seen it. I texted my daughter to see if she was home. She asked why and I asked her to go look in bathroom and she if she saw my make up bags in there. She texts back, 20 pairs of jeans and no makeup! Lol.   Yep, I had managed to forget y make up. I didn't forget my passport, as my son had asked me six times of I was sure I had it, but  I managed to leave my make up behind. I took pity on Europe and had my sister make an emergency run to Wal-Mart to get me some kind of make up so I wouldn't scare Europe while I was there.

We did go to my son's work and I loved meeting everyone there. I can see why he enjoys his job so much! After we met everyone we went to lunch with my sister in law. It was good to see her. After that we went to see my niece’s art work which was chosen by her peers to be in an art show at the school administration office. That was special to see. After that, we had family dinner! My family is filled with goof balls! We get together and laugh and joke so much, it is a blast! I loved seeing my nieces, nephews, and everyone! We had too much food as usual, but that is just part of my family. We just usually make enough to feed an army! 1since it is on a Wednesday night and Sam and I were leaving the next day and most others have work or school, we made it a fairly early night. Sam took me to my mom’s house so we could get my bags, as I was staying with him at his house that night. I had to say goodbye to my mom and sister and I always hate to do that. We went to Sam's house to pack. I'm not sure how he thought I was qualified to help him pack. I don't think he was paying attention to my fiasco at my packing for the trip!

We didn't get to bed very early, but had no trouble getting up in the morning! It was finally here. All the planning (my son had created a typed itinerary complete with maps and put together in a binder and labeled by day), all the excitement, waiting, and dreaming, and we have finally arrived at the day! We had to make a few quick stops and we were on our way to the airport! It seemed to take forever to get there, but we made it early and with time to play! Sam gave me a tour of the airport and then we played on the moving sidewalks and trams. Yes, I'm easily entertained! It's fun to people watch in airports. You can meet many interesting people. The flight to Chicago was smooth and easy. Then we got to Chicago. We had to find our terminal and tried to follow the signs. We did not realize we were going to leave the airport and take a tram to another terminal, thus leaving the secure area and having to go through security again. And this was international security. The lines where long and we didn't have much time to begin with. It was a little nerve racking, but Sam and I knew there were several others in those endless lines that were on our flight to begin with. We had got put in the shorter line at the beginning, but somehow the law of averages seems to catch up with you. The line turned out to be the slowest line. It barely moved. At one point I saw some people getting to go to the front of the line and heard them say there were flying to Dublin. I yelled we were headed there and we got to go through the rest of security quickly and made our flight on time. 

It was your typical big plane to go overseas and was complete with the token screaming babies. These babies tend to drive Sam crazy, but I tend to feel sorry for the parents. Sam and I got to sit next to each other in a two seat row. We watched a movie to get us in the mood (like we weren't already?) for our adventure. I did try to sleep on the plane, but it just wasn't that easy and the flight was only about 7 hours and they served both dinner and breakfast on that flight. I dozed a couple of times, but didn't get much sleep. Sam had tried as well, but he didn't have much luck either. We were excited and wanted to get on with our adventure. We landed and had to go through the normal security checks and there were long lines. By then, we figured we were here and didn't know if we were going to get to check in to our hotel early anyhow. It was only around 5 in the morning in Dublin. We picked up our luggage and found our way to a taxi. I was a little dismayed that our taxi driver just wasn't that talkative. I tried to have a conversation with him, but he really wasn't that talkative. Ssometimes you can find some really interesting things out from taxi drivers. This wasn't one who would share any secret gems we should see while we were here.

When we got to the hotel, which is located in a great location, we were lucky and allowed to check in early. We got in our room, took a shower and changed clothes and away we went. I have to say Dublin is a beautiful city. It is incredibly green here and spring has been here for some time. There are flowers everywhere. Trees have leaves and lawns are being mowed as they are green and growing. Dublin has an interesting mix of both old and modern architecture. Our first foray was just to walk around and take in the sights and sounds nearby. We had discovered that on Good Friday, the bars are closed. We were very tired, but determined to keep going as long as possible. We found the river Liffey and took some pictures on the Hay Penny Bridge. We started following Sam’s itinerary and went to find Trinity College. It took some doing to navigate for a little bit, but Sam remembered that the street signs are located on the buildings not on the street corners. I was too busy just looking around. It is a little weird to see the exact same stores here, as we have back home. There are a few different ones, but I think that they have more McDonalds and Burger Kings then the states do. They have the same clothing stores here as well, but I was not here to shop for clothes. I love looking at the old buildings and seeing how they were built. It is interesting to see how they tried to tie in newer buildings in with the older ones. We walked around the beautiful campus of Trinity College. We were going to go see the Book of Kells, but found out the building was on shortened hours due to Good Friday. We then went to find the National Museum and National Library, but they were closed all day due to the holiday=y. I was thankful for the beautiful weather. It was blue skies and warm weather. We found a beautiful park called St Stephen's Green. We spent quite a bit of time there relaxing and people watching. We went to St Stephen's Shop. It is a beautiful building with tons of shops nested in it. We decided to go to Guinness and Jameson's on Monday or Sunday as they were closed today. Sam was very good at adapting to the changes we had to make. We are so exhausted due to the fact we have had little to no sleep in 24 hours. I doubt I'm even making sense anymore. We did go back to Trinity College and wait in line to see the Book of Kells. The exhibit is impressive and you learn what the monks had to go through to recreate these writings. They really were good at tedious work and some were very creative. Most of the embellishments are never recreated in any other work they do again. I was far more interested in the Trinity College Library and The Long Hall. This is a massive long building filled with old books. You can't touch these books due to the fragility of them, but to see all of them and stories tall, complete with the ladders to reach the higher rows. The ceiling had been redone and now has a barrel vaulted ceiling   and it is beautiful. Marble busts are lined up and sown wither side and most of these are hundreds of years old. All in all it was a very cool library.

At this point we are beyond tired and need to sit down. We went back to St Stephen's Green and sat in the grass and relaxed. When we decide we were going to doze off, we decided to go eat and call it a day. We walked miles and did everything we could do on this holiday and have a long day tomorrow. So we ate a burger at Bulley (I think that is the right name) Cafe" went to a grocery store and got some food for morning and came back here to the hotel. We will post pictures if they will ever finish being sent to our email. I am so tired I can't see straight, but I am having the best time! Until tomorrow!