Honeymoon in Ireland: Day 1

Shortly after Dooze and Kathy left Pittsburgh, Palu and I were packing up our stuff to enjoy our honeymoon and first vacation as newly-weds! We left Pittsburgh during the middle of a snow storm and started the trip dragging out luggage down the middle of the street in squirrel hill because the sidewalks were so covered in snow that the wheels on our luggage wouldn't move.  You know it was bad when a neighbor stopped their SUV to ask if we needed a ride somewhere!  We of course refused and moved on down the hill to the bus stop, only to have perfectly timed connections to the airport.  Yay public transportation in the middle of a storm came through!

After walking around aimlessly trying to find it, we found our car!

When we arrived at the airport, we werent even sure what airline to check into because our connecting flights were a random addition to our itinerary.  Jet Blue we found out.  When we got there they heard we were going on our honeymoon and we were upgraded to bulk seats with extra legroom!  I'm not sure if it was our honeymoon or Paul's height that got us upgraded, but either way we kindly accepted the gift!  We did the usual Rite Aid stop for some treats and waited for our plan to board.  The same attendant who gave us the free seats also called us to board early with all the fancy passengers and gave us a smile, it was so much fun.  We sat down, only to realize that in our excitement we left Paul's phone charging on his 12 foot iphone cord in the hallway of the terminal.  You're not allowed to exit the aircraft, so the same guy that had been doing all these favors also went into the terminal searching for Paul's iphone... sorry man.  Finally, with all of our belongings we were off!

In the air Paul and I got a coffee and pepsi, and the flight attendant asked if we wanted a drink to celebrate our honeymoon.  Unsure if we were going to be charged or not, we accepted and figured that we were celebrating so we could pay.  Turns out it was another complimentary perk of being newlyweds because we got two free red wines and two hefty doses of Bombay Gin.  The party started from there and shortly after Paul dropped his bottles all over we landed in Boston to connect to Dublin!  When we landed the plane clapped for us as the newlyweds to congratulate us, too fun!

We made it to our first hotel! Thanks Paul!

We ran all over the airport to the international terminal only to realized that we were once again out of security and found ourselves chugging all the drinks we bought for cheap at Rite Aid. We were that couple...

Finally, after taking advantage of the Duty free for a bottle of wine, we were waiting to board our jet to Ireland.  It was a nice big international plane with plenty of empty seats.  We were seated together (thank you Pittsburgh attendant) and enjoyed dinner and the in flight entertainment. On the overhead we heard an announcement that someone had lost a black Iphone with a black case on the jetbridge.  Paul checked his pockets only to confirm what we were both thinking... Paul's phone, again. HAHA!!  I was roaring, we weren't going to get that phone to Ireland if we tried.  To pass the time I picked a great Spanish flick with subtitles, and watched a few episodes of East Bound and Down, which reminded me of my great times in Hawaii with Ronnie Werner.  

We tried to sleep, but it was so early and uncomfortable. Probably because the guy behind me thought my travel pillow was a complimentary pink gift from the plane.  When I went to use the bathroom, I saw him comfortable as can be with my pillow around his neck hahah!  I was laughing and sad all at the same time.  Apparently he thought it was a gift from Air Lingus because he left it on the pillow when we deplaned in Dublin at 5AM.

The airport was pretty quiet, but nice, new and clean.  We made it through customs after getting grilled on what cities we were visiting.  I had no idea, but Paul came up with two cities haha!  Then we walked to get our rental car only to realize we didn't bring a GPS.  Without any cell phone data available, we were going to rely on WiFi and maps to navigate because renting a GPS for the week was wicked expensive. We sat in the airport to call credit cards that were denied, get cash, and try to get a game plan ready to hit the road to our first destination.  I was loading maps on my ipad and downloading apps like crazy.  I was SO nervous about trying to navigate this country while Paul was driving stick on the wrong side of the road.  Needless to say, we found our rental car and our courage and headed out of the airport onto the freeways of Dublin.  After going North for a few kilometers when we wanted to go south, I finally started to get a hang of this whole map thing.  Luckily there wasn't a soul on the road on Sunday morning at 5AM.  We were in Ireland, so let the adventure begin!