Ireland - Day Two

As soon as we were allowed to disembark the plane I felt completely out of my element. The signs in the airport were confusing so I just kept following everyone in front of me. The first stop was Irish Customs, went through there no problem and got my first stamp ever in my passport. All the other places I had gone before either didn’t require a stamp, or I didn’t get one because I went there on a cruise. Getting that first stamp was a really cool feeling.

Then it was time for luggage claim. I had zipped over there pretty quickly so I didn’t expect it to have been off loaded from the plane yet and I was right the belt wasn’t moving at all yet. I took this time to take out my phone, turn it on and try to call my mom. I had told my mom the very moment I landed I would call her. I had checked with my cell phone provider online and it said they have coverage in Ireland. But when I turned on my phone it wouldn’t allow any calls out. Uh oh. I started to get a little upset because I didn’t want my mom to be at home worrying about me.

I tried concentrating on something else, like the fact that the luggage still hadn’t started to come out onto the belt yet. I waited and waited and I finally started to feel the exhaustion hit. I hadn’t really slept more than 2 hours and from working, and the excitement of the trip I was really ready for a good nights sleep. My leg started to ache from standing and my backpack was digging into my shoulders. I felt like crying. This wasn’t how I had pictured it!

It took almost 45 minutes for the luggage to start to come down, and then of course my suitcase was one of the last ones out. Next was actually trying to leave the airport. I had originally planned to take the air coach from the airport to the hotel our tour was beginning from, The Montrose Hotel. The documents from Contiki said that there was an air coach, so I kept wondering how I would know what the name of the coach was. Would there be multiple ones and only one of them stopped off at my hotel?

As I was walking towards the exit I decided that I was too tired to wait for the coach, that I’d just find a taxi and shell out the 40 euro for that instead of the 7 euro for the coach. When I got close enough to the opened doors I could tell that it was raining and I felt that it was freezing! I had not prepared for the temperature difference at all. I was only wearing a quarter sleeved shirt, some thin sweat pants and a pair of flip flops. Thank goodness I had a sweatshirt in my backpack.

Once I was outside I had no idea where to find a taxi. There didn’t seem to be any waiting for passengers. And then I saw the sign that said “Air Coach”. Apparently the air coach is named.. Air Coach. There was a person selling tickets right by the exit so I bought one and stepped into about 3 different puddles during that time period. My feet were freezing, I could barely see past the droplets on my glasses and I still couldn’t use my phone.

It took about 20 minutes for the coach to return. And it struck me as funny that people were loading their luggage themselves onto the under carriage of the bus. Apparently 7 euro only goes so far, the workers don’t do it for you.

When I got on the bus I noticed it was almost 9:30am, my plane was supposed to have landed around 7:45am and my mom knew this. Almost two hours had passed without a phone call from me. I knew she was probably going crazy and the guilt was eating me up. The bus ride seemed to take forever, I asked the driver at least two times if this bus definitely stopped at the Montrose just to make sure. Yes, it was definitely going to stop there it was just near the end of the line.

I had this idea that the bus would pull up directly in front of the hotel entrance, but it doesn’t work like that. The bus stop was about a half a block away from the hotel and the walk seemed to take forever. I stepped in a few more puddles on the way. My shoulder started to burn from pulling my suitcase and carrying my heavy backpack.

Finally I made it! I tried to check in but was told that the rooms would not be ready until 12pm and it was only around 10:30am at this point. I remembered that I had a calling card in my wallet so I asked if they had a pay phone. They did, that was the next stop that I made but for some reason the calling card wasn’t working. The porter station was right near the pay phone and a young man that was working there said to me “I think you need to put change in.” But I wanted to use the calling card! I didn’t even have euro change yet. Then I noticed the calling card said “For use in the US only”. There went that idea.

The young porter noticed I seemed kind of distressed and asked if he could help. In my panic I explained that I was just trying to call my mom, I had promised to call her once the plane landed and that was almost three hours ago. Thank goodness for this porter because he allowed me to call home on the hotel phone. I seriously owe this guy a lot. I was able to tell my mom that I was there, and to call the cell phone company to see what my phone wasn’t working.

But then I had nothing to do. I looked around the lobby and saw that there was a restaurant that was still serving breakfast so I went into there. I had never eaten in a restaurant alone before, and this one happened to be a buffet. For some reason I really dislike buffets, I feel like everyone is staring at me. I sucked it up, ate just a croissant and a really yummy yogurt and paid 16 euro for the buffet. Eating alone wasn’t so bad. I just wanted to sleep though.

For the rest of the time I had to wait until check in I shuffled back and forth between sitting in the lobby, smoking a cigarette outside and sitting in a new spot in the lobby. I saw a bunch of young people walk in with the Contiki tags on their luggage but I felt really awkward just walking up to them so I kept to myself. I’m actually shy sometimes.

I was able to check in a little before 12 and when I checked in the envelope they gave me with the room card had the name of my roommate on it. Contiki matches you up with a roommate so you don’t have to pay such a high cost to have a room by yourself. But it’s kind of like when you go away to college and anxiously await to find out who your roommate is, and you wonder if you’ll get along. The envelope said the person I was rooming with was named Teresse. That didn’t tell me much!

I wasn’t sure when Teresse would be arriving and I didn’t want to be asleep in the room when she came in because I thought that would be weird. I tried staying awake as long as I could, I took some pictures of the room, took a video of how the toilet flushed (it was fascinating!) and finally gave up and laid down but told myself that I would NOT fall asleep. I even tried watching and irish soap opera on the television but I did end up dozing off.

I had probably only been sleeping for a few minutes when I heard the door open and popped out of the bed like a jack in the box. I think the first thing I said was something like “Hi! I’m Jennifer! Sorry, I tried not to fall asleep!”. Teresse seemed really nice, and I found out she lived only about 45 minutes from where I do. Contiki is an Australian based company so there’s usually not that many Americans on the tours and I think it’s kind of funny that not only did I end up roomed with an American, but a New Yorker to boot!

She went downstairs to get something to eat, and by the time she came back I was fast asleep and she decided to take a nap too. We weren’t able to meet the rest of our tourmates until dinner at 6pm that night so we were able to rest up a little bit from our travels.

Before the trip I had surfed the Contiki message boards and looked for a roll call for my specific tour. I started talking to Melissa then, several months before the trip. We messaged back and forth a lot on Myspace, she was from New Jersey and before meeting Teresse I thought she’d be the only other American on the tour. I knew that her flight was going to land about two hours or so after mine but I never saw her in the lobby while I was waiting. When we woke up from our nap I asked Teresse if she had met anyone named Melissa and she had. Now I was anxious to meet her because I already felt comfortable with Teresse and I figured I would feel comfortable with Melissa and the whole idea of traveling with a bunch of strangers didn’t seem so unnerving anymore.

We did see Melissa in the lobby before dinner, and she was with her roommate Gennie from Canada and another girl Brooke from Australia. As I’m writing this it’s struck me as funny because as soon as we started talking I felt comfortable with all of them. We sat with each other at dinner and met a few more of the tour mates, although I couldn’t really tell you who else I met that night. At this point the only names I had memorized were of the girls I just mentioned.

For dinner I had pork, potato and some vegetables. It was pretty good! I don’t usually eat pork either but then again I was really hungry too. The dessert was even better. It was just a small scoop of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream but their dairy products tasted so much better than the ones at home.

After dinner people were going to the pub attached to the hotel so Teresse, Melissa, Gennie and I headed over there just to see what was going on. I really just wanted to try my first pint of Guinness. Everyone knows that when you go to Ireland you have to try the Guinness. You know what? It’s gross. I only took a few sips of it but I got the experience though! We meet a few more people and decided to call it a night but first we had to take some pictures in front of the Contiki bus.

Then it was off to bed to rest up before the trip really began with a trip to the Guinness Factory the next day, and then off to Galway that afternoon.