We headed off on our Ireland vacation on Thursday, but first I had an errand (or ear-rand) to do. Over the last few weeks, my left ear had blocked up so that I could not hear out of it. I tried to treat it myself, but that did not work. Then, I went to an urgent-care place, and they could not get the wax out, so they referred me to an ear specialist near our house. Happily, they could squeeze me in on Thursday, but not until 10:00. Since our flight left from Toronto at 7:20, I figured we had to leave no later than 11:00 to make the flight, and that was with only an extra hour or so built in for delays.

The nurse was very nice (was actually a 2003 CVCA graduate), and she used a micro-vacuum to suck the wax out of both ears. I could hear again, and got home at 10:45. Mer arrived immediately afterward from going to the bank to get some euros, and so we were off on our five-hour drive at 11:00, as planned.

Mer mentioned the car radio was acting weird – it was not keeping time and was resetting to the first track whenever the car was turned off. That reminded me that at the last oil change, the mechanic told me the battery was weak. That brought a little edge to the trip, to the point where I decided not to turn the car off at the first rest stop, and we went to the bathroom in shifts. While Mer was in the restroom, I ate some granola, as I was very hungry, having only eaten a bowl of cereal that day. After Mer got back in the car, I noticed I had some granola stuck in my teeth, but thought little of it. How wrong that was!

The rest of the drive went smoothly, with the exception of hitting construction-related traffic in the last five miles to get to the airport. It was a little tense taking twenty minutes to go a mile, but then we cleared the construction and got to the airport, where we once again had a bit of a hard time tracking down the remote economy lot. We found it on the second attempt, and got on the train to the airport itself, arriving around 4:45.

We breezed through getting our tickets, although Mer was a little nervous that her checked luggage got separated from mine, but decided not to say anything to the ticket agent. How wrong that was! Security was a bit more of a headache – about forty-five minutes to get through it and then get to the gate. That left us with about thirty minutes to grab something to eat, since we had not eaten any real food in about ten hours. I grabbed us a couple of sandwiches on hard hoagie rolls, and we ate them. I then went to the bathroom, and was trying to figure out what was stuck in my teeth. When I looked in the mirror, it turns out I did not have anything stuck in my teeth – I was missing a quarter of a tooth in a back molar. By what I can only ascribe to mercy from God, I was in no pain, but I was worried the tooth could shatter more or the filling in the tooth could let go, exposing a nerve and causing me intense pain. As such, I decided to talk little and eat nothing on the flight itself.

The flight went well, if a bit dully. I was too tired to read, although Mer plowed though two hundred pages of Oliver Twist, and my heart was not much into playing any computer games. I think I managed to get about thirty minutes of sleep. The flight arrived on time in Dublin around 7:00 am, and we were quite slow getting through customs; we did not arrive at the baggage carousel until almost 8:00. The baggage area was fairly barren, but we were among the last to get through customs, so I did not think too much on that. After a minute or so, my bag came out, so we grabbed that. We waited a couple more minutes for Mer’s bag, when the carousel stopped. The attendant said there were no more bags. Somehow, my bag made it, but Mer’s did not, on a direct flight. Sigh. The attendant was very nice, and took Mer’s information and gave her an overnight bag with some basic supplies in it. Something must have gone haywire in Toronto, because there were five people missing luggage off of our flight.

Once we took care of that, we took the bus from the airport to the train station in downtown Dublin. We sat on the upper part of a two-story bus, so we had good views of the city. I honestly did not recognize any of it – it has changed a bunch in the fourteen years since we were last there, and my memory has gotten foggier as well. We did strike up a fun conversation with a British man who was on a weekend jaunt for the “stag party” for his future son-in-law. The man had married an American woman he had met while they were in their respective navies, and we had a pleasant time learning about his family.

Once in the train station, we were fairly surprised at the cost of the tickets to Cork – over $75 each for a three-hour train ride. What is more, our credit cards did not work in the machine for some reason, so we had to find an ATM to get enough cash to pay for the tickets. The train ride was pretty and easy, and we were both glad we had done the train instead of getting a car, as we both briefly fell asleep at various points.

In Cork, we walked to a dentist office to see if they could look at my tooth, but they were closed (at 1:00 on a Friday, which was odd to me). So, we walked to the bus station for the last leg of our twenty-plus-hour journey, the bus to Kinsale, a very cute seaside town in the south of Ireland.

In Kinsale, we located two dentist offices. One told me they were done for the day (2:00 on Friday), but to come back at 9:30 Saturday morning. The other office was closed. So, here is hoping they can get something done for the tooth, even if it is pulling it.

Kinsale is a very pretty town. The layout is confusing, as it follows no grid pattern, but the town is very inviting to walk in. We checked in to our B and B, and then followed our usual jetlag-busting technique – sleep for two hours, then force ourselves to get up and get on the local schedule by eating supper and touring. I took a shower after our nap, and we went to an excellent Indian restaurant, Cobra Tandoori. That is probably the best Indian food I have ever had, helped out by my not having eaten anything in fourteen hours. I ordered soft food and chewed very carefully.

Mer and I then wandered the town a bit, checking out the waterfront, and then an Anglican church (the church predates the Anglican church, with some church on the site for fourteen hundred years). The cemetery in the church yard was picturesque and interesting.

After the church, Mer checked to see if a certain pub was having live music that night. They were not, so she turned the evening over to me. I had seen a town map with a walk out to a “ruined fort,” so that was the obvious thing to walk to. It looked to be just out of town, and the signs said 2 km (1.2 miles).

That was quite a 1.2-mile hike. The views of the town and harbor were amazing, but the hills were long and steep. As an added bonus, when we got to the fort, the interior of the fort was closed. I had assumed it would be open to the public at all times since I thought it was in ruins. It is not, and it is not. The still-intact fort was shut up, so we wandered the grounds and watched the sun starting to set (it does not set until well after 10:00, and we left the fort around 9:30).

Happily, we saw a map of the walk near the fort, and decided to try the walking path along the promisingly named Low Road. It turned out to be so. There was still one rough hill at the start, but once on the Low Road, we had an easy and very fast time of it, cutting the walking time by half and the effort by more than that. Mer, being a good sport, managed to laugh that off, especially since we’d now found an easier way to get to the fort if we want to go back during the open hours.

So, we wrapped up our first really long day. We are hoping that Mer’s luggage will find us tomorrow (Saturday) so that she does not have to go clothes shopping, and I am hoping my tooth can be dealt with so I do not have to worry about it during the vacation. That is a pretty full and eventful first day!