A few months back I stumbled across $460 tickets to Dublin, and so we decided to go back to Ireland for the second time in 2022, and we invited our colleagues Regina Pykare and Meredith Neufeld (“Neuf” to distinguish her from the Meredith to whom I’m married) and Regina’s daughter, Shelby. We’ve all traveled together before, and Neuf had expressed a desire to get to Ireland at some point, so that was a nice bonus.

What was more of a surprise was the five feet of snow Buffalo got over the Thursday-Saturday time frame. Since we fly out of Toronto for these cheap flights, we usually go through Buffalo, but that wasn’t an option this time. We were grateful going west was a clear option, and so we went through Detroit, and because of the extra two hours that adds to the trip, we left on Friday night, a day before we were planning on heading out. We drove as far as Windsor, Canada, which is across from Detroit. I’m glad we had our travel phone working – when we hit traffic, we were able to look up that there was a ninety-minute backup of trucks to take the bridge to Canada, so we found the cars-only tunnel instead and only lost about fifteen minutes total. The Saturday portion to Toronto was smooth, and we ran into the others in the airport before we had to resort to texting them. The flight over was uneventful as well, which is a very good thing.

And so, Ireland. We picked up our car, which the company had bumped up to the next class for us, which was fortunate, since we filled the trunk completely and all the non-drivers had to hold a backpack (or, in Mer’s case, my fairly light suitcase). Not ideal, but it was the price for getting a car that I felt okay driving (aka, not a passenger van). We were never in the car for more than ninety minutes at a stretch, so I didn’t feel too bad, especially since Shelby and Neuf managed to fall asleep for the longest stretch.

We headed out into the Dublin dark – it was around 7:00 am, and sunrise was closer to 8:00. Our ultimate goal was to get to Waterford, in the south, but I wanted to show off some of rural Ireland along the way, so we detoured through the Wicklow Mountains. There is an old military road the British built that goes through some very unpopulated parts of the mountains, and they are starkly barren, with only low-lying brush growing. They are lovely, and we got to them just in time for the sun to come up – and the sun’s energy helped drive the thirty-mph winds in the mountains. Turns out the mid-forties are very cold with that kind of wind, but it was all worth it. We pulled off a few times to get out and take pictures and look around, and the light kept changing as the sun came up more fully. Next to a lake, there was one section of forest that was pitch black even after the sun was largely up – you can see (or not see, I suppose) why wild stories of the forest abound in Ireland.

After coming out of the Wicklow Mountains, which we had largely to ourselves (I think we saw four cars in an hour), we drove over to the old monastic settlement of Glendalough. Glendalough was an important site, founded in the sixth century, with most of the current buildings from the Irish ecclesiastical boom time of 1100-1200. There is a still-active cemetery with many Celtic crosses, several intact buildings (including an Irish round tower), and a few ruins. All of these are set in a beautiful setting of small mountains, a stream, two lakes, and thick forests. And it’s free to visit (except for a four-euro parking fee). It was very cold as the area clouded over, and the wind was fierce, but we escaped the rain that moved in just as we finished up. And then we drove out of it. Good timing.

I drove us the ninety minutes to Waterford, but I had to stop for caffeine and sugar along the way, as I was approaching twenty-four hours of no sleep. Waterford was pleasing to drive into – there is a Christmas fair going on right now, right on the river, and our hotel is downtown too, so I could drop the car and forget about it for awhile. The only unfortunate thing is that out hotel’s official check-in time was 4:00. Since Mer and I bank on getting a three-hour nap to help us shake jetlag, and we usually can get into rooms by 1:00 (or even earlier), that was a setback.

We strolled through the Christmas fair. It was fun to see Waterford out playing. The fair had a Ferris wheel, a carrousel, an ice rink, several smaller rides, and multiple booths selling food and wares. It was festive. We ate lunch back at the hotel (excellent), and then Meredith and I wandered the town in a mellow exploratory way while Neuf, Regina, and Shelby went to a timepiece museum and a silver museum. Mer and I finally got into our room just before 3:00, and we slept and then showered, getting out into the city around 7:00, feeling quite a bit better. We ran into our friends, who had just kept doing things. I know they were planning on riding the Ferris wheel and carrousel, but we didn’t get to catch up more to see what they had been up to for the three hours since we had seen them.

Mer and I rode the Ferris wheel, which gave decent views of the town and river, and in the dark, we could see the Christmas lights around town. We had planned on exploring the booths of the fair, but they were all shut down by 7:30 on this Sunday, so we went to a pub instead. We wanted supper and were hoping for music. While we ate supper, the waiter put a soccer game on, and it was Ireland versus Malta, which was funny since my brother, Shannon, his wife Jolene, and our friend Dubbs are in (or, for Dubbs, is on her way) to Malta this week. Ireland won, 1-0.

The music in the pub turned out to be two guys playing contempory covers of music, so we passed on that. We decided it was okay since we would get an earlier night, which will hopefully help us shake jetlag. But, even with our tiredness, it is great to be back on the old sod.