Doc and I started our honeymoon at 6am on May 30, when my mom picked us up for our first flight to Newark. We grabbed some breakfast from Tortas Frontera at O'Hare, which I had seen last time I went through Chicago but didn't stop. It was better than average airport food, but nothing spectacular. I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture, oops! That's okay, it was kind of unattractive.
The flight to Newark was pretty short-- 2 hours-- and miraculously on-time. Then we got to hurry up and wait.
This is how I felt about half-way through our six-hour layover in Newark:
And that was in the middle of a venti Starbucks chai! There's not a whole lot else to do in the Newark airport aside from purchase magazines and drink Starbucks, both of which I accomplished. O'Hare wins for cleanliness of bathrooms, convenience of water bottle filling-stations (filtered water fountains specially- shaped to fill water bottles! and that tell you how many plastic bottles you've saved!), and general attractiveness. Newark wins for having functioning moving walkways and... a wine bar!
The wine bar was serving up some tasty, not-quite-as-overpriced-as-O'Hare food. I had a half order of a brie and proscuitto sandwich with fig jam, which once again I started to inhale before I remembered to take a picture:
Doc similarly inhaled his chickpea and chorizo chili, hence no picture. I also partook of the "World Value Red" wine flight. Why "value"?? We decided they named it that just to pressure you in to buying a slightly more expensive flight by making you feel cheap. Didn't work on me! The cheaper the wine, the better (er, up to a limit).
We had another hour to wait after our visit to the wine bar, so we headed on down to the other end of the terminal to "Grand Central Oyster Bar." Personally, I think you'd have to be either insane or suicidal to eat oysters in an airport, but it was quite busy. We just decided to have another glass of wine because, hey! Why not?
We were (okay, I was) niiiiice and relaxed by the time we boarded the plane.
After several tarmac delays (we sat and watched lines of planes taking off and landing, while the pilots announced for the flight attendants to "prepare for takeoff" several times with no change in our status :P), we were on our way to Shannon, Ireland at about 7:30pm.
We each had our own personal entertainment screen, with access to tons of movies, shows, and even video games! Nevertheless, I think my favorite screen was the "flight status map."
The meal on board left something to be desired. Not quite the nice box of fresh food offered up on KLM... I think this was supposed to be a chicken stir-fry? Don't get me wrong, I still ate it.
After dinner and a couple of episodes of Friends (I tried to watch "The Hobbit" and "Les Miserables," but they were just too intense for a nice relaxing plane ride...) I konked out for most of the flight. When I turned my screen off, the sun had just set and the flight status map showed us over Newfoundland. When I woke up, the sun had come back up and the map showed us just off the coast of Ireland!
Yay, we landed! And I'm so tired my eyes are going to fall out of my head:
Low-lying clouds over green fields... we saw lots of cows and sheep as we landed:
By some kind of miracle, we managed to get our rental car and point it in the direction of Limerick, without causing any harm to ourselves or any innocent bystanders on the roadways. We decided that I'd be the driver this trip, and Doc would navigate. Sitting on the right side of the car (as a driver) isn't too weird, and shifting with my left hand isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, especially considering that it's been a while since I drove manual. I'll either smooth out the lurches, or completely destroy the transmission in the next three weeks. Good thing we shelled out for the zero-deductible insurance! :-/
Highway driving was actually pretty easy, and we learned that slower vehicles (and tourists) can actually drive on the shoulder. I found that I was pretty comfortable going the speed of the other (sparse) traffic. The creepy thing is when you get off the highways, and there's oncoming traffic that is simply ON THE WRONG SIDE. I feel like they're headed straight for us! Gah!! (Just to clarify: they're not actually on the wrong side. But it sure feels that way.)
Our hotel room wasn't ready yet (it was 8am, after all), so we left our hatchback (pics tomorrow, promise!) in their secured parking area and set off to explore the city on foot. We also hoped that the cold, fresh air would help keep us awake a little longer so we could re-set our internal clocks.
Our hotel is the brick building on the corner, overlooking the Shannon River (our room faces the road that we're standing on to take this picture, which is the road we drove in on):
First sight: a commemorative statue on the bridge near our hotel. The inscription is entirely in Irish, so we have no idea what it's actually commemorating.
The Shannon River... when it was overcast, the water looked black. But as soon as the sun came out you could see that it's actually quite clear! Signs posted in a park along the banks said that it's part of a conservation area for various water animals, including salmon.
The city was very quiet for it being 9am. We saw another group of tourists (Germans, we think), but not many other people. We walked around trying to figure out where we could get breakfast and coffee. We finally stumbled on the Milk Market, a farmer's market area that Doc had read about. There was a little bakery/ cafe in one of the market buildings called Sallymills. The menu posted on the door looked promising, and it didn't look as corporate as some of the other places we passed, so we went in! (They actually specialize in wedding cakes, and the cakes they were selling by the slice looked awesome!) I think we were the guy's first customers of the day-- he was arranging big trays of baked goods when we came in. After some deliberation Doc settled on the famous "black pudding" essential to a full Irish breakfast (with eggs, too), and I ordered a slice of Spanish Tortilla. Both were served with a thick slice of brown "soda bread" (bread leavened with baking soda instead of yeast), and mine also came with a salad.
I tried the black pudding, and it was not nearly as scary as I imagined it would be (having read the Wikipedia descriptions long before our trip). Doc and I agreed that it reminded us of something that we just couldn't quite put our fingers on...
My salad was a thing of beauty. Mixed greens, roasted and fresh tomatoes, carrots, corn, poppyseed dressing, and beets that I think had been soaked in some kind of delicious citrus vinegar. I generally hate beets, but these were AMAZING. Sooo tasty. You'll notice the thick layer of butter adorning my soda bread. Apparently Ireland is renowned for its dairy products. Rain = green grass = happy cows = delicious dairy. Sign me up!
The Tortilla was tasty, as well-- layers of potatoes, eggs, and roasted red peppers. It came with a little chili sauce to dip it in. Yum!!
Not sure what I'm laughing at here, but you can get a sense of the ambiance of the place:
We had a nice view of the inside of the market area while we ate, and watched a vendor set up an impressive display of records and CDs for sale. There was also a pizza stand selling gourmet slices of pizza for 2.50 euros (~$3.33). Sounded like a bargain! The cafe owner asked us how long we were going to be in town (just the night), and told us we absolutely couldn't leave without coming back for the full market in the morning-- apparently the largest of its kind in the country. Full of organic, local veggies and meats and cheeses, and apparently prepared foods, too (he mentioned pigs roasting on spits, and Doc perked up ;)). We're hoping to do some grocery shopping before heading south to our first cottage rental tomorrow afternoon. It would be really handy if we could!!
We continued walking up and down the little streets in the city center, and passed so many butcher shops! When we saw this one, Doc realized he had truly returned to his homeland:
Intersections are painted with "Stop and Look!" in English and Irish:
Things had picked up a bit in terms of foot (and car) traffic by lunch time, but it was still generally quiet. Limerick has a population of about 57,000 people, so it's not huge by any stretch.
We crossed the river into the medieval quarter, where there are several landmarks. First, we toured the old customs house, which is now an art and antiquities museum that received a lot of praise in our guidebook. It was fun to wander around the rooms, and interesting to read a bit about Irish and European history. But it was pretty warm inside and we were starting to get drowsy (and there were too many convenient and comfortable benches that we wound up sitting on for much longer than we intended...), so decided to head back out into the cooler air (50 degrees when we landed this morning, warming up to around 60).
We explored the cemetery at St Mary's Cathedral, a very very old church. I think the signs said 1100s?
We liked this sign by one of the flower gardens:
Then we headed down the road to King John's Castle, the major historical landmark in town. Sadly, it's closed for renovations until July. The signs they had posted make it look like it will be really cool, with all sorts of interactive exhibits and such (it looks like they're actually building a new building within the castle...). It was still pretty impressive from the outside, and I have no doubt there will be plenty of other castles to tour on our trip... :)
Crossing the bridge back toward our hotel, we noticed these bunches of flowers growing out of the stones. From the opposite side of the river, they actually look like someone painted the stones purple!
We got back to our hotel around 2, and our room was ready. YAY!!!! We were in desperate need of a nap. Our little hotel room-- complete with mini-sized wall TV!
The view from our hotel room window -- King John's Castle and City Hall:
Yes, Doc is really here! Despite what these pictures may otherwise suggest ;)
After a much-needed three hour nap, we rallied for another walk around town. We decided to get dinner at a fish and chips shop advertising "the cheapest fish and chips in Ireland." Perhaps that's a dubious thing to be proud of... but our chicken tenders and curry chips (fries) were pretty tasty, nonetheless. Except that they replaced one of our chicken tenders orders with onion rings. No complaints!! The rings were probably even better than the chicken. New lesson learned today: split all fish and chips orders. We can always go back for more... the portions were huge.
The weather had cleared up considerably, and we took our bag of fried goodness over to "The People's Park," just down the street, and ate while we watched families and other groups playing in the park.
Let's be honest, fried food is not photogenic. Here's a picture of the paper bag, instead:
Tired, but content:
Tomorrow we head south to Counties Clare and Kerry (we're currently in County Limerick), and a four-day cottage rental. I think it will be fun to really settle in and explore for a few days, and hopefully hike and do some bike rides!
In closing, a limerick about Limerick that we saw while walking around town. Random?
