Chronicles of a Folk Family--Ireland: Drogheda March 12

March 12, 2014

The bus driver gave us a ride to Drogheda.

Seriously.

We didn’t have tickets because the vending machine would not take our stupid, old-fashioned, magnetic strip cards, and we had not stopped at an ATM for cash yet. The bus driver let us get on anyway, saying we could get cash at the arrival station. We probably looked rather pathetic, at least I did, even with my airport bathroom refresh, and Finn was concerned about missing the bus, so he must have taken pity on us.

Drogheda is about 30 kilometers north of Dublin, and we had chosen it partly because of a BBC series we watched on Ireland and partly because of its proximity and accessibility from the Dublin airport. I wanted a place to chill out and adjust before the tour starts on Sunday.

Customs in Dublin was a breeze, and we met up with Pete's mom for breakfast and chit chat in the airport, which was relaxing as no one was in a hurry. It was this bus hiccup that threatened to put my tired ass over the edge. Being on the bus was good, but now I was concerned about the part where we got cash and paid the nice man.

Then he let us off the bus, no charge. Cheers!

But we still needed to pay a cab driver to get us to the hotel, and we still had no cash. The driver stopped at a convenience store where they also could not take our primitive card, so finally we hit a bank ATM, where we were successful in procuring sweet, sweet Euros.

Finn fell asleep on the bus. I managed to keep him awake in the taxi.

At the hotel, before my first pint, I was upsold into a bigger, more expensive room. We arrived on the early side, and the woman at the desk looked at us like we were nuts because we were booked into a double room, and she knew there was no way that was going to work. Initially, I thought it would be fine, but then I checked my exhaustion levels and realized that I needed to be sure I could sleep.

This is how we found ourselves in the Presidential Suite, bitches!

Now, granted, that is more glamorous and important than it sounds, but we do have a king bed and two twins in separate rooms, plus two televisions. It works out well for a bed-hopping trio like us (be nice, this is a family blog. Bitches), and I have wound up in one of the twins (ah ah ah, again… family blog) at some point both nights so far.

The rest of the day was innocent enough: resting/napping/checking out a defensive hill tower/groceries at Tesco/graveyard.

Back at the hotel for dinner time, we sat down and ordered our pints. Finn asked for sausage then fell asleep and stayed asleep. We shifted him back and forth and ate in little shifts, just like when he was an infant, until I finally brought him upstairs, made him pee, and got him into bed. He was rather upset about it, but eventually settled down. All was well.

Little did I know.