I was so thrilled to have PJ along, as he's never left the country except for over the bridge to Canada from our hometown. I was so excited to have him meet Aidan's family, too, and see the beauty of the country and the culture. He doesn't express excitement, really, and I was biting my tongue every five minutes to stop myself from asking how he was and if he was excited, blah blah blah. (Poor kid has a silly mother.)
We arrived in Dublin and had to make the long trek through the airport to customs, and it became a little strange at one point because PJ and I had to go one way (Non-EU) and Aidan the other (EU/UK.) But we got through without a hitch. Made it to baggage, found our luggage, and headed to find the rental car counter in the airport. Figures something had to slow us down, though, right? Turns out the insurance I'd purchased online for the rental car doesn't apply in Ireland. In fact, pretty much no out-of-country applies in Ireland. That made no sense to me whatsoever, because Ireland has safe driving, (other than driving on the other side of the road!) And of course, we arrived on a Sunday, so I couldn't get through to the insurance company for information or a refund. We'd gotten a great deal on the rental, but as it turned out, we had to pay a trillion dollars (ok, not that much, but a lot) for insurance through the rental car company. Ugh. It's always something, isn't it? The bright side of the story is that when we took the shuttle to the rental car lot, we were upgraded (for free) to a powder blue BMW, which made Aidan about jump over the moon with happiness.
Aidan opted to drive up to County Down, good thing too, because I wasn't mentally ready to be driving on the other side of the road from the driver's seat on the other side of the car. But I sat in the passenger seat. That was fine until we got off the highway and ended up on those teeny tiny narrow Irish curvy roads that are often lined with stone fences or bushes. Yikes - I felt every ten minutes as if we were going to crash into one of those gorgeous fences! (I was quite happy to let PJ ride in the passenger seat much of the time after that during our trip!) Oh -- and I did drive at some point around the small countryside, and so did PJ, just to say we'd done it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, well, except when there's a huge tractor or lorry coming at you and the road is only wide enough for one vehicle ... that is a little nerve wrecking!
It was heaven pulling up and seeing the family again, although Aidan's daddy wasn't home when we arrived. I was so thrilled to see Aidan's sister that I couldn't stop crying once I got to hug her! I miss that family more than I can put into words. Aidan's mammy jumped up out of her seat and headed to the door to meet us too, something she hadn't been doing very often at all due to her health. When Aidan's daddy arrived home, I literally ran out the door to meet him in the carpark. More tears. Every time someone showed up, I started getting teary all over again!
OH and of course Aidan's daddy kept lambs out back, and I was so excited to see them! They were in the garden of the house we stay in this time, because there was more grass back there. It was hilarious to see the twins and little Fionn in the garden helping their Granda feed the lambs -- those boys may all be teeny but they can catch a lamb pretty easily when they want to!
And coming back into the little house we stayed in last summer was just like a warm homecoming. I know that house isn't ours, but it felt so good to return to it. PJ quickly made himself at home, and he took to the family just like I knew he would. They love him and accept him as one of their own, just like they did me. It's amazing.
We only had ten days, and we knew that would fly. Even in ten days, there were a million wonderful things we did, but forgive me for not discussing them all here -- it's take me a month of Sundays to write it all! PJ got to see the local landmarks, Aidan's old primary school, the gorgeous views of Windy Gap, and hear the crashing waves of the Irish Sea. We had a wonderful family photo session done while we were home, and now we get to treasure all the photos, some of which are hanging in our house to remind us of the beautiful day that it was. Of course we took the train to Dublin with Fionnuala and Geraldine, and had a hilarious time of it!! Those two are such a riot when we're all together, cracks me up! I always think we should send the city of Dublin a warning before we come down, because we literally take it by a storm of laughter!
The family gave us a wonderful "just married" gathering, too, complete with a sing along as all good Irish parties have. There were more people and more food in Ciaran and Sheenagh's house than ever! It was just a delight! PJ ended up going out on the town with cousin Charlene and her boyfriend James -- which was cool that PJ got to hang with kids his own age.
OH there's just too many amazing moments from that trip. I'll have to get out photos and post them here soon.
Our flight home included a stopover in Germany, which worked out really well because my exchange student brother, David, lives there, and we hadn't seen him in ages (he'd never met Aidan or my kids!) After we got the car returned and back to the airport, made it through customs, got something to eat ... we were still really early. We were told three different times which gate to go to, so we ended up just going straight there to hang out until boarding.
Strangely, our flight was delayed. No mind, we just stayed up. After awhile, we asked one of the gate attendants, and she told us just to wait, that we'd be notified when boarding commenced. In the meantime, David was texting me getting nervous, because on his end, the flight showed that it was already boarding. After an hour, we were finally told to board. We got to the front of the line, and when we handed over our boarding passes, a very angry German Lufthansa attendant snapped at us that our plane had already left! We stood there SHOCKED. She said the gate had changed, and that we MISSED THE FLIGHT! We were shooed out of the way and just felt completely lost. I was fuming. We had been told three different times to be at this gate. Three of us sat there the entire time and heard NO announcement. We showed our ticket to a gate attendant earlier that said to stay put, the plane was delayed. And now we'd missed the flight????? Nightmare.
We had to walk all the way back to customs, make it through that, which was a little hairy since we were having to stay (at least temporarily) in Dublin, but luckily once the customs agent realized my husband is Irish, he just let us through and stopped probing with questions. Of course, our luck, there is no Lufthansa ticket counter in Dublin airport. The airport customer service lady wasn't nice either -- she said we were paged by name three times before the flight left. The three of us looked at each other in confusion. NONE of us heard any names paged except for another man who we watched go to the counter near where we were sitting. This whole thing was so stressful!
I ended up spending a good two hours on the phone trying to get through to Lufthansa what had happened. In the meantime, Fionnuala was finding us a local hotel to stay in in Dublin. Finally, I ended up with a helpful Lufthansa rep who rebooked us on a straight flight home the next day, --and get this -- not only were the new flights free, but we ended up a refund of some of the taxes! No clue how that happened because usually when you miss a flight, you end up paying through the nose for a new one. Hand of God, I guess!! So, it looked like the three of us were stuck in Dublin for another night.
Darn. I mean, really. Of all horrible things to happen, we get stuck in Dublin, Ireland with extra time to roam around.
The really bad thing was though that we had to cancel our plans to meet David in Germany. I felt SO bad about that. He'd really made plans for us, bought us a ton of chocolate and gifts, etc, and here we couldn't come at all. Poor guy. Thankfully now it's ended up something to joke about, me missing flights, but at the time, I felt so guilty that we couldn't make it.
Our hotel was fine, and we had just a bus ride into city center. We found a wonderful place to eat, and completely pigged out. Walked the city into the night, enjoying all the shops and the city lights, and watching people. Found great live music in Temple Bar at Gogarty's (we'd been there last summer, too) and had a really enjoyable, relaxing, last night in Dublin.
The next morning, we took the shuttle to the airport and met a hilarious bus driver whose wife is from Co. Offaly. He had so many jokes about his mother-in-law that I about peed my pants laughing. Gotta love the Irish. They keep you in stitches!!!!
So, PJ loved Ireland. He not only loved Ireland, but he felt more at home there than he does here. And, guess who wants to move there? yup, PJ. We found out that he can move there and go to tech school to learn a trade, and get PAID for it. The schooling is free, and the student gets a weekly stipend plus gas money to get there. We are not working on getting back on our feet to save up to go back.
We'd planned on going in August for the christening of new baby Donal, but our lives took a different turn. We'd had cousin John over from Ireland for three weeks, and roamed around Michigan and Chicago, watching him stock up on his favorite American goodies (don't know how he managed to haul all that stash home!) and after that, Aidan got hired to work at a drug and alcohol residential rehab, something he's always wanted to do. Well, in order to work, he had to clear a medical exam. Poor guy didn't pass because of a hernia that needed immediate surgery. That hernia ended up being way bigger than the doctor anticipated, and truly 4-6 weeks off from work was barely enough. No trip home to Ireland for us, at least not yet anyway. As it went, because the recovery was so long, the rehab chose to terminate his employment because they needed to fill the position, which was SO disappointing for Aidan. As it ended up, I added a job to my already existing work at a senior residential facility where I was a contingent activities assistant and fill-in receptionist, and took on a full time nanny position with a wonderful family in our area. For the several weeks that Aidan was off of work, I was managing to work all three jobs, and somehow managed to finish college, too (in fact, just yesterday, I turned in my final project in my last class, and all but have my Bachelor of Science in Psychology in my hand!) Aidan found a new, full time job in a manufacturing company not far from here, and I ended up resigning from the senior facility and just keeping my nanny job. Finally, things are starting to get back to normal, with the kids back to school and both of us working. I'm still not in the hang of not having schoolwork every night and weekend, though -- it's going to take some time to sink in!
And so, in a nutshell, that is what we've been up to. Basically, crazy busy, but hoping to slowly get the craziness to settle and get back into a routine and normal life. Hoping madly to get back to Ireland before the year is out, but we have to save up and such before that can happen. Baby Donal's christening did happen, but because Aidan couldn't be there to stand as Godfather, his daddy stood in his place as proxy, and from the photos, everything turned out beautifully! We are so thrilled to have another wee redheaded Bannon boy in the family!!
As time frees up, I'll post some photos from our trip over home in April. And it hopefully won't be a hundred years till I write again! After all, we are now coming up on our one year wedding anniversary! Last year this time, we were in the final countdown. How exciting!!! I LOVE that the Fall holds so many special memories for us. <3
