Ireland Honeymoon: A Very Long Day 1 Continues

Because we took the red eye to Dublin, the first day of our Honeymoon was actually over 24 hours long. Couple Travel Tip: When the plane landed, the best thing we did was just reset our clocks to Ireland time and not even think about what time it was at home. That meant it was 6 am and we had the whole day to play in Dublin...but first, we had to get our rental car...

Let me preface this next part with how excited we were about the rental car situation when we were originally planning. As soon as we booked the airplane tickets, it took us right to a rental car site and would only cost us 35 Euros a day, so we booked it right away [Scott: Let's start by saying that what looks too good to be true, is just that. I was worried about the company's legitimacy, but we did research and it definitely checked-out, or so we thought...] . From previous family experience, [Scott: My dad, in short, took on a Swiss street train with a rental mini-van and he is proud to say that "at least we broke the train as well." No one was hurt, but the van looked like an opened sardine can. So, the lesson was ALWAYS get insurance in a foreign country.] we knew we needed to purchase insurance and assumed it would be equivalent to US car insurance on a rental (this is where we FAILED). When we finished all the paperwork with the rental car place it ended up costing us 2x what we were anticipating, so Couple Travel Tip #2: if you are planning on renting a car in Ireland...our advice is to call the rental car place and get the quotes directly from them; NOT from the online booking [Scott: If we had not over budgeted in general for this trip, this unforeseen cost would have brought on a very stressful start and probably would have come up again throughout the trip in the form of those fun little fights that ruin a day quickly.]

We took a shuttle to the car pick-up and, thanks to my wonderful husband (who knows how to drive a manual), I got to enjoy the navigator's seat the entire trip! [Scott: "Knows how to not kill himself in a manual" is not the same as "knows how to drive a manual."] The first experience, however, from the navigator's seat was not that fun though. I have never ridden in a car on the left side as a passenger; nor have I ever ridden in a car driving on the left hand side...on tiny roads. Even though the drive from the rental car company to our hotel was only about 15 minutes, Scott and I learned a lot about husband/wife tone; driving tone, navigating tone, "shit, you're on the wrong side on the road" tone, and "I think we're in the right place, but the hotel did not really have an address" tone. [Scott: She forgot my favorite - "You're stressing me out more than a stick shift, on the left hand side of the road, in a foreign country, with no meaningful lines on the road" tone.] Side note on Irish addresses and Couple Travel Tip #3 of this post: it does not seem to be required to assign street numbers, which makes plugging something into a GPS kind of hit or miss so be nice to your navigator.

Since we came into Dublin on St. Patty's Day weekend, we could not find a hotel anywhere near the city center for less than an arm and a leg, so we had to find something close to a train station (thanks again to Scott's experience living in Germany). We found good reviews for and ended up staying at the Marine Hotel at Sutton Cross. If you want some place nice and relaxing, right on the harbor, with simple and clean rooms, and an easy train ride into town, this was a great option! Our priorities at this point were to get to the train station to get downtown and find breakfast. Though it was too early to check-in at the hotel, we were able to leave our car in the parking lot. From the hotel it was an easy walk to the Sutton Station (once we walked the correct way), and even though it cost 10 Euros for a round-trip pass, there was no way we were driving into Dublin that first day. [Scott: I had already lost enough years of my life just getting to the hotel.]

Now comes the FUN PART...Temple Bar!

 Sutton Station was an easy walk from where we staying at the Marine Hotel in Sutton Cross. We were some of the only people on the train heading into Dublin that morning.

Practicing our Gaelic on day 1. It was a good thing that everything else was in English.