Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Day Thirty-Nine

Saturday, August 1st 2009

The day started bright and early as if Ireland was taunting us with the sun. Abbie and I were the only ones left in our apartment and were making final adjustments to packing. We had decided to leave a suitcase behind in Dublin full of things we didn’t need while we traipsed around Paris, Amsterdam, and London. Ryanair will seriously rip you off if you go over their weight limit (33 pounds) and since Abbie was bordering on 50lbs when we came here, this was probably a very smart idea.

We headed down to the teal projects to see if we could see any of our friends for one last time and ran into Kate, Lisa, Romi, and James. We talked to them for a few minutes before calling a taxi to take us downtown to the bus station. I quickly realized that, though I had followed my friend’s advice in picking Bus Eirann, it didn’t actually go to the airport. Rather, it went to the central bus stop in Dublin where we would then have to catch the airport shuttle. Citylink was also cheaper and may or may not have had wireless internet.

Anyway, Abbie and I waited at the bus station for a little over an hour, taking breaks so we could go visit the Saturday market one last time. To our horror and dismay, the donut guy, purveyor of deliciousness, wasn’t there (probably at the races). So while I was there, I picked up some croissants for Abbie and I to eat.

The bus ride wasn’t terribly exciting…four hours driving across the Irish countryside gets a little boring after a while. Abbie, of course, slept the whole time. I wrote a little in my blog, stared out the window for a long time, and finally managed to sleep a little right as we reached outer Dublin. It felt like only yesterday since we had been in Dublin, and we pointed out the familiar sights as we drove past them. Once at the station, we grabbed our stuff and got on the airport shuttle.

Once at the airport, we checked in the bag we were leaving with the Greencaps (who didn’t actually wear green caps), and checked in to Ryanair. Both our bags made the weight requirement (yay!) and so we headed through security and to our gate, where we had about two and a half hours to wait. Eventually we got dinner, then sat and waited for our flight (a lot of travelling is waiting, I’ve learned).

Once on the plane, we met a girl from Georgia who was flying (for the first time, no less) to Paris and Italy with her friend. I eventually fell asleep sometime after we flew over England and was awoken as we were making our final descent. One of the reasons Ryanair is so cheap (in addition to being bag weight Nazis) is that they don’t actually fly into major airports. Ours, for instance, was an hour away from Paris proper. Fortunately, there was a shuttle that took us to Porte Maillot in the city, where we were met by…Amanda, her fiancĂ©, and her fiance’s brother! Who had a car. And drove us to their home. Which was super, super sweet.

Amine was staying at his brother’s while we were there, and soon after we arrived at Amanda’s apartment (it was about 1:30 a.m. by now) we were exhausted, so we ate a baguette and went to sleep.

Hey, it was France. And we like to eat when we are le tired.

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