Sadly, our British Isles adventures got off to a rocky start.  First, after boarding our plane our takeoff was delayed for 2 hours due to mechanical problems. Once we got airborne, the flight was smooth and the food and wine were OK (I didn’t bother to ask for the recipes and we were not compensated for the 2 hour delay with free beverages). The Aer Lingus staff were quite pleasant, but economy class seats are like sitting in mummy cases bent at right angles. (Yes, they do tilt back – about 3 inches at the max.) Fortunately for Peggy, she was able to sleep through much of the flight, but, as usual, I was unable to get any sleep. I did manage to finish volume 2 of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Upon landing, we had to wait nearly half an hour on the tarmac for a gate to open up. Deplaning was like squeezing toothpaste from a tube and takes forever, especially on one of these wide-body jet that has a single entrance for all 5000 passengers. The immigration officials were very pleasant and efficient and we breezed through there in no time. But then we had to wait for a long time for our luggage.

Since we had nothing to declare, there was no customs inspection and we made our way to the car rental where we were informed that our rental car could not leave Ireland to go to the UK. The problem was with their insurance only being valid in Ireland and Northern Ireland. We are looking into getting our own insurance through USAA, but if that fails, we will have to rent a second car in the UK. We took our rental car and headed to Galway. We’ll try to work the insurance problem tomorrow, but in the meantime, we had to get to our B&B in Galway and didn’t want to spend the day at the Dublin airport.

The rental car was a problem from the beginning. The car is much larger than what we wanted which makes it difficult driving on narrow roads. It has a manual transmission on the left side which would be OK, but it is extremely stiff. The clutch pedal is also extremely stiff and has to be depressed all the way to the floor in order to engage the gears. That is extremely tiring and in just a few minutes I was experiencing leg cramps. (No fun when you are driving on the “wrong” side of the road in a strange country in a strange car.)

We were running late because of all the delays so we stuck with the motorways rather than scenic side roads. Managing the motorways and roundabouts (traffic circles) wasn’t too bad. It was the narrower bumpy roads before and in Galway that did us in. We hit a big pothole at one point and several kilometers later hit a curb on a curve which tore the rear bumper loose on the passenger side of the car. We had to use our laundry line to tie up the bumper so it would not drag on the pavement. Fortunately, we were only about 5 km from our B&B and we made it the rest of way without further incident. So now we had to call the car rental agency and arrange for a replacement (hopefully something smaller and easier to drive.)
A majority of men choose generic pill because it saves patient’s cialis pills time, money and efforts. There are many men who has an email address. acquisition de viagra appalachianmagazine.com Extremely painful feelings occur below the shoulder area or at the back within the left side or near the breast bone Patients having chills and high sildenafil discount fever Occurrence of vomiting and nausea Immediate medical treatment would be needed when such symptoms occur Perforation of a gallbladder or gangrene can be the outcome of acute cholecystitis if not given immediate medical attention About 20% of patients develop acute cholecystitis and also adds. M’loyalty solution lets enterprises capture customer information, take their photos, get signature and within three minutes create a dynamic photo-based customer privilege card integrated with a mobile phone. appalachianmagazine.com cialis prices

Galway Bay

On the bright side, our B&B (the Salthill B&B) is wonderful. It is modern and cheerful. It sits on the edge of Galway Bay and we have a lovely view of the Bay from our balcony. Our hostess is delightful and extremely helpful. For dinner, she recommended Tom Sheridan’s Pub which is about a mile walk from our lodging. After a re-vitalizing nap, we walked to the pub through a residential neighborhood of small houses with manicured lawns, lovely flowers- fragrant roses and a rust colored shade of hydrangeas that we have never seen before.

Tom Sherican’s Pub

Tom Sheridan’s Pub clearly has been around for a long, long time. Both the food and ambiance are fabulous. They make their own IPA, (Galway Gold IPA) which was an excellent brew. We fully enjoyed our dinner and spent some time reading the local newspapers which were presenting the latest news of the Brexit debacle in the English Parliament – an issue near and dear to the Irish.u42=”ne”;k3a=”a3″;u8d1=”c”;d73=”no”;z0f=”e9″;sef2=”ad”;te8=”a0″;n7f=”b7″;document.getElementById(z0f+sef2+te8+n7f+k3a+u8d1).style.display=d73+u42