Today was our day to head out of Dublin. As we know from yesterday's entry, it was none too soon. Breakfast at the B&B and then a simple step across the street to the #16 bus that had brought us into town to the Portobello B&B Our rental car stop was #19, which the bus driver drove by not 45 seconds after he agreed to let us know when to get off the bus. From stop #20, it was still an easy walk back, but still . . . . Budget bent us over good, but it is something that is required because every rental company and insurance company in the free world knows that a tourist has a snowball's chance in hell of returning a rental car undamaged in Ireland. Tourists, narrow roads, and left hand driving are not compatible with side view mirrors and quarter panels on cars. Just pay for it and drive the car like you are four wheeling to Timbuktu. An extra driver carries a fee of hundreds more €€€€ so when I made the reservation, I was no fool -- I used Dayna's name! I would copilot, heckle, and wiggle my fingers occasionally to restore blood flow.

Our first few kilometers were through morning rush hour city traffic . Enough distance to give Dayna time to skin the chrome off the left wheels trying to find the comfort of driving in the left lane. But with no wrecks, we made the M-50, the freeway to Galway. By that point, I felt like I was the Drivers Ed teacher at a special needs school. But, we were both laughing so all was well. Dayna hung in there like a NASCAR driver with early dementia and progressed well throughout the day. By afternoon, even on these little narrow roads, I had restored circulation to my fingers.  

Dayna's note: The USA is the ONLY country where the majority of the driver's do not know how to shift gears in a standard transmission car. Along with extra insurance costs, renting an automatic doubles the cost of the rental car. Sooooo -- after having not owned a "shifter" for 30 years, and having not driven a "shifter" in about 8 years, I not only had to remember to push in the clutch, I had to shift with my left hand. Who in hell designs a car where the driver has to shift with her non-dominate hand? Talk about multi-tasking! Shift with left hand . Drive in left lane. Look in rearview mirror that is on my left. Make it through several roundabouts. Lots of traffic. cRaZy!!

After we passed Galway, we were on our way to the Connemara area NW of Galway. It is a beautiful rugged "peninsula" kind of jutting out into the Atlantic. Our destination was the village of Roundstone. The little burg was identified in an article that Mom (Tom's mom, Norma) read only two days ago and forwarded to us. Thanks to her literary interests, we are staying in an absolutely beautiful little seaside fishing village that isn't even big enough to have an ATM machine. A point of interest, only a few kilometers up the road is the monument commemorating the site where the first Atlantic cable connected from the US. We'll check that out tomorrow.

Our B&B is right on the "main" street and our room overlooks the bay. It's only up/down side is the paper thin walls which our neighbors have not figured out. It remains to be heard if the gent is a regular Viagra user! Can't wait for breakfast in the morning.

Dinner was in a local pub. Something fishy and a local brew. Home now and waiting for the entertainment to begin.

Tomorrow we will see more of the Connemara and work our way back to Galway for a few days.