A few hiccups, but what's new?

The flight to Dublin was long, very, very long. But was on the whole enjoyable. I wasn't able to sleep more than a half hour or so, and there was this set of little girls that I really wanted to drug, but other than that it was good. We got a full dinner of beef ravioli and a good light breakfast that really refreshed me - maybe I'm just not picky but I liked it a lot! Take off was actually very fun and landing was a breeze, I like to fly!

When we landed we went through the airport and bought our bus tour passes. We were told to meet our luggage in Glasgow - which I didn't even think about but I'm so glad that how it was going to work because having to tug that luggage on the tour would have been a nightmare! The tour was very nice - fast paced! I was shocked by how the traffic worked in Dublin. Pedestrians were not God like - but acted like it. The cars passed so close together sometimes I thought we'd crash! Whenever the doors shut the driver took off like a shot and you just prayed you were in your seat. When we went on the transit bus (different from the tour bus) all the locals looked to take it in stride so I assume personal injury lawsuits aren't nearly as out of control as in the States.

By 2pm local time, I was exhausted and actually began to feel nauseated - so we cut the tour short and headed back to the airport. There I found the one and only bunch of seats that didn't have permanent armrests and slept a teeny bit. We jumped onto the flight and almost directly after takeoff we were landing again as it was only a 45 minute flight. We landed and I was barely able to stand on my feet as we waited for our luggage. Then the hiccup came - our luggage never showed. Apparently it was held back in Dublin for no apparent reason and we'd get it the next day. I'm going to down play it here - but I was pretty broken up about it. I needed sleep, a shower, and I was getting hardly either of both. But I was nice and didn't get mad - only sad - and left with my one carry on that only had my contact case & glasses and Linnet.

Then came the second hiccup. Driving. I don't know what I was thinking - I didn't do nearly enough research. I stupidly thought that it would be the same - other than the driving on the left side of the road thing. It's not. They don't have stop signs as far as I can tell - but rather yield symbols on the road and do not enter signs. Glasgow is so busy - the area we're staying in has a ton of one-way streets which made getting lost easy and getting found very UNeasy. We drove in circles for what seemed like hours but what was in reality only an hour and a half for a supposed ten minute trip. Early on I broke down from no sleep, hunger, a full bladder and then accidentally driving on the right side for a second and Paul had to take over. He's wonderful at taking direction that I'm good at giving and just getting us there. It might have taken awhile but it was so less stressful than me trying to drive.

To top off the hiccups - our phones actually DO NOT work here... at all. I'd be fine with this - but both of our parents were looking to make sure we'd landed all right and since I told them our phones would work I knew that they'd panic. Plus, with us having no idea where we're going - being unable to call our hotel for help was a big inconvenience - to put it mildly. I cant call T-Mobile as they only have a 800 number and 800 numbers are not accepted here. I've tried emailing them but it's been over 24 hours and no matter the time difference that is still surprising. We went to a T-Mobile store over here but they were not very helpful other than telling us to get a phone card. We bought one for £5 that gave us a lot of minutes and so we're just going to use that and buy another later. The pay phones are gross here (the booth I was in smelled like urine and the one next had vomit dripping down the window on the inside - eeeewww!) - I don' t like using them - but I'm doing what I have to.

We got our luggage this morning and tried out the power converter. It works! However it took us awhile to get the laptop working with it. Wouldn't be a big deal if our phones worked but they don't. Tonight I'm going to get DETAILED directions for the rest of our stops and saved them offline to our laptop since we can't print. That way I can just pull out the laptop if we get lost. Oh! And the car is nice, so teeny but nice - and hybrid apparently so I hope that it saves up on gas. We've had to spend a bit more money already in getting some phone cards in order to contact our families - so I hope to make that up on the gas.

Hiccups aside: We're doing great. I'm excited to get out of Glasgow and the busy city though and continue on! We leave tomorrow morning for Fort William and this will likely be my last post until Edinburgh because I'm assuming we wont have internet connection at any of the B&Bs and my phone is unusable. I've uploaded some pictures - but not many - more later I promise!!!