Andrew & Sarah

Today started at 8am when Matt and I caught the bus out to the airport to pick up a rental car we are using to tour around Ireland.
Today we headed west toward the coast, heading for the Cliffs of Moher. We stopped for a bite of lunch along the way in the small village of Gort. After lunch I took over driving from Matt. The roads however slowly or not so slowly got narrower and winder than the motorways Matt had been driving on. This was made driving a little more interesting especially when meeting cars, trucks and buses coming the opposite direction. But with my skillful driving we made it to the Cliff of Moher.
The Cliffs are absolutely stunning; they are just huge sheer cliffs that rise up out of the ocean. You really do need to see them in real life to appreciate the sheer size and beauty of them.

After leaving the cliffs we drove up the coast through the Burren, which is basically a huge area just covered in rocks. It’s just amazing the size and volume of rocks in the area which just goes on for miles and miles.
We arrived in Galway and found the guesthouse where we were staying. After settling in we walked down into town to for a look around and to find somewhere for dinner. Galway is quite a nice mid sized Irish town with many narrow streets and old buildings which I’m beginning to realise is normal for towns in Ireland. We had dinner at a small pub, the meal was good and fairly well priced.

Today I walked into central Dublin from Matt & Kat’s apartment. I then visited Trinity Collage looked around the grounds then looked at the book of Kells and the Long Library. I found this quite amazing and the Long Library was stunning with the rows and rows of huge shelves of old books.

I then hopped onto an open top bus tour. This took me around various sites in the city with a commentary the whole way which gave me quite a bit of history about Dublin. The Georgian section of Dublin and the old buildings, church’s etc… give Dublin real character.

I got off the bus at the Guinness Storehouse and did a tour here. This explained the process that goes into making Ireland’s No. 1 beer. As part of this process I got to start a batch of Guinness, my batch is batch number 7302 (I think).

After admiring the 360 degree views of Dublin from the bar at the top of the Guinness factory I continued on the bus tour of Dublin and learned more about the history of Dublin and got to see some of the more popular sites around Dublin.

I hoped of the bus and caught the DART (Rail system) to the Google offices where I met up with Matt for lunch. Then Matt showed me around the offices and where he works. This is quite interesting. Although from all the toys and the laid back atmosphere in the office I’m not sure how much work gets done. Matt however assures me work is done.

The rest of the afternoon I spent wandering around the city admiring parks and taking in the scenery.

Well i made it to Ireland. With a few hiccups along the way!

It started with my flight out of NZ from Auckland Airport. After saying good bye to those that came to see me off i went through to the departures area to the gate lounge. A few minutes latter it was paged over the intercom that my flight had been delayed by an hour due to engineering requirements. I walked around and went and got something to eat and a bottle of water for on the plane. Then finally an hour late they started boarding the plane. Once we were seated on the plane the captain announced that they just had to run some tests then the plane would depart…. an hour later we finally departed.

The first leg of the flight from Auckland to Los Angeles was fairly uneventful. I managed to get a little bit of sleep but not a lot.

When we arrived in LA where we had to get off the plane go through US immigration then move to a Transit Lounge. We waited here about 2hours then started boarding then departed for London.

This leg of the flight I was upgraded from economy to Premium Economy which meant i got better service, more room, better food and a few other bonuses! I managed to sleep a little on this leg too.

We arrived into Heathrow at 12:17 about 2hours later than scheduled due to the delay leaving Auckland. Then finally disembarked the plane at 12:40 This caused me a few problems problems as i had to catch my connecting flight to Dublin which departed at 1:25pm. I rushed down through Immigration (Managed to skip to front of queues) picked up my bagage then proceeded across to the other terminal where my flight to Dublin left from. I arrived at the check in desk just as they were making the final boarding call. But as it was a 10-15min walk from check-in desk to departure gate they told me I had missed the flight. Fortunately they rebooked me onto another flight that day. However this flight did not leave until 5pm-ish this meant more sitting around the Airport!

I finally arrived in Dublin at 7pm 18th Feb. Got off the plane and went through Immigration which consisted of a lady glancing at my passport and stamping it. Picked up my bags and went through customs (Consisted of and area of idle x-ray machine) to the arrivals area where i found Matt waiting to pick me up. Took a taxi back to his apartment had dinner then got some much needed sleep.