Hello Everyone,

I just got off the plane this afternoon after about a month in Ireland. The weather was cool and mostly rainy. Although there were a few nice days and one of them was for the Glenarm Tulip Festival. Yeah!

Gripes:

Dublin Airport (again!). This is the most user-unfriendly airport I have been in recently. The construction is going on and on. It seems never-ending. The roads are torn up, the inside is not the best. The toilets in the ladies room at the B gates did not flush.       When you go through immigration you have to walk down two flights of stairs. There is not an elevator or escalator in sight. When you board your flight you have to walk up two flights of stairs. There is an elevator there. But it is only for airport employees. If a paying passenger wants to use it they must contact an employee and an employee has to take them personally in the elevator. What is that all about????  Security? Construction? The employees want their own elevator and everyone else can hoof it with their luggage? Anyone else have any ideas?

Eflow.ie & the M50 Toll: Like a good honest person I logged into the eflow site to pay my M50 toll. I filled out all the forms. I filled in my credit card details. Error Unable to Process. Okay. I do it later. Same error message. If they want my 3 euro then their website should work when I go to all the trouble to spend 10 minutes each time filling in their forms to get error messages. And BTW I am paying for Internet time.  

Major Roadworks: The main highways leading to Dublin and linking up with the M50 (these are Ireland's major arteries) bottleneck down to one lane as you approach the city to get onto the M50. Hey, they should be paying me to take these roadblocks not me paying them a toll.  At any time of the day be prepared to wait...and wait...and wait.

Dynamic Currency Conversion: It is in full bloom this spring.  Durty Nelly's added 3% to the already awful exchange rate. I could get no where with the people there that evening. Then next day I sought out a manager, had him void the transaction and re-do it in euros not dollars. His answer: in order to do it in euros the employees need to enter a security code into the credit card machine. He will not tell the employees the code because it could be a breach of security.  Okay Durty Nelly's I guess I will take my credit card business elsewhere...unless there is a manager around with the security code. And he had the gall to tell me that they were hardly making anything off of DCC. Then why do it?????

Good Things

Hey, it's Ireland! It is green and beautiful. I love it despite a few problems.  

Lower Prices: Restaurants are actually lowering their prices due to the economy. Hotels, guesthouses & B&Bs are lowering their prices and running specials. 

Exchange Rates are Better

Banoffee Pie, Sticky Toffee Pudding and anything in Northern Ireland with the name "Thornton's" on it.  

Spring is Beautiful: Everything was blooming. The cherry trees, bluebells, tulips, rhododendrons (I even saw yellow ones), azaleas, lilacs, gorse, and so much more. 

 I Met Bit (Cowboy Craic):  I met Bit at Bunratty Lodge. We were both at the end of our trips and I got to hear all about her adventures in Ireland. We had dinner together and talked for hours. In the morning we had breakfast with three kinds of Mary Browne's famous home baked breads. It was great to finally meet up with Bit in Ireland.

I will post more as it comes to me. Now it is off to sleep with jet lag.

Michele

-- Edited by Michele Erdvig on Friday 15th of May 2009 11:44:49 AM