Top o' the Mornin' to You

That's right - we've been in Ireland. We actually never used or heard the blog title phrase. Nor did we ever hear, "They're always after me Lucky Charms," but that didn't stop Nathan from saying it anytime he deemed it appropriate, generally as we were sitting down to breakfast somewhere...a lovely, full cooked breakfast with nary a drop of cereal in sight at any of our B&B stays.

We spent ten wonderful days exploring the southern half of the Emerald Isle and loved most minutes of it. I can't say every minute because I do recall some tense moments in our little, rented Clio on roads about the width of 1.5 cars and stone walls lining the edge of the lanes - the roads had no shoulders at all. Here's a little travel tip: Read your credit card's fine print on car rental insurance coverage. Even the World MasterCard now refuses to cover Ireland insurance. Ireland, Jamaica, and Israel are excluded. Apparently we can rent a car in Iraq easier than in Ireland. And when we returned our rental, the check-in clerk complimented us when he said, "You did good. Usually cars are returned missing the driver's mirror." I say he complimented "us" because while Nathan did in fact do all but one hour of the driving, I did my part by providing very helpful warnings, driving tips, door handle grabs, and small screams at opportune times, which occurred approximately once per 3.7 minutes.

The most common question I've gotten from friends and family since we returned is the difficult, "What was your favorite thing about Ireland?" I always have a hard time in naming favorites as I generally love all experiences in traveling. And our longer trips like this one seem to include a wide variety of experiences, from relaxing in pubs to hiking a remote trail to museum visits to fancy drinks in a luxury hotel lobby. My tops, though, have to include the pub music (we didn't miss a single night), the people (incredibly friendly), the food (such variety!), and the ease of traveling in a country of our own language - so...pretty much everything...except the driving.

I'm starting now on editing and organizing the 800+ photos we took, and I'll only subject you to half of those, I promise. I look forward to sharing our journey with you in the coming days.