To Ireland

After a day of travel we have arrived in Ireland. It´s a beautiful sunny day with a bit of haze so despite Gerry´s best attempt to drive us down the coastal route through Dublin, our visibility is a bit limited...

First thing in the morning we packed up in Sweden and made a final trip out to the SSRS - were given a free Chart and loads of other sundry items. The people of the SSRS were so generous that we were Starting to feel guilty - and in the end we shipped two boxes home full of "stuff" both from the conference and from the SSRS. We knew our luggage was overweight (thus shipping the boxes) but we didn´t expect a bill of over 1000Kr (About $120) However that wasn´t so bad all things considered. The worst part of the day was the heat. Over 30° outside and NO AIR CONDITIONING - yowzers was it hot! (imagine over 300 people in a waiting lounge of a building with a metal roof and no ventilation and 30° outside I;d guess it was at least 4 or 5° warmer inside) and it didn´t help that we were both wearing About 4 layers to try and keep the weight down in our luggage.

It was fine once on the plane and we enjoyed a smooth 2h flight over to Ireland. Gerry hired a Car and we meandered down the coast towards Greystones in County Wicklow where Gerry lives and they had found us a B&B. We stopped part way down at a small pub for our first pint of Guinness and made it to the B&B About 1800h.

In general we Stay at B&Bs and work closely with many local ones in our area - we have never had a bad experience at one - but that luck was bound to change as there is a dud in every lot and unfortunately this was to be our small adventure... Our host greeted us with a bit of a dazed look and when asked which room she replied "I think it´s #4 just go up and if there is someone in the bed it isn´t yours" - we think this was a joke - but it was really hard to be sure. It was pretty basic - but livable so we stayed the first night and made other arrangements for the next day. Always good to Check with the local association and/or standards body for B&Bs.

So, completely exhausted after a dinner with our Gerry and Kathleen we turned in for the night.

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