May 17

Our last day in Ireland! We were flying out of Dublin the next day and just had a hotel room by the airport for the night, so there wasn’t much urgency to move quickly on the road heading from Kilkenny.

Martin had done some reading about hikes to that were generally on route to Dublin, so we ended up stopping in the Wicklow Mountains for a nice long loop. We got some incredible views of the Wicklow Mountains and the surrounds, and saw the remains of an old mining town; it was a very scenic activity with which to end our stay in Ireland!







We drove a couple more hours to Dublin where we ended up in rush hour traffic around the airport, trying to get gas for our rental car and then find the rental car facility to return it. It was only a little stressful and things only got a little bit heated… But we finally got to our hotel and had a totally fine meal and stayed in a totally forgettable room. But it was nice to be able to not worry about any kind of logistics or meal-planning for a night.

We had a really great time in Ireland and really enjoyed exploring (part of!) the country. The scenery is beautiful, the people kind, the beers tall, and the welcomes warm. It was hard to be packing up and moving every few days—it’s hard to get into a rhythm when you’re only in a place for two nights; and while breakfasts and lunches are cheap and easy to get at the grocery store, it’s difficult to gather all the ingredients to make dinner and then deal with leftovers. Plus, we didn’t even have access to kitchens at several of the places we stayed. Eating out for dinner every night is fun for a little while, but then it gets old and you crave home-cooked meals. There was also a lot of stress when staying somewhere for only a few days, and you feel like you need to see and do everything that you end up so worn down at the end of the day, and then you have to find a place for dinner which is also often stressful. We were definitely looking forward to being in cities for more than just two days.

Our flight to Amsterdam was at 10am on the 18th; kind of an early morning but luckily we were staying very close to the airport. We were bummed to be leaving Ireland but excited for the next part of the adventure!
Slainte!
(“Cheers” in Gaelic; pronounced “slawncha,” like “cilantro” but it’s “slawncha.”)

Next up: Stroopwaffels!!!