The day finally came. After almost two years of planning it honestly didn't feel like it was going to. We said our many goodbyes to our friends and family and Laura's parents were gracious to drive us three hours down to Chicago from our home town of Grand Rapids, MI. 

The month and a half we spent there seriously went by much faster than we ever expected. But then again that's the pattern of all of it, right?

While at the airport we finally got a chance to use the priority pass lounge and while it wasn't quite like the first-class lounge it was still very nice and a far better experience than sitting in the terminal. Who can say no to free beer, food, and wifi?

H had all the hopes and dreams for the plane ride as I did growing up. Sitting back, soda in hand watching a movie as they bring by the steak and Brownie Ala Mode for dessert. Living his best life. 

Unfortunately, the plane was quite delayed and he barely made it 30 minutes into his movie before passing out missing all of the drink and food. Probably better that he didn't experience the food that we got. There was no Brownie Ala Mode.

Once landed and through customs (complete with a surprise bloody nose from H), we finally were on our way to what I had been dreading; the car. This has been a source of anxiety for me leading up to this trip as I had no idea what to expect and felt a lot of pressure to not mess up. I'm generally a very confident driver but driving on the other side of the street?? DRIVING on the other side of the car??? KPH and TRAFFIC CIRCLES????? Here is what we found out both the easy way and the hard way:

• always bring a puke bag for H (we needed it within 15 minutes of being on the road)
• It took us about 2 days to get used to driving this way. I wish I could say I wasn't nervous in the end but oh boy was I nervous. I found that the moments that I was tired or started thinking about things too much it would seriously frighten me seeing a car driving the other way.
• Get yourself a good navigator. I mean both google maps AND a co-pilot. This wasn't just hard on me, it was also hard on Laura, remember, she was on the opposite side too! Laura was an amazing co-pilot that helped keep things calm, kept me informed on the next several steps and always had the toll change on hand. We also agreed that it was best that we didn't both drive. This would have not allowed either of us to get comfortable with our main roles, and it would have added to the cost. This leads to the last point.
• Prepare to pay more than you think you will. We were those silly people who showed up reserving the smart car because it was the cheapest. We had in mind that we wanted to do some road tripping and that car would have been an awful choice for us. We would have spent more in the end for gasoline instead of the diesel we went with due to worse gas mileage. They also warned us about using the credit card as insurance. Many credit cards have stopped offering insurance for Ireland so just double-check. Thankfully ours did.
• Those roads are tiny and the parking spots are small. I'm shocked we never encountered an accident. On multiple occasions, Laura had to help me park.

We decided to stay in a little cottage through Airbnb near Drogheda which was about 40 km from Dublin. We chose the cottage because it offered a nice amount of space and also gave a great exit for road trips. One of the reasons we chose Airbnb's as the primary lodging for our trip is so that we can save money both with long term stays as well as a place to prepare food. Because of this one of the first stops we made before we checked in was to a grocery store to stock up for the week. We aimed to have 2 meals at the Airbnb and one out each day.

Once settled into the cottage H fell asleep pretty quickly and once the adrenaline died down Laura and I were right behind him. While it felt that we could sleep for a full day we knew we couldn't as we had a new country to see! In the end H did sleep a very respectable 15 hours.

-Jonathan