O Georgina! We picked up our campervan ‘Georgina’ in Dublin. After two days of relaxing in the Irish countryside in the Fitzpatrick castle and savoring some Guinness and Irish delectabilities, we were ready to take Georgina through the tiny roads across Ireland and play across a verdant vivacious Ire-land of every shade of green.
So, those Irish roads. Wow. More like sidewalks especially in a huge campervan/Georgina. The first few minutes of driving this behemoth on the left side of the road were terrifying. Pidge was clutching the passenger seat like a life preserver and I was not blinking – also realized my boots were not ideal for the small pedals of this thing. So, 3 minutes into the road trip we stopped at an Aldi, having both somewhat shit ourselves on the road and making it into the parking lot feeling gratitude we were okay. I switched to my running shoes and we went shopping and urinated in our toilet in the camper – what a luxury!
Then we really hit the road – and it was okay!! Okay it was terrifying a lot of the way but we slowly and surely made our way into the Wicklow Mountains. And being two non-campers, we somehow figured it out! Then we made it south to Ballymaloe Cookery School outside of the foody city of Cork, we had quite a remarkably serendipitious expereince in the pouring rain in Tipperary where Kait may or may not have a lot of Omeara/Omara family (another post will explore this adventure!) and then up north to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher. Stunning!! Actually did have to catch a ride with a couple leaving a wedding up there by the Cliffs of Moher to get back to our hostel but who doesn’t have to do that once or twice!
Coming back to Dublin, it was time to celebrate that we had survived. We graciously returned Georgina and felt gratitude to be alive and off the roads – really some of that driving was just completely nuts with the small roads, traffic jams, and hairpin turns – we somehow found out how to play music the last day of our drive but before then it was all white-knuckle all out no blinking attention. I felt so appreciate that Kait trusted me to drive as I safely got us around the country in this huge campervan (after not driving the past 1.5 years living in NYC!). And her navigation skills were clutch. We really are quite the team.
The celebration in Dublin consisted of exploring the city by foot – putting eyes within a few of the museums including The National Leprechaun Museum, which was my favorite for all its mystical storytelling and of course a few pints of Guinness! I also loved seeing street signs written in Gaelic and hearing all the traditional Irish music!! And the best comedy show ever at In Stitches comedy – a big tough headlining comic ending up sobbing about his experience of becoming a new dad. Delightful Dubs 🙂
