Ireland and England trip

I wish I had a lot of pictures to share of the two, but I don't. Sadly, my camera battery that I thought was fully charge was in fact, not. So I could only pull out the little point-and-shoot for important and memorable moments. I'll have to upload those later.

We drove to Frankfurt-Hahn airport which is a tiny little airport 4 hours from where we live. We had to park in the "cheap parking zone" for 5.50 Euro a day. It's so cheap because we had to walk a mile practically!! IN THE SNOW have you. We carried both babies up a huge hill and by the time we got in the terminal we were- I mean I- was breathing so hard!!

Frankfurt to Dublin flight: Delayed 3 hours.

So we waited in the airport and spend a fortune on nasty bratwursts and $5 coke. The babies did impeccably well.

Instead of getting into Dublin (Ireland) at 4 something, we now got there at 7:30pm and we only had until the next day to see all we could of Ireland! I was so mad because now it was dark out, we've arrived in Dublin and now we can't go sightsee because it was already late and things were closing. We had a heck of a time trying to locate our hotel shuttle. After 20 minutes in the snow waiting to see if our shuttle to "Stay Dublin Apartments" would show up, we scurry back in the airport and round up some loose change from our pockets to use the payphone. I call the hotel and they said we were supposed to make a reservation for it. AHHHH!!!!!!!!! GRRRRR!!!!

I'm trying to make this story short. So we thought about the city bus. Our hotel is an "apartment" so it's not just something you can tell a taxi or bus driver. It was off of some little side street and not really labeled. We ended up renting a tiny little car with carseats and drove around Dublin for 2 hours trying to find this place! I did not want to rent their GPS for $50 and we did not bring our own, so we used these 2 crappy maps that the rental place gave us and just prayed for luck.

To this day we never found it..... we got in the area and were on the actual street, but the directions the hotel gave us did not help us at all.

We ended up driving BACK to the airport and stayed in their airport hotel. We arrived in our room at 2:30am. We were drained, hungry, and exhausted. We woke up the next morning, had a good breakfast in the lobby and had to head to the airport already.

That was our experience in the ol' Irish land. Not so memorable. Actually it was memorable, but not in a good way lol.

After waiting all day at the airport, our flight was cancelled due to snow.

Dublin to London flight: Cancelled

They told us to go wait in this line with 300 people ahead of us to rebook our flights- after an hour of waiting and holding our sweaty sleepy babies and our back killing us from our bags over our shoulder, an announcement comes on: "We apologize to our Ryanair customers, but all flights for tomorrow (Christmas Eve day) are full. Please leave the airport and book your flight online." You do not even know how many curse words in Irish I heard after that!!

It was already heading into evening time and we did not know what to do. ALL THE HOTELS WERE BOOKED because everyone's mom and their cat's flights were cancelled as well and they were all heading to the nearest hotels.

Luckily we saw some old guy in a suit holding up a sign that read "Rooms available at Northstar Hotel". YESS. So we talked with him and there was a shuttle leaving in an hour's time. We got a quick bite and headed to our hotel, which was actually very nice.

By this point, we've already spent a crap load on hotels and airport food. Our cash for this trip is going fast.

Still thinking about what we're planning to do as far as London. Jason's family lives an hour outside the city and were waiting for us. We had to get to London somehow because we still had a flight from London back home to Germany.

Jason waited in line for the internet in the hotel for a good couple hours. Some Russian people were on it forever trying to book their flights.

After me and the babies pass out in the big bed, I wake up early the next morning to Jason saying we have to catch an early morning ferry to a port in England, Holyhead. We're so exhausted and really all I want to do is sleep for a few more hours and tour Ireland, but Jason is DETERMINED.

We catch a bus to Dublin's port and we make the ferry just in time. It was really nice on the ferry. I was picturing those ferries you see on tv where you have to sit outside and it's all dirty with people smoking. In this one there were table and booths for everyone to sit around. They also had a few small cafes and an internet section. I started feeling a little motion sick so I had to lay back.

The ferry also made a special announcement that they had presents for all the girls and boys on the boat. That was so nice of them!! So the babies went up there and got their presents and happily ripped open their gift. Leila got a mini purse and Jonah got a plastic tractor that was quickly broken and left in a cafe later that day.

Onto the good part:

Both babies started getting fussy at that point. Leila was in Jason's lap and there was sort of a "calm before the storm" type of deal.. Before we knew it Leila was blowing chunks all over Jason. Luckly it landed mostly on the table. I ran her to the bathroom and took off her chunk-filled sweater and washed her off.

A few minutes later as I was holding Jonah, he ralphed all over me. Jason tried to open a bag to catch the puke, but it pretty much ended up all over his sweater and jeans and my shirt. It just kept on coming too. After a while, I was like, "Oh forget the bag babe!" since Jason was still holding it open and I just welcomed all the throw-up on me. Might as well! I'm already covered in it.

Our neighbors to the right and left of us are just watching us all in this madness and sipping their coffees while me and Jason and scurrying around trying to find wipes and bags. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine except for us Americans.

I'm trying to use as many adjectives for the word "throw-up".. can ya tell?? 1. Blew chunks 2. Ralphed 3. Puke .... can ya think of anymore??

After stripping Jonah down in the bathroom I set him on the tiny counter while the ferry is still rocking back and forth. My hands are washing off all this throw up and I can litterally feel the chunks and I'm breathing this lethal stuff in. I gag a few times while also feeling motion sickness. Not a good mixture.

So I bring Jonah out naked with only hits boots and diaper on and wrap him up in my furry coat. I have to carry him off the ferry like this in the freezing wind.

We get on land and book a train right in the passenger terminal of the ferry station. Thank goodness. Except that line was an hour long.

We catch 3 different trains to try to get to Jason's family's neighborhood and finally arrive at 6:30pm on Christmas Eve. WHEW!

They were so welcoming and Aunt Vicki prepared a nice meal for us. We had our own room with even beds for Jonah and Leila each. They had a blast getting to know the whole family. They got us presents too, which we opened up the next day.

I made dinner one night for them so Aunt Vicki could just rest. We were SOO grateful to them for inviting us into their home.

We weren't able to even go INTO LONDON, since the darn train system was on STRIKE. So we went to a Wildpark with the kids and then later went to a movie.

We spent 3 nights with them and left for the airport back home. It was a pretty smooth trip back, but we are just dissapointed we did not get to see anything at all in Ireland or London :(

We did have a fab trip with his family though :)

Maybe next time!