Globetrotters on the go again… This time to Ireland!

Ireland and Isle of Man  3 Comments

After such a successful and exciting adventure last summer, we decided to do it all again this year. We set up a home swap with a lovely family in County Sligo on the west coast of Ireland and will be exploring the emerald isle (plus Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man) for three weeks.

July 9, 2018

Sam:

First of all, when I realized we were stopping in Iceland on the way to Ireland, I was relieved that we would get to stop and rest for awhile. I don’t really like long flights. I slept through most of the first flight because it was through the night for me. When we arrived in Ireland, it was 6am. That’s 1 o’clock in Canada.

On the ride from the airport to our vacation home, it was kind of scary at first because the steering wheel was on the opposite side of the car and we had to drive on the wrong side of the road. I napped a lot on the drive because it took over two hours. We are on the outskirts of Sligo, near the edge of the town. The house we’re staying in is big. It has an electric gate, which is really cool – it opens with the click of a button on our keychain. There are 5 bedrooms and 4 of them have bathrooms in them. My bedroom has a giant bed and lots of books.

For the first full day here, Charlotte was sick so we stayed home most of the day. I rode a cool little dune buggy-like thing with pedals.

We went to supper at a pub. I had chicken goujons, which is what the Irish call chicken nuggets or fingers.

Charlotte:

The plane ride was boring. I wanted to sleep but I couldn’t. A mother and a very cute baby were in front of us. The baby was very good, but she cried and screamed because she couldn’t sleep either and when the plane was landing, her ears really hurt but she wouldn’t sick on her soother or bottle. Then the mother gave the baby to my mom and my mom made the baby suck on the soother.

When got to Iceland, we got our favourite yogurt, Skyr.

Once we landed in Ireland after our second flight, Sam and I played with each other in the car. It was very fun. In Ireland, my dad had to drive on the side mom usually sits in and he had to drive on the opposite side of the road than Canada. I saw lots of cows and in the game that Sam and I played, we were toddlers so we called them wild moos…

We mostly slept when we got to our vacation house. The view in the backyard is really nice.

Today, I did not do that much because I was very sick. All I did was have some rest because I was really tired and watch TV. My favourite part of the day was playing outside on the go cart thing – it was fun and the fresh air helped me feel better.

Then we went to Hargodan’s pub for dinner. I just had mashed potatoes with gravy and a glass of juice. The mashed potatoes helped me feel much better, so Sam and I started acting kind of crazy! And this is the funniest thing I said, “I feel like medicine is really intelligent because it usually helps what is bad and my stomach felt bad and also my legs, so I took some medicine for my legs but my tummy hurt more than my legs so then it helped my stomach feel better.”

Mom and Dad:

After all of our anticipation and preparations, we left our house at 2pm on July 7th and headed to Toronto airport to meet with Michael and his son (two members of our swap family) to exchange keys. We can’t believe how quickly this day came!

After checking in, we had a surprisingly delicious dinner at an airport restaurant and waited to board our flight to Rekjavik, Iceland. When the kids found out about our stopover location they were disappointed that they wouldn’t have time to visit with the friends they made during last year’s home swap.

Besides Charlotte and Mom being unable to sleep and a pretty noisy (but incredibly cute) baby in front of us, the 5.5 hour flight was uneventful.

In Iceland, we grabbed a snack and filled up water bottles before heading out on our next flight. We landed in Dublin, got fast-tracked through customs (gotta love countries that know how to help families with kids out!), and located our swap family’s car. Now the real adventure could begin!

Dad is the only one who can drive standard, so he’ll be the chauffeur for the whole trip. Mom is to be navigator extraordinare (except for those two missed turns…).

Having everything opposite is far more challenging than you’d think! Poor Dad was pretty stressed on our 2.5 hour drive to Sligo, but he did an incredible job. We stopped part way at a rest stop for drinks and brunch. The kids were not fans of black pudding! Sam did like the white pudding though.

We arrived at our beautiful home away from home and took a few minutes to explore before choosing bedrooms and laying down for a nap. Mom was first to fall asleep and woke up four hours later to find the rest of the family zonked out on the couch. She and Dad shared some cookies for dinner and carried the kids up to bed.

Today we stuck around the house, napping and resting, because Charlotte woke up with a tummy bug. It was a much needed day off for all of us, as jet lag had gotten the best of us all. Once Charlotte felt a bit better, the kids tried out some outdoor toys while Dad and Mom enjoyed the view.

When dinnertime rolled around, Charlotte was feeling better and very hungry, so we ventured into Sligo town and ate at an awesome pub. Dad had the lamb burger and a pint, and Mom had the Irish stew, a glass of Rock… Lager, followed by Sticky Toffee pudding for dessert. Yummy!!

Home to bed and hoping for good health and lots of adventure tomorrow!

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