Q&A #2: How to allocate time between Dingle and Doolin, recommendations on what to do, Ireland itinerary, and more!

Meegan had some questions for me, and my response ended up being too long for a comment.  So, Meegan, here are my answers - I hope this helps!

Ireland Day 2, Part 2: Dublin city

Ends up hotel rooms don’t provide enough mental stimulation to stay awake, so bus into Dublin city it was.  In light of which, by the way, I would fully support a move by Seattle to exclusively double-decker transit.  No more need for awkward seats in the articulating middle, and twice the height of course means twice the excitement when you go hurtling around corners at breakneck speeds.

Having traveled before, Jason found Dublin similar to other western European cities, at least to his recollection (which may be vague, as it's been many years).  For me, it was new but not entirely unfamiliar – bustling street corners, pedestrian-only lanes (which were lovely, given that street crossings have proven to be frustrating and often require very bold jaywalking), and shiny-lacquered shops snugged up against each other with no space in between.  Some sidewalks were wider than the streets (which I know may not be saying much, given the reputation these streets have for being rather narrow - but they were rather wide sidewalks nonetheless), while others are so narrow that two people can hardly walk side by side.

Ireland Days 1 + 2: Seattle to Dublin

Jason and I decided that we’d like to try keeping a travel blog for our trip.  Whether or not I’ll be able to stick to it is up for debate – it’ll depend on time and energy – but I’m definitely going to try.  I’ve been informed by a few people now that a travel blog without pictures isn’t much worth reading, but I’m kind of a stickler about photos: if we’re talking ones from the DSLR, I want to have a chance to post-process.  That just isn’t going to happen while we’re traveling – it takes way too much time, and the netbook can’t handle Photoshop.

Compromise: I’m taking pictures (albeit probably crappy ones) with the old cellphone that we brought along for emergency calls, with the promise to upload high quality images once they’re all edited after the trip.  If I’d had the foresight to do so, I would’ve brought my Lumia 900, which at least has a wide angle lens and takes quite good pictures, but at the time we were worried about losing it (or having it be stolen) and weren’t thinking about picture quality (or blogging, for that matter).

So, onto the actual travelling! The last couple days are already fading into a blur.  We flew out of Seattle at 11:00 am on Thursday and arrived in Dublin at 8 am on Friday – technically midnight in Seattle time.  When we landed in Dublin I had to wrap my head around the concept that while Friday had already begun for us a while ago, it had just barely started for everyone back home.  At that point Jason was pretty exhausted, though I was riding high on a second (or perhaps third) wind.