Iceland Day 1: Flight from Seattle

We just spent 5-or-so days in Iceland with our friends John and his wife Audrey.  It was quite the adventure and I wanted to share.  Enjoy!

Day 1

It’s departure day morning and we’re already exhausted.  Up until near-midnight packing, and still not done.  I’m frenziedly trying to neaten things up while simultaneously chucking the piles of clothes on the floor into gargantuan, XXL-size Ziploc bags, pausing here and there to kneel on them, bearing down until all the air is gone in a great whoosh, and carefully sealing the zipper.  Vacuum-packed clothes: the only way to travel.

Ireland Intermezzo #2: Driving in Ireland

Our happy little Fiat Punto.

Today's guest post is written (and partially illustrated!) by the official "make-sure-we-don't-die" expert extraordinaire: Jason.  Enjoy!

---

I loved driving in Ireland – sure, we had to repair a punctured tyre and bent rim, but isn’t that all part of the adventure?  And how else would I have met that nice mechanic in Galway?  As the old saying goes, “You can’t know a city until you’ve fixed 2 tyres in it.”  (Okay… I might have made that up.)

Ireland Day 5, Part 1: Connemara scenic drive

A funny craft shop wall mural, found early on the Connemara drive

Connemara is completely unlike anything we’ve seen so far in our trip.  The road from Dublin to Galway, while it was lovely and green, was still just a highway.  For our detour to Clonmacnoise we ventured off the beaten path and got our first taste of the more rural R- roads.  Our drive through Connemara, however, was truly spectacular.

I'd been pretty well convinced that Connemara was something we had to see.  However, given that Jason had been doing a lot of driving, we decided to ask one of our B&B hosts what he thought.  His response sealed the deal: "It's unmissable," he said.  "I recommend it to anyone who spends time in Galway."  Our hosts' advice had been invaluable so far, so this was all the encouragement we needed.

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.