Day One: Plane Delayed and Cliffs of Mohr

Plane Flight - Eventually
We got off safe and sound, at least onto the bus and the plane at Reagan, but Philly is taking a while. Katie is feeling really sick - fever, chills, really bad aching, headache, and a throat that's barely letting her swallow at all. I'm trying to get some fluids into her, but I hate asking her to swallow since it hurts so much. Fortunately Joyce was a nurse and Andrea has some antibiotics for earaches, so along with Tylenol, Asprin, and Ibuprofin, Katie is thoroughly doped up. She was feeling good this morning with just a slight sore throat! Yikes!

It's after 1:00 am and the plane still hasn't taken off or even loaded. It should have left at 9:30! The flight is 6 1/2 hours long, so even if it were to take off at this moment (1:30) it wouldn't get to land until 12:45 pm, Ireland time.

On the up side though, we've all spent five hours playing Nertz. I'm getting the hang of it now, and we've even had other passengers come over and join in! One guy that came over is a martial artist that has a couple tricks he performs at demonstrations all over - a one-armed, two-fingered pushup! That was so cool!

God bless us all, we're finally taxiing away from the gate! It's 1:50 AM, EST!

Sleeping on a plane is rough but not impossible with enough incentive. I watched a bit of the movie, Fever Pitch, and ate dinner and managed a good 3 hours of sleep. Thankfully Katie slept a lot more than I did, and is still asleep (7:45 EST, 12:45 Ireland time). Hopefully that will help; she had quite a fever last night.

The group seems to be in OK shape considering, so hopefully with an easy day today we'll all be feeling energetic enough. I got a shot of David's hair - it's quite the site! We're descending! Look out Ireland!

Cliffs of Mohr
We checked out the Cliffs of Mohr which had some really spectacular views! We had gotten lots of warnings about the winds that have at times been strong enough to send a cow over the edge, and there have been tourists swept over the edge too. I wasn't sure how the group would react to me getting right up to the edge, and it would probably made a bad example for the kids, so I kept from getting to the very edge.

Along the path up, there were people set up with crafts and a couple musicians to whom you could drop a couple coins. One was a really good harp player, and when she heard we were dancers, she played a reel for us to do a few steps! Our first performance! 30 seconds! :^)

Dinner Dinner was at a pub in town, Lisdoonvarna, and was a "wee" bit slow but quite good and it was at a traditional Irish pub which was really neat. When you think of all the stereotypical Irish pubs in old movies like The Quiet Man you'll have a great picture of this place! It was perfect! Most of the group headed back, but I and a couple others stayed to hear an Irish group play at the pub. It was so cool! There were three of them, one on a VERY COOL celtic drum, one on a flute and whistle, and one with a hand accordian. It was so much fun to sit there and listen and watch. I really did feel like I had dropped into a movie set of a pub! One of the audience even sang an Irish ballad about a young woman who marries an younger boy and is complaining to her father. They soon have a son, but when the young man was only 19 he dies, and the woman is mourning for her much beloved lover. The singer was an older gent, a bit hoary, and with a scratchy voice. It was truly the perfect setting! I didn't think that scenes like this really existed!

And a happy anniversary to Jack and Janice Gates today! Very cool that they can spend their anniversary like this! God bless 'em! I was walking with a Joyce and Mary, hopping from pub to pub to listen to music, and we saw some fun signs: The Matchmaker Bar and a place that advertised the Best Crack In Town! We eventually tried to call a cab (called a people mover) but they were going to be almost an hour and we didn't know how to get back to the B&B! Thankfully our coach driver, Michael, had come into town for a pint and was good enough to walk us back. What an awesome first day in Ireland!!!!

From the upper left:
1) Katie is coming! She's got a bit of a sore throat here, but no way is she letting that slow her down!
2) We're taking a bus from Leesburg down to Reagan. We're all ready to go!
3 & 4) Well, during the flight delay at Philly, we learned the wonderful game of Nertz! I have no clue where the name came from. We played for at least 5 hours! We even had other people on the flight come over and join us for a while!
5) Before we left, the teens had all made shirts for the flight over, and here was one of my favorites. Hannah has excellent taste IMHO! Everyone else had on BRTC shirts. I'm sure we were quite the site!
6) Our flight from Philly to Shannon was delayed several times for "mechanical reasons" and instead of 9:30, we finally took off at 1:50! We got a kick out of this sight though: 1:00 AM, but the flight is still on time!!!
7, 8, 9) Our first sight in Ireland? The cliffs of Mohr on a clear, sunny day! A miracle! The winds were fairly light, so we didn't have to worry about blowing off, which does happen every once and a while!
10, 11) Here's the teens! We've got a fun group of them on this trip. That Dana is a bit weird, but still cool! :^D They also had an old tower that we could scale and there was a telescope at the top, what a view!
12) Katie's still wiped from being sick. She's feeling much, much better but is still tired and a touch of a headache.
13 - 16) Here's the Ore A Tava house that we stayed in. It's really nice! Of course any place will look good if David's in it!
17 - 21) We walked down the road to pick up the coach, and it was a really nice walk. Very pretty! There was a gorgeous little flower garden that the more botanically inclined photo-ed extensively!