Getting to Cork

Here I sit in the Gresham Metropole Hotel on the bank of the Lee River in Cork. It's still dark at 5 a.m. (9 p.m. the previous day in California) 43 degrees,and cloudy, according to the Weather Underground.

Our flight out of San Francisco yesterday was fine, except the seats in the economy section were so tightly shoehorned into the jet that we were cheek to jowl with each other and had no way to move our feet for 10 hours! We timed our bathroom and stretching breaks so one half of the row left at a time - right half now, left half later. It was a gymnastic exercise to slide over one adjacent seat, and to slide over two was a nightmare for the folks in the row in front, as we hung for balance on the backs of their seats. We have vowed to upgrade to business class for the return trip.

However, they fed us two meals, a couple of snacks, and an endless supply of water - I think the flight crew wanted to keep us in our seats, because that snack cart trundled down the aisle about every 20 minutes.

One nice thing was that every seat had a little tv screen in the back of the seat in front, and the controls were in the arm of our seats, so we could roll our own entertainment. There was a choice of 4 movies, several television shows, umpteen channels of music, and that nice GPS map that showed our progress across the US, Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean.

The connection with Bus Eireann was very smooth - they have a ticket counter in the baggage claim area of Shannon Airport, and delivered us nearly to the Metropole Hotel. Along the way, we drove through that idyllic countryside you see in the picture books. It's just as green, but big as life. There lots of cows, sheep, and a few horses. For the distance we travelled, there were few houses, and the little towns we drove through tended to be a few storefronts, bars, etc. along both sides of the street. We passed through Limerick, Limerick Junction, a couple other small whistle-stop type towns, Mallow, and then Cork - approximately a two-hour ride, I think - we were so tired, we did a lot of snoozing on the way.

The Metropole, which sits across the river from the bus terminal, is an older hotel, but nicely appointed and very clean. The rooms are small (double bed instead of the Queens that US hotels offer), but very clean. We had a featherbed for a blanket, and the "bedspread" was purely for show: a piece about 24" wide that draped across the foot of the bed, looking like it had just been turned down for our convenience. Actually, that's a great idea, because I always remove the bedspread and stuff it into a chair when I retire, because it always weighs so much on my feet.

When I called Patrick to say we had arrived safely, he was stunned, because our trip had lasted 24 hours from door to door. I didn't realize it had lasted so long, but it explains why we were so tired when we arrived at Shannon - we had flown into the sun, so we had basically skipped the intervening night! We had flown from the noon of one day to the morning of the next day wothout it ever getting dark!

We decided to skip the whole "eating out" thing, and ordered sandwiches and curried chicken via room service. Then we showered and crashed for the night.

Marty, though, seemed to have asthma problems which became most noticeable when we arrived at Heathrow in London. He had to stop and rest occasionally while carrying our bags through the labyrinthe of security, customs, and the very long walk to the gate. Ditto in Shannon. He was up at night with his inhaler and hot shower - but seem s better this morning. I hope it was just stress! I hate to think he might be allergic to Ireland!

We got in touch with Eugene Kent, his dad's cousin, and we will be going to visit them this morning. Eugene will send his daughter to collect us about 10:30 and drive usto his place in Ballyre, which is near Killeagh, about halfway between Cork and Waterford.