Tired!!!!I k

Thursday-Friday, May 10-11, 2012

The delay at the airport yesterday was due to high winds in Newark rather than the rain in San Antonio.  When winds get beyond a certain velocity, they must spread out the arrivals of planes more than normal.   We were waiting for the word that we could land once we had flown there.  It finally came about 2:30--a whole hour before it had originally been expected.  That relieved me, because I knew it meant I would have plenty of time for my connection in Newark.  And, sure enough, we arrived at 7:45 p.m. with the Belfast plane not scheduled to take off until 9:05.

Tired of sitting and concerned about Wes' flight, I walked to his gate.  His flight was expected at 8:20 which would only give him 45 minutes to catch the Belfast plane.  Because the gate was all the way across the terminal, I was worried about catching the flight myself, so I headed back to the Belfast gate without waiting for him.  On the way, I ran into him.  He had arrived on an earlier flight about the time that I arrived.  They had changed his flight from Houston to an earlier one out of fear that he might not make the connection.

The flight to Belfast wasn't too bad.  I watched a film from Brazil (Os 3), ate dinner, and slept off and on for 3-4 hours.  It's only about 5 1/2 hours from New York to Belfast.  Once we arrived, everything went fast.  The airport in Belfast is about the size of the one in Corpus Christi.  We were out of there and on a bus to town fast.  Then we got a train ticket to Dublin just 5 minutes before the next train was leaving.  That got us here at 1:30 p.m.  There was sunshine with clouds in a distance.  We walked to our hotel to pass time and keep ourselves awake.

The room is very nice and confortable.  I showered to help wake me up.  Then we went back into town to wander and explore with no specific goals in mind today.  We walked by Trinity College and through it.  We walked down the pedestrian shopping street.  We wandered through the Temple Bar area.  Occasionally we had to step inside or under an awning while awaiting the passage of showers.  One such shower included some tiny bits of hail.

Exhausted and tired, we didn't want to eat much.  We stopped at a Spar market and bought some salami, bread, raspberry jam, and some cola. ` We will snack on that tonight.  I brought some melatonin for us to take to help us sleep through the night so we will be rested to really start our tour of Dublin tomorrow.