Monday, September 29, 2008

From Kudzu to Shamrocks

We left Memphis and headed for New York and landed at LaGuardia Airport. the first thing that you will notice is that it is bigger than Memphis. In fact, it is bigger than Memphis and Water Valley rolled into one. The skyline really is something to see. The second thing I got was a dose of Taxicabs. Do not be fooled, they are expensive. In our stupidity we had to go from LaGuardia to JFK to catch our plane. The info we had was it was almost next door. $50 later we arrived at JFK and our flight on Aer Lingus to Shannon, Ireland. The flight was 5 1/2 hours and we arrived at 5:00AM their time. It was still dark. We stumbled out of the terminal and the first thing I found out about Ireland was that those damn fools drive on the wrong side of the road! I went to hire a driver for the 2 hour trip to Ashford Castle and the man said that will be around $192. Crap! When I questioned them they thought it was funny because they were talking about Euros not dollars. I went to the currency exchange.
The American dollar was worth .60 cents! Holy Moly, half our money just got thrown away! The car was roughly $300 American! Nothing to do but grit our teeth and go.
This is where it really got interesting.
We hopped in the car with and the driver took off. We are racing across the country while he is happily telling us about everything in view. My face is pale and Denise has her eyes closed. The roads there seem about 10 to 12 feet wide with everyone driving about 70 mph. On each side, exactly 6 inches from the road is a rock wall 4 to 8 feet in height. Each curve we slid around we had to turn our bodies sideways!
Finally after many close calls that the driver seemed not to notice, we arrived at Ashford Castle. Please visit their website, you will be amazed. Their pics are a whole lot more dramatic than mine. Castle, Ghost, Lake Monster and Golf all in one place.
Oh yes, there is Guinness beer too!

3 comments:

blogagog said...

Oh no. You are living in a castle now? I hope you don't expect us to call you m'lord, 'cause that's where I draw the line.

Editor said...

you forgot to say m'lord

Davin said...

Well Rex glad y'all are back safe and sound! I must say i giggled quite a bit about your driving experience over there (HAHA). It was quite an eye opening experience for me when I was stationed in England,however I was 18 and fearless at the time. Glad you had a great time,hope to see you in the Grove this comming Saturday,promise I'll behave during the game!
Davin