griz326 Posted January 1, 2013 Report Share Posted January 1, 2013 VERY EXPENSIVE!Stayed at the Piccadilly Backpacker's Youth Hostel in London. Perfectly located, but we are a bit too old for youth hostels like this one.London's Chinatown is a short walk. The food was exceptional...of course, we live in Montana which has no real Chinatowns...so the bar was set low. Unfortunately, "Singing in the Rain" had not yet opened and we were not interested in the Michael Jackson show. The museum was nice, but it provoked a discussion about theft of Chinese antiquities.Ireland really does close down between Christmas and New Year's. Clontarf Castle was a good choice, but a little pricey. The holiday week upset our plans for the Ring of Kerry, so we stayed in Dublin. The Arlington Hotel might have been a better in town choice than the place we stayed after leaving the castle, although a tiny bit divey. It has a large pub with Irish music and Irish dancing; the music was great, the dancing was good.We bought a hop-on, hop-off bus tour. The green bus has Chinese language tours, the red bus does not. It is well worth the money. We did the Guinness and the Jameson tours, the jail (gaol) tour, the museum, and Dublin Castle.I had a bit of fun with the Dublin Castle tour guide when he mentioned Obama's Irish heritage. In an Irish brougue, peppered with a couple of choice Gaelic sayings, I learned growing up in an Irish family, I tossed a few humorous political barbs into the tour.I purchased a few bottles of better Irish whiskey at the Celtic Whiskey Shop, but failed to locate a place to smoke a cigar and sip a whiskey.All in all a good trip and worth busting the budget to mark a few things that I want to do with Lao Po off of the bucket list. A health scare almost stopped our trip, so it was especially sweet. Link to comment
Mick Posted January 1, 2013 Report Share Posted January 1, 2013 Glad you had a great trip, griz. Welcome home and Happy New Year! Link to comment
griz326 Posted January 3, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2013 Thank you, Mick.Same to you and everyone here. Link to comment
tsap seui Posted January 3, 2013 Report Share Posted January 3, 2013 Sounds like you guys had a great time, Griz. A Montaner mountain man runnin' around loose in Europe, I'll bet that was a real hoot. tsap seui Link to comment
dan1984 Posted January 3, 2013 Report Share Posted January 3, 2013 How about some pictures! Link to comment
griz326 Posted January 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2013 I should probably mention that getting two visas was a challenge because they both want the passport and green card. It wound up costing $450+ for a Republic of Ireland & UK visa - I had to request expedited handling when things got bogged down and it looked as if we won't get the visas in time. Ireland was a dream to deal with; the UK was a nightmare. That really has to do with no phone or email access to the UK visa processing center except through a pay-per-minute service that really didn't know anything that you couldn't find on the visa website. ...although they did have a link that I couldn't find in the end. Link to comment
dnoblett Posted January 8, 2013 Report Share Posted January 8, 2013 Glad you had a good trip. And glad my wife got her US Citizenship, will not have to go through all the issues getting her visas to visit Europe. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now