Edinburgh to Dublin - The Marine Hotel

It's been a long day!

My cold progressed further over night, so I wasn't at my sparkling best today and a series of travel events conspired to make it quite a frustrating and tiring day.

I said my fond farewells to The Hawes Inn and the Firth of Forth bridge this morning at 8am.

Firth of Forth Bridge this morning

The Hawes Inn

I got up at 6.30am because I thought you had to be at the airport 3 hours before an international flight. Got the car back ok and went into the departure terminals..... my flight kept saying Please wait to book in..... all very well! Eventually I saw a queue forming at the Aer Lingus desk so I just joined in. Eventually I get to the desk and it seems there's a problem... My ticket might not get me on this flight - even though I booked it over 6 months ago.... the young fella didn't have much idea I think, but I was standing there for over 20 mins while he tried to get me on a plane that I had a valid ticket for!!! Eventually he called for help and a young lady sorted it out in a few minutes! But I literally must've been the last one on the flight because I was in the very back of the plane!

I was getting a bit worried about the timing at this stage, because the plane was supposed to leave at 11.35am and board at 11.10am.  Took me ages to get through security, because I left my ipad in my handbag and I got on the slow queue. Really starting to stress about missing this plane I had so much difficulty getting a ticket for.......

Shouldn't wasted that worry thought.....  when I eventually got to see the departures board, they had eventually put a time up for departure - 12.40pm. And there was no gate number, so you don't know where to wait!!!  Aaaaarrrggggghhhhhh.....

Eventually the board said to go and wait in the waiting area for Gates 26-28, so at least we were in the ball park.....!!!

Long story short, eventually we took off about 1 pm and landed in Dublin about 2 pm-ish.

Dublin airport from the plane....

The next wait was the luggage - took over an hour for my bag to come out..... by this time it's after 3pm.

Then I had to queue up again for the Hire Car at Hertz. You have to get a shuttle bus to the Hire Car place near Dublin Airport, and it took me a while to work that out!!

Then I had to work out how to work the car. This is my fourth hire car this trip and each one is different.

Then I had to use Gaby Garmin to get to my hotel because I had not chosen the GPS option on the hire car (which was OK), but I have a little gadget that clicked into the vent so that I could hang my phone on it and use my GMaps....  There's no option for that on the vents in this car.....

Dublin Airport to Marine Hotel

Here's my car BTW...

Brand new Audi

Eventually I arrived at my hotel, the Marine Hotel, about 5pm.... it was a long day. (Took the wrong turn as well, which is par for the course for me!!)

The original plan was that I was going to Crumlin (Dublin suburb) tonight to visit Mary and Nicky - sister and brother-in-law to my friend Bernadette. But it would've taken me another 50 mins to get there, and when I rang Mary, together we decided that I would leave my visit until I was homeward bound (I'm flying home out of Dublin).

My cold is flourishing at the moment, so I was grateful for this.

Instead, I went downstairs and had my first Smithwicks.... my favourite Irish beer!

It's hot here too.... over 20 degrees in Dublin. What's the matter with these countries???? It's supposed to be cold and gloomy!!!

Anyway, this hotel is just lovely. It backs on to the beach... And the rooms are big and spacious....

The Marine Hotel

Here's a few pics of the beach at the back...

Beach at the back

Beach at the back

Looking from beach back to hotel - big beer garden!!!!

 And one big positive to finish the day..... I needed some Euros as we're in Euro country now and I was very anxious as I walked across the road from the hotel to go to the atm.... But I had loaded up my pre-paid card and it worked with no problems!!!  Thank you Jesus!!!!