I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane!

A long long time ago, my sister Kelly called me up one night and said, "hey, do you want to go to Ireland?"

"Ha ha," I thought. "Yeah right. Good one."

Well she was persistent and kept on asking. I finally committed with our standard SCREAM "ahhhhhh!" And the planning began. 

I give her 100% of the credit for all the planning. 

She found an awesome tour company, Authentic Ireland, (sorry I'm having trouble linking on the iPad!) that would plan as much or as little of our trip as we wanted them to do. We tossed it around back and forth if we should just plan it all ourselves or if we should pay them to help us, and I'll say that it was totally worth it so far to use them. We had them book all of our accommodations and our rental car, and they didn't have any cancellation fees if we needed to cancel for some reason. We decided their experience was much needed. 

The only planning I had to do was figure out what clothes to bring, and what knitting to bring. 

I'll tell ya, I was worried about getting my needles through security, but they didn't even bat an eye at them. I had a very long day ahead of me with substantial sitting and waiting time, and I was so scared I wouldn't be able to knit. I was wrong. Yay!

I got to the airport in Duluth way too early, and checking in and security took approximately 15 minutes. What better to do with the extra time, but cast on!

Here we go!  I was flying to Chicago first and meeting Kelly there who would be arriving from Madison a few hours after I did.

Good thing I set the reminder on this vacation notice. I almost forgot to go!  (Not really.  I was already in Chicago when I got my reminder. Kelly was checked in in Madison and getting her fuel!)

O'Hare is big, y'all!

and has some pretty cool tunnels!

Pretty colors!

Making some serious progress waiting for Kelly!

Hooray! She's here!

Ready for fun!

Turned the heel on the way to Newark!  Lightening speed socks!

This was where we'd be spending the next six hours flying over the ocean.

Bye bye Newark,

Thanks, United.  Too bad your seats are so uncomfortable. Maybe it was just me and my old person back troubles.

See those little lights on the ground under the wing of the airplane?  Those are little Irish lights. Perhaps leprechaun front porch lights. I don't know.  But I'd like to go find out. 

Here are a few things I've learned so far:

1.  I can bonk my head on the overhead compartment three times and not learn from it. A fourth time will happen. 

2.  If you eavesdrop on the conversations around you while waiting at a gate at an airport and knitting, you will probably knit 5 rows of blue instead of 4, and not realize it until several rows later.  (go ahead and scroll up there and count them. It's ok.)

3.  Airport food is very expensive and often doesn't sound good at the time. Get it and eat it anyways. 

4.  I'm not too fond of 20 straight hours of travel. 

5.  I can survive on far less sleep than I thought I could when I'm zipped clear into the next day and someone just steals 6 hours away from me.

6.  I miss my family very much, but I know they are having fun without me at home too.

We had a full day already today after landing at 7am local time and only an hour or two of sleep on the plane, and I'm completely exhausted. Photos on what we did today will come tomorrow. It's time now for some rest. 

More adventures to come!

XOXOX

NH