Chapter 27, In which we say goodbye.

We had breakfast early at the B&B and were on the road to the airport by 9am. Our flight was a little after noon, but I expected we would be slowed up by returning the rental car, and possibly delayed if our flight was not confirmed, as we had found 10 days ago in DC.

But, everything went smoothly. The new black racing stripe I had scratched into the passenger side of the car was not held against me, as the car already had a giant scratch to begin with which was probably written on the "existing damage report." So, we eagerly said goodbye to the vehicle. It got us where we needed to go, but, rented from Avis, I found the car to be a maintenance nightmare. The gas pedal stuck often and the breaks screamed like somebody was being murdered every time I tapped them. Again, overall the car worked fine, but I didn't have the most comfortable feeling driving the thing throughout the trip. In fact, I was pretty appalled so apparent little maintenance could be done by a rental company - that's Avis, in case you forgot.

One other word of advice: if you do ever rent a car in Ireland, make sure you get a fairly small one. This may be important on the smaller, country roads you will drive on, but it is Especially important to be able to navigate into the tiny parking spots we found just about everywhere, especially in the Dublin parking garages. Every couple inches helps, especially if you aren't familiar with driving from the right side of the vehicle.

Anyhow, we dropped off the car and trudged up a long hill to the terminal. From there, everything went smoothly. We had a couple hours to kill which we spent relaxing, reading books and eating cookies I bought from the duty free shop.

Takeoff was a little anti climatic. Nose glued to the window, I watched us leave behind the country that will forever be known as the place of our honeymoon. Within one minute we were over the ocean, and within two there were no visible signs the country even existed. Again, the feeling I had was very content. I knew we had a good time, and I was anxious to get home, especially to see our cats (who, I might add, were the recipients of attention from a very nice pet sitter from Pet Companions and two good friends to which we are eternally grateful). Thinking about the multitude of good times, and the occasional bad ones, together, and especially considered in retrospect, it was truly a wonderful trip to Ireland.