Ireland and the traffic circles

(3 Reviews)

Mary McWilliams

Brighton, CO

Africa and Ireland Travel Specialist

In 1994, while studying law in Europe, I took my first major trip abroad with a backpack on my back. Before my classes started in Ireland, I traveled to London, Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Ireland, and the Czec...

In 1994, while studying law in Europe, I took my first major trip abroad with a backpack on my back. Before my classes started in Ireland, I traveled to London, Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Amsterdam, Switzerland, Ireland, and the Czech Republic. After twenty years, I was able to go back to Europe, and my passion for travel was reignited when I went to Italy in 2014. Since then, I have loved planning and researching vacations and the travel bug hit me hard. I started doing all my own research and decided to become a travel agent while planning my daughter's senior trip to Greece in the spring. I crystallized the idea while spending time in Mexico with my family in June. That's when On a Whim Travel, LLC became a reality. I am now an independent contractor with RSVP Events & Travel (https://rsvpeventsonline.com and http://stlouismo.vacation.travelleaders.com) and have been certified as a South African, Ireland, and Mexico travel agent. I am always learning and expanding my knowledge base. Helping people plan their adventures sounds incredible to me and is a passion!!  

www.onawhimtravel.com

 

 

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore ~ Andre Gide

 

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Mary McWilliams

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Our min Cooper

I can never decide if I could live anywhere else if it would be Ireland or Italy.  They are my two favorite countries to visit.  Ireland holds a special place in my heart.  I studied there in 1994 for my summer abroad in law school and watched the slow speed chase of OJ Simpson at a pub named O'Neils in Dublin answering all kinds of questions about the American Legal system.  That same summer I saw a whole country celebrate as their team advanced in the world cup.  I knew that I would come back to Ireland.  It took me awhile to get back but I have gone back on multiple occasions and each time I find that there is so much more to explore and I will never tire of that beautiful green island.  

It is the summer of 2017.  I have convinced a friend of mine to run the Dublin Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon.  If you are going to run 13.1 miles you have to do it somewhere fun!  As soon as we land in Dublin we are taking it all in.  I had our tickets for the Guinness Tour.   While I don't like Guinness Beer in the US there is nothing like it in Ireland!  We found pubs to watch live music!  We laughed and joked about the 13 miles we were there to run.  I even bought us cute shirts and tutu's!  Well we finished the 13.1 miles.  

We then decided we needed to see more of Ireland so we rented a car.  Now that statement may seem innocent enough.  Except remember it is a little car that is not an automatic but a stick shift that you shift with your left hand as you sit in what is our passenger seat and you drive on the wrong side of the road on the tiniest of roads.  Now that is an experience.  We eventually made it out of the city to Galway and carefully tried to navigate.  So even as you are trying to figure out the shifting, the driving on the wrong side of the road, then you have to navigate the traffic circle.  A fair number of people struggle with those in the US.  Imagine two women out for an adventure trying to navigate and then the traffic flows the other way in those traffic circles.  My friend is asking which exit and I keep saying I don't know.  I think we went around some traffic circles 4-5 times before we figured out how to get out of them without causing an accident and making sure we were going the right direction.  Oh, but we laughed so hard our bellies hurt.  We made it to Galway only to pull into a parking garage where the walls of the garage were black from being hit and we were in a mini cooper afraid we didn't have clearance to go around the corners.  I think you could smell the clutch by the time we found a parking spot.  We did make it out of Galway to the Cliffs of Moher.  The GPS might have taken us down someone's driveway as well.  At the end of the night we even got stuck on a speed bump.  Looking back though driving around Ireland laughing with one of my best friends still is one of my best memories.