Well, after 46 straight hours of traveling, we finally made it back on German soil. We left our Irish cottage at 7am on Friday morning and arrived at home this morning at 5am. However, we did have to go back to France today and return the rental car so if I add that time in, it was 51 hours of travel.
The earliest we could get a flight out of Ireland was this coming Monday so we didn't want to chance it. The volcano was still irrupting and the wind could have changed directions again. That would be gambling and we had already been doing that for a week with the airlines. The earliest ferry we could get was Friday. We drove from Killorglin (on the ring of Kerry, which is on the southwest coastline) to Wexford (which is on the southeast coastline) to drop off our rental car. Then, we caught a taxi from there to Rosslare to catch the ferry headed to Cherbourg France. The ferry left at 9:30pm on Friday and arrived in Cherbourg at 4:30pm on Saturday. We then took a bus to the rental car place in Cherbourg. We got in our rental car at 5:30 and headed to Caen for some dinner and free WiFi. After full bellies, we headed on right thru the heart of Paris at night. I love the eifel tower at night! It was a bumber we couldn't stop and take advantage of being in Paris. We had a schedule to keep. We crossed over the boarder into German and headed to the Hahn airport to get our cars out of long term parking. We then had another hour just to get home. We were able to sleep from 5:30am this morning to 9am.
We went and picked up the kids this morning at my friend Brandee's house. It was a great reunion. I sure missed them. Eva told me we have to move back to South Carolina so the volcano doesn't get us. I thought that was pretty cute. Gabe was a little shy at first, but quickly got over that. It has been a great day with them even though we had to drive 2 1/2 hours each way to Strasbourg, France to drop off the rental car. If we didn't drop it off back in France, they were going to charge us a $600 drop off fee. Talk about taking advantage of stranded passangers! So, we picked the closest Hertz rental car just over the french/german boarder.
I've got more to come later. I will post about our great time in Ireland, but that will have to do for now. Glad to be back.
Lindsey
