After a nice (free) breakfast in the hotel, we went straight to the bus stop and went back to the Omni mall for the Tesco cards. We purchased our SIMs and found a bench. We tried to activate Carrie's first and received the fatal " don't try this again or you will be locked out of your phone forever" message. I decided not to even try mine until we had her's straightened out.
Back on the bus to the airport to rent our car...
Once again, the research I had done the day before helped us go directly to the car rental agency. We were 90% through the procedure when the cashier asked me how I intended to insure the car. I informed her that I had insurance through my credit card and showed her the letter I had from them.
A this point, let me just say that I had doneHOURS of research so that we could make the proper decision regarding insuring the car in Ireland. It is a somewhat different procedure in a few countries around the world and Ireland happens to be one of them.
The cashier informed me that the letter would not be good enough and sent me off on a 5 HOUR mission to get the letter I needed. The letter would make the difference between paying nothing extra for insurance, and paying approximately $1,000. for insurance, so it was an important letter.
I called my credit card, they sent me to Master Card, who told me to call my credit card, who said the office I needed wouldn't be open for two hours. Two hours later I called that office, who told me to call to call my credit card.... You get the picture.... All of this on a cell phone that was costing us $1.99 a minute because we hadn't gotten our Irish SIM cards working yet. During the 2 hour hiatus we decided getting our phones working was key. Carrie didn't get the answers we needed from TMobile so I decided to plunge ahead and try to activate mine. Viola! With only a few stumbles we had a working phone, so at least the following hour on the phone only cost 2 cent per minute. ( in case you are wondering, we couldn't use the toll free from Europe number because the international operator was unable to connect us to the number, telling us it was blocked for some reason)
Back to the car rental, keys finally in hand, we finished our food from the grocery the prior evening as a makeshift lunch. On the road with Carrie behind the wheel we maneuvered our way straight to the reception of our timeshare. The original plan was to visit Newgrange, (an ancient burial site) for the day, but that was before we spent the entire day dealing with car rental issues.
We spent an hour asking questions of the woman behind the counter and left armed with maps and information and some secret tips on how to get free WiFi and which local pub to avoid due to the clientele that frequent it.
Once at our place we walked out to see the lake, Carrie helped a local farmer find his Heifer (she had run past Carrie on the other side of a fence) and we went inside to get settled. Our place is quaint and cute. It has a kitchen, living area and dining area downstairs and a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. We have a patio outside and it's 20 feet to the lake. It's a nice little home away from home, and boy, was it good to be home.
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