Frankfort and on to Dublin

United Airlines flew us to Frankfort. As we should have expected, my wife's wheel chair was late. 😠 Once her broken wheel chair arrived, we were escorted to another building where we had to wait for half an hour and then go through TSA-style luggage inspection, yet again. We arrived just in time for an overpriced airport lunch while we waited for our connecting flight.

Of course, our Lufthansa flight to Dublin was exactly on time, both leaving Frankfort and arriving at Dublin.

Upon arriving in Dublin, we were escorted to the bus depot. United's baggage customer service office was in another terminal and we were not given a chance to head over there.

At the bus depot, we purchased a family bus pass and deposited some money on it. Our MasterCard works well so far. We took the 747 bus to downtown Dublin. The family pass is good on the buses and the tram.

Before we left home, we had placed a reservation at the Gate Hotel through Expedia. When we tried to check in at the hotel, we found out that for some unknown reason, Expedia had canceled our reservation two days after we placed it. 😠 Now, here we are in a strange city with no room for the night. It will be a long time before we use Expedia again!! 👎

Google Maps came through for us. Using that application, we quickly found another hotel, called them and reserved a room. It was an "air B&B" type arrangement. It was actually a small apartment about a block away from the rental office. Unfortunately, although the building had an elevator, it was out of service and we had to use the stairs.

After we got settled in, it was getting late so we turned to Google Maps again for a place to eat. Google Maps came through for us again, pointing us at a pub a few blocks away — Murray's Bar and Grill.

We could here the music as we walked up to it. There were some tables outside, but this was the smoking zone. Smoking was not permitted inside. When we walked into Murray's, we saw the bar – with an amazing number of beers on tap.

To the right were the dining tables on two levels. The hostess seated us at a table on the upper level. We ordered the Irish Stew and the Guinness Stew, along with a glass of Guinness for each of us. They serve beer in one Imperial pint glasses!! An Imperial pint is larger than an American pint. Beer is cheap here – only about $5 for a pint. The food, by the way, was excellent!

We were surrounded by local, regular customers. The spotted us as tourists right off the bat, but welcomed us heartily any way! They tried to teach us some of the traditional songs, but Gaelic, the language of Ireland was pick up quickly.

On the far side of the tables was the stage and dance floor. When we arrived, an Irish band was finishing up their set. They were replaced by a group of traditional Irish dancers. At first,it was two guys.

After the two guys danced for a while, a woman joined them. Boy, could she high-kick! 😲 Of course, I could never quite catch it with my camera.

to say the least, we had a great time! 😊