Day… what… 4? It’s all a bit off since we lost a day in travel. Right now, where we are it is Thursday the 27th. We left Seattle very early on Monday the 24th and landed the morning of Tuesday the 25th. The rest of Tuesday was spent getting up to dad’s (which is its own story) and Wednesday was our first real full day of vacation.
Today, however, things are off to a rocky start. Not only are there issues with jet lag and sleep schedules, but Ciárán threw up. We’re not sure what is going on with him. We might have gotten too much sun yesterday, he might have had not enough to drink, and combined with the jet lag his body just sort of went out of whack. He fell asleep again too.
The kids have been sleeping odd hours, despite going to bed at their normal time, interestingly. Last night, for example, the kids were all in bed by about 8, and Xavier woke up about midnight. He wound up waking up the others, and while they didn’t all immediately wake up, they didn’t get back to sleep until close to 3am. Xavier finally fell asleep about 3:30 in the morning and woke up about 9. Ciárán got up about 11, didn’t eat, got sick, then fell back asleep before August and Déla woke up just after noon.
As I type this out it is 2:30 in the afternoon. Ciárán is feeling and looking a heck of a lot better. We’re going to strike out and just walk the neighborhood a little, despite the rain. We’re from Seattle, so a little liquid sunshine doesn’t stop us.
So what has been going on up to this point?
Well, there was the flight over, which was its own special brand of … it deserves its own blog post. Bottom line – Aer Lingus is great. Then there’s the drive up. That will be its own blog post in a day or so. Oh, and the first pint in Ireland which has a funny story. I need to write that down too. And the coffee maker.
Yesterday I woke up at 3:30 in the morning. I couldn’t get to my computer, and even if I did I wasn’t as cohesive in my thoughts as I would have liked what with the jet lag. I spent the morning figuring out my hotel in Belgium (which, is, as you may have guessed, is another blog post) and just sort of getting my bearings. I did get online with my Kindle and was able to sort through some email.
After everyone had (finally) gotten up and eaten, we went out for a small exploratory walk of Ballycastle. There’s not a heck of a lot in a town that swells to 5000 people during the summer. I came up with a drinking game – every time you see a bed & breakfast you stop and have a pint. There are a couple of stretches where your liver would quake with fear.
I was going to take some pictures, especially as it was a nice day. We made it to the beach even. Sadly the battery on my camera died. My phone doesn’t work in Ireland, so I packed it away and it wasn’t available. But I figured I would simply charge it up and have my camera available the next day (which is today if you’re paying attention).
Of the three different USB cables, none of them were the right ones for the camera. It has a rechargeable battery, not taking AAA batteries like our previous camera (which I have in Ireland, packed away somewhere, so I need to find it).
Stephen, who is along for the first part of our trip, went out to find some breakfast. I asked him to take the camera and stop off at the electronics shop to see if he could pick up the correct USB cable. Fortunately he was able to and I got the camera charged. Then Ciárán woke up. Then he threw up. Then he fell asleep again. When he woke up he was feeling, and acting, a heck of a lot better. The only problem was, it was well after noon. August and Déla had not woken up until after what should have been lunchtime, and even Ciárán woke up closer to 11am – the sleep schedules are simply off kilter at this point.
We finally struck out about 2:30 this afternoon walking down a different street to go around Ballycastle a slightly different way, but still heading towards the water. It was a bit drizzly, but that didn’t stop the kids from asking for some ice cream.
I stopped off at the drug store to ask for something that I could give the kids to help knock them out so as to get them on a proper sleep schedule. As it is right now, about 7:30 at night, 3 of the 4 are down. August is sitting in a chair in the front room reading. Hopefully everybody gets a solid night’s sleep and we’ll hit Derry tomorrow.