Day 2 - Dublin Airport to Dublin to Dublin Airport to Belfast to Belfast Airport to Ballintoy - Europe 2022

 Dublin Airport to Dublin to Dublin Airport to  Belfast to Belfast Airport to Ballintoy

The flight was uneventful and although I kept my eyes covered and closed for most of the flight, I didn’t manage much sleep. 

We arrived in Dublin just about 5:40 Dublin time. It was already light out. 

Prior to the trip I had imagined curling up and sleeping on some airport chairs for the three hours we had to wait for Miles and Vanessa to arrive at the airport. However, the flight crew had told us immigration could have very long waits and since we were one of the first flights of the day, we should head straight there to avoid long lines. We missed the corridor to where we could meet Vanessa and Miles and didn’t realize it until we were at immigration. There was no line and we passed through. So, definitely no sleeping at my friends’ gate.

Edon immediately went to buy an energy drink from a vending machine only to find out It didn’t take Discover. We moved on to the terminal two waiting area of the airport. Edon walked into a little store there and checked to see if their automatic self check out would take Discover. But no. I had mentioned that I was concerned about him planning to use a Discover card in Europe. He felt confident it was accepted everywhere he planned to go based on the info provided by the Discover website that he looked at when we were back home in Florida, so he hadn’t bothered to apply for a new card. This could end up being a problem, but for now I had a couple of Visa cards we could use.

We found a nice little eating and waiting area with tables and picked out a table. I asked Edon to help me connect to the airport Wi-Fi while I went to go brush my teeth. 

When I got back I looked at my phone lying on the table and realized that my magnetic card holder wallet that used to be attached to the back was no longer there. I checked in my pockets, checked my bag, and then remembered that I had briefly stuck my phone in the seat back pocket on the plane and realized with dread that my wallet was probably was still in there. Fortunately, I did have another credit card in a separate location. I was so grateful that I had gotten the advice to do that and had followed it. Unfortunately, I had lost my drivers license and my main credit card. 

I didn’t know exactly what to do but wanted to find an American Airlines employee-perhaps where people are still picking up their luggage? I really hoped that the plane hadn’t left the airport yet. I found a little phone that said lost or damaged baggage and picked it up. It went directly to a person…who worked for Aer Lingus, a totally different airlines. The fellow was helpful though and told me to go downstairs to departures and I should be able to find an American Airlines desk and employees there. I went down and explained what happened to the woman who was sitting out in front of the giant line of people waiting to check bags and she radioed back to the plane. The plane  was still at the airport!

I waited while she tried to contact somebody to confirm that the wallet was in the seat back pocket. It was! 

She told me that it would be at least 20 minutes before she would be able to get the wallet from the folks who found it.  So I headed back upstairs to the little sitting area and waited with Edon for about 30 minutes before heading back downstairs to retrieve my lost items.

Since sleeping clearly wasn’t going to work out I considered trying to find somewhere close by to go hang out while we waited for our friends to arrive. I was so tired of wearing my mask I wanted to get out of the airport.

Based on a Google Maps search, I couldn’t find anywhere within walking distance that looked worth going to. Instead, we walked outside and found a little grassy area to sit. It was quite chilly. While I ate some food I thought that it would probably be helpful if I tried to figure out how to get us from Dublin airport to the Belfast Airport,  which is where our rental car was.

I saw some buses and thought those might be better than the train that we had planned to take from the city of Dublin. Unfortunately, the bus person on duty at the information cart said his company did not go to Belfast airport only to Belfast. He said I should try two other bus lines. However, there were no buses or  informational kiosks or anything at this terminal. So I went back in the airport and asked if there was an information desk with someone I could speak to. I was told that in the other terminal, which was about a five minute walk away that there was an information desk. I walked over to Terminal 1. I never found an information desk despite going up and down the levels and back-and-forth several times. I try to find information about the bus lines but could fly no one to speak to that had any info except that their company didn’t do that or that I was in the wrong area and needed to go somewhere else. From what I could gather, though, there weren’t really many, if any, buses at all that would go to the Belfast Airport. 

So it looked like we would have to take the train from Dublin. Meanwhile Vanessa and Miles has landed and were waiting on Miles‘s bag at baggage claim. I tried to find them but got all mixed up and lost again and ended up just going back to Edon. I asked him to help me find information on how to get to Dublin. We found out there was a city bus we could take but when we tried to look up more information about how to get from Dublin to the Belfast Airport a lot of the websites were black by Edon’s computer’s security settings. Edon was getting really hungry by this time and there were very few choices of food in the airport. When we finally found Miles and Vanessa we suggested heading to Dublin right away. I explained that I could find no way for us to get from Dublin Airport to Belfast Airport and heading to Dublin and then the train station was our only real option.

The bus we took to Dublin was the number 41 city bus. 

When we tried to board they told us that they only take exact coins in euros for the fare or you could to go back into the airport to a little foods shop and buy a single ride ticket there. So we went back to the airport and bought the tickets. They were only 2 euro 60 each. We came back out and finally caught the bus to Dublin. The 41 bus is good because it has no transfers. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Dublin this way.

As soon as we got off the bus we found vegan donuts for sale, which were something we enjoyed last time we were in Dublin. I bought us three. I should’ve picked the Boston cream but went with the chocolate because I thought it had chocolate filling in it, but it didn’t. I was so bummed. 

We walked to the Connolly station. Only to find out that the train didn’t go directly to Belfast airport like I thought I did. It also only went to Belfast. Just like all the buses.

So maybe a bus was the best choice after all since the next train didn’t leave for several hours. 

By this time Kyle had landed at the Dublin Airport. It was just after noon and he was wondering where we were and what he should do. We had originally told him to go to Dublin but now we are saying, “No, wait at the airport for us.” 

Everyone was hungry. We ran quickly into Lidl to grab just a couple of things but since we were carrying over luggage we couldn’t really buy very much. We went back to the street with all the buses and after a long and confusing amount of time we finally were able to find a bus. None of the apps were working for any of the buses, even though that’s how we were supposed to buy tickets. 

We’re very grateful the bus driver let us on the Aircoach, though he was quite grumpy about us having to buy tickets directly and not having purchase them on the app. So we headed back to the Dublin airport to get Kyle. We hoped that since Kyle also was having trouble finding a ticket that the bus driver would let him on like he let us on. We had warned the bus driver that we had another person to pick up and he seemed to think it would be fine. 

We collected Kyle after a few knuckle biting minutes of wondering whether the driver would allow him on. Then we began the long bus ride to Belfast. 

Vanessa found out while trying to figure out how she was going to reverse this when she had to go back to the Dublin Airport in a few days that there was indeed a bus that went directly from Dublin Airport to Belfast Airport. I just totally missed it. Apparently the best way to get information about public transport is to go ahead and just use Google maps. I now know this and will use it in the future. But it didn’t help us now. At least we are on our way to Belfast. 

Kyle was able to buy us tickets from Belfast to the Belfast Airport with a new app on yet another busline. We all had to pee really bad by the time we got to Belfast. We ran into the bus station and used the bathroom.

Then, we found our way to the bus we needed… only to find out that the app was acting weird and we couldn’t redeem our tickets. Fortunately, the bus driver saw that we had purchased five tickets and let us on the bus. He immediately pulled out and went on his way. We had barely made it! 

We got to the Belfast Airport and found our rental car. To my disappointment it was a left-handed stick shift. I was way too tired to drive anyway so Vanessa drove. It was her first time driving in a country with the traffic opposite of how the US drives. It was quite a white knuckle experience for everyone on the hour drive to the Airbnb. I was so exhausted I kept falling asleep. We made it to the Airbnb all in one piece, although probably everyone got some gray hairs on the drive. 

The Airbnb was nice. The key was in the door when we arrived. There were cows outside, which we didn’t remember from the description of the Airbnb but we were excited to see. 

Everyone was still so so hungry and we had not seen a grocery store the entire drive. We knew from the Airbnb description that there was not a grocery store within walking distance. So that meant we had to venture out again. It was confusing because according to Google maps the closest store to get food was about 10 or 15 minutes away but everything was listed as a convenience store and not a grocery store. 

We chose EuroSpar because it was still open and from pictures people had posted on Google photos it looked like they probably had the most actual groceries. To everyone’s delight it was an actual grocery store! It was a little bit of chaos and mayhem as we planned what we would need for the next four days while being very hungry and having no real meal plans in mind. 

But the food is good in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The store had several vegan options, although not as many gluten-free options as we would’ve liked for Vanessa. We got potatoes, of course, and all kinds of other yummy things. We were pleasantly surprised at the price for a full cart of groceries was only 107 pounds. 

Edon and I went back in the store and bought some Guinness and an Irish stout from O’Hara‘s. 

We drove back to the Airbnb and spent the next couple of hours eating random food and trying out Edon’s Guinness. The West Indies Porter was so delicious. The Extra Stout was also so good! I had an N/A Guinness. 

It was now close to 2200 but still light out. Miles had been waiting to go for a walk outside so while Vanessa, Kyle, and Edon showered I walked with Miles down to the water. It was a much further walk than I had expected and we ended up being gone an hour. Although we could see the water from our Airbnb window to get down to it we had to walk through the little town and down a winding road to the small harbor. Apparently it was the harbour used in the baptism or something like that from Game of Thrones. It was very picturesque but we didn’t stay long. I could barely keep my eyes open as I showered and got in bed. I think I had been up for over 37 hours and walked over 21,000 steps since arriving in Dublin. It was a good end to a very long and crazy day.