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only barely less so. We de-planed and waited for hours in the arrivals lounge while the airline figured out what to do.
    Anne’s first trip to Ireland had been much more pleasant, and the plane had gone straight on to Dublin. Perhaps it was the thinking of it, or just pure luck, but she glanced up in time to see Pat Brown, her chauffeur from her first trip. Pat was delighted to see her and pointed the airport nurse her way before reluctantly taking his own party on their tour. With some ginger ale, Gigi’s stomach became less queasy, but she was still very ill. The airline finally decided that there would be no break in the weather at Dublin and so decided to bus all the Dublin passengers to the Shannon train station and then up to Dublin by train.
    In all, what would have taken forty minutes by air, took over seven hours. They arrived Heuston station late that night in fog and light rain and took a taxi to their hotel.
    The diminished family spent the next couple of days recovering. The
Royal Marine
     Hotel
in Dun Laoghaire (“dun leery”) was a warm, friendly place and the staff were
     quite convivial with the three “Yanks.”
    The Irish culture, particularly in Anglicized Dublin, has a strong overlay of English culture. Both are different from the cultures in the United States. Anne and the kids first realized this when they were served cold toast. At first they passed it off as a fluke, but as the days went by they decided that the distance to the kitchen was so great that the toast cooled before it was served. Finally they began to wonder if the rumors of lazy Irish were true — only to discover that the staff would not rush to serve them toast because it had to cool! It was then that they learned that in Ireland and England, it’s considered impolite to serve hot toast.
    I was very worried about going to Ireland. It was a tremendous jolt, moving from the States after the divorce. On top of that, all I had were the Hollywood images of Ireland. I was convinced that I would have to explain electricity, and that we’d ride in carts all over the place. I was also terribly worried that they wouldn’t have peanut butter, jelly, popcorn, or hot dogs.
    Once I realized that a ‘Mars’ bar was exactly like the American ‘Milky Way’ bar, only better,
     and that I was paying two shillings — twenty-four cents — for what would cost
     thirty-five cents in the States, I became quite enamored of Ireland.
    I soon also discovered that there was an ‘okay’ peanut butter, that ‘Bramble Jelly’ was an
     acceptable substitute for Concord Grape Jelly, and that they did have popcorn —
     although the Irish would sugar rather than salt it. Good hot dogs were hard to come by. But
     when I discovered ‘Jelly Tots’, I was quite willing to forgive Ireland that minor
     inconvenience.
    While our stay at the
Royal Marine
was marvelous, it was costly. Anne undertook to get the family into cheaper accommodations before the school year began. So, armed with maps of Dublin city, Anne rented a car and took the kids house hunting.
    The Irish and English drive on the right side of the road — opposite from Europe and the States. The reason for this is historical: Napoleon Bonaparte decided that his soldiers should march on the right — and as he conquered most of Europe, Europe was forced to follow suit. Because all this took place in the early 1800’s, the Americans followed the French — because they were still mad at the English.
    What it meant for Anne was that every time she went to shift gears she’d bang her right hand
     against the door until she remembered that the gear shift was on the left. It also meant
     that driving required intense concentration. As the eldest child present, I took on the role
     of map-reader and navigator, which took that strain from her — and she was very
     gracious about the times I got us lost.
    As we