Playful Rooted

If you’ve been living under a rock, that title’s a nod to the Ed Sheeran song I still can’t get out of my head.

Since it’s been over a month since we’ve been back stateside, I guess it’s time to post some recaps of our trip to Ireland and England in April! It was a crazy whirlwind time, especially with a 1.5-year-old along for the journey, but I’m so so so glad we did it. Although I was really nervous about how our little one would manage, he honestly did just fine. And we made so many memories and saw so many new things — I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Also, we learned a lot about traveling with a toddler (fodder for another post), and learning new things is always my absolute favorite part of travel.

Our journey took us on a short flight from Kansas City to Chicago (where Ben completed his Global Entry interview during the layover, talk about efficiency!), then a long flight (about eight hours) from Chicago to Dublin, where we were supposed to just hop right into our rental car, install our travel car seat, and head straight west to Galway.

UM. Wrench in the plans.

The car seat that we brought with us, which I had specifically purchased thanks to many glowing reviews, ended up LACKING a completely necessary part. (I’m actually going to write a post about this because it was ridiculous and annoying, but we learned a lot about European cars, so it might be useful to someone else out there.) Basically there was no way that we could use this car seat, and the people at the car rental company were a million percent incompetent (not that car seats should necessarily be their expertise, but you’d think for liability reasons they would at least know SOME things). So, long story short, we had to venture out into downtown Dublin, with our broken car seat jerry-rigged into the “safest” position, during the morning rush hour, in search of a safe car seat for the babe. At this point, we had been traveling for 17 hours, and although it was 7AM in Ireland, it was still midnight our time. And neither of us had slept at all since the night before. So Ben was thrown into the position of being incredibly tired, and now incredibly stressed out, and having to drive on the wrong side of the road, shifting gears with the wrong hand, going through roundabouts the wrong direction… it. was. madness. I was honestly terrified, but Ben is excellent under pressure, so he got us through it while I was freaking out.

Our first stop was Tesco, which is somewhat like Target, and Ben went inside to see what he could find while I stayed in the car with Luca, who was sleeping through it all. We didn’t have an international SIM card for my phone at this point, and we couldn’t use any data on Ben’s work phone, so I was just sitting there like an idiot, not able to contact him to see what was going on inside or anything. After like twenty minutes, Ben came out to the parking lot, empty-handed. My heart immediately sank! It turned out that Tesco did not sell a rear-facing carseat, but they gave us the name of a toy store that was even further into downtown Dublin. And since we had no data, we had no directions to go on except a hand-drawn map that one of the Tesco girls had given to Ben.

Travel is always an adventure.

I was extremely dubious the whole way there, thinking ‘um, a toy store isn’t going to sell car seats’! But lo and behold, as we drove by, it turned out to be a giant mega kid store, like a Toys R Us and a Babies R Us combined. So I had some modicum of hope that we would be leaving this place with a safe carseat in our car. Luca was still sleeping, so Ben parked on the street – ILLEGALLY, I might add, since we had no euros at this point because we hadn’t even been to the currency converter place yet – and went inside. I was pretty much freaking out the whole time, thinking that a cop was going to come yell at me or make me move the car, and I wouldn’t be able to because I certainly couldn’t drive a manual transmission, shifting with my left hand, driving on the wrong side of the road. Thank goodness no one came by, although I was mildly panicked the whole time. Ben finally came out about 30? 45? minutes later….CAR SEAT BOX IN HAND!!

Man of my dreams. ❤

Seriously.

We finally, finally, finally got set up with this beautiful car seat and were ready at last to make our way across the island from Dublin to Galway. Although we were both so exhausted (physically and emotionally!), it felt sooo good to be done with that fiasco and finally on the course we were expecting to be on.

Galway is on the complete opposite side of Ireland from Dublin (Dublin is on the east coast and Galway is on the west), but because it’s a pretty small island, it only took us about two hours to drive it.

It was such a joy to arrive in Galway, much later than expected, but all safe and healthy and happy and ready to explore a new city! We were so tired and ready for showers, but ultimately hunger won out, so we stopped on the Quay Street for a bite to eat before heading to our hotel. I instantly fell in love with this pretty little city!

After eating and checking out a couple cute streets and shops, we decided to head to the hotel. I wanted sooo badly to go to sleep for the whole night (at like 3pm), but I forced myself to stay awake (okayFINE, I slept for one hour) so the jet lag wouldn’t be too extreme. It was so hard letting and encouraging Luca to sleep while I was basically holding my own eyelids open. Those were some tough hours, but they were worth it because that night I got the BEST sleep since my child was born! The next morning, I felt amazing and not at all jet lagged. Cue flamenco dancer emoji. 💃🏼

Our friends Andrew and Rachel are expats in England at the moment, and when they heard we were coming to Ireland, they decided to come meet up with us in Galway! It was such a fun treat to hang out and catch up with them on a different continent! That is another thing I so love about travel. Ben and Andrew were housemates in college; back then, I couldn’t have possibly imagined that all these years later, we would be hanging out in Ireland together. Life is so unexpected and amazing.

Stole that picture from Rachel’s Instagram stories. Thanks Rachel!

We spent the next couple days exploring the city, listening to great live music, drinking beer at classic Irish pubs (😍), and eating lots of great food. Oh, and shopping. Lots of shopping!

I mentioned to Rachel that I wished I had bought rain boots for Luca before we left the states since it was so rainy in Ireland. She had actually studied abroad in Galway during college, so she was familiar with the city and knew about this charming little children’s shop, The Wooden Heart, where they might sell wellies his size. Ben and I had passed this place the day before, but it didn’t even occur to me that they might have what I was looking for. Sure enough, they did!

These adorable blue boots were a little expensive, and I definitely wouldn’t have bought them if I had just been shopping with Ben. Thank goodness for girlfriends!! 🙂

No matter the cost though, they were so worth it for this video. Probably my favorite, ever.

Oh, and this picture. I guess I should have just titled this post “Luca’s Wellies.” They were really the stars of the whole trip.

I felt like I was taking tons of pictures while we were there, but now I feel like I definitely don’t have enough to do justice to how sweet and beautiful Galway is! We had dinner one night at The Pie Maker (on the right in the pic below), and when I looked at this picture later, I realized we had basically been in Diagon Alley. 🙂 Such a cute street! But then they really all look like this in the Quay Street quarters. It’s really lovely.

Whenever we travel, especially to Europe, people always say, “Isn’t it so hard to be vegetarian while traveling?!” Well, no, my friends. It is not! In fact, in almost every country we’ve ever been to (except the Czech Republic), it’s usually easier to find vegetarian and vegan options than in the US. Pretty much everywhere you go has something to offer, and it’s usually built right into the menu. In fact, there were several places in Galway that had entirely vegan menus! We didn’t even specifically search anything out, and we ate very well and very happily.

For example, this tiny Irish pie shop, while they did offer rabbit 🙁, also offered an entirely vegan savory pie! And it was delicious.

Ben had a conference call (because he never stops working, even on vacation) one day, so Luca and I took a stroll while we waited for him, and we stumbled upon this little walking path. Such a beautiful place to kill time!

The light on Galway Bay was just insane. My dad said this looks like it would make a good jigsaw puzzle. 😅

I say it about so many cities we visit, but I would absolutely go back to Galway ANY time. It was adorable, quaint, and so traditionally Irish, and there was so much to see and do. And the people there were so warm, friendly, and generous. At the Dublin airport, there was a sign that said instead of looking at the glass as half-empty or half-full, Irish people see a glass-and-a-half full. 🙂 We remembered that many times when people there went out of their way to make sure we were comfortable and to help us with Luca. They truly are the friendliest and kindest bunch. I loved every single minute of our time in Galway. I highly recommend it if you’re visiting Ireland! Like, seriously. Start in Dublin if you must, but don’t miss Galway!

More to come soon!

xo!