Off to Dublin!

Amalie is still stuck at the hospital and likely won't be discharged until tomorrow.  Matt is staying with her and the rest of us are headed to our next destination.  It is, of course, a difficult decision to leave Amalie, even though we know she is in good hands with the hospital staff and has Matt there to support her.

We made one last stop on our way out of town to visit Amalie at the hospital, but on the way dropped off some laundry at the "laundrette" (yes, we had to Google what a laundromat is called in Ireland).  We had not had much success with drying our clothes, despite them being strung out all over the house for three days, and figured a commercial place with a dryer might be a godsend.  And for 10 euros a bag, it was worth every penny!  We dropped it off with the promise it woudl be done in less than 3 hours, so headed on to the hospital with the intent of picking up our clothes before we left town.

We have become quite familiar with the hospital at this point; it's begun to feel like a second home, as has the Mr. Waffle across the street, where we went to eat breakfast yet again.

Over breakfast, we began planning how Matt and Amalie could rejoin our group, since they will be trailing a day behind us if Amalie gets released tomorrow.

We also had one last item to take care of before we left Galway, and that was to mail some things at the post office. We had more stuff than we needed, between souveneirs and clothes we were no longer planning to wear, so we made a stop at a post office that was less than a mile from the hospital.

A short walk, or it would have been if the massive fence surrounding the hospital grounds had not required us to walk about 2 miles out of the way simply to find a gate.

We arrived at the post office to discover we were woefully unprepared to mail anything.  After waiting in a short line, Chris and I walked up to the lady sitting behind the Plexiglas.

Us: "Hello, we'd like to mail these things."

long pause

Lady:  "Do you have a box?"

Us:  blank stare

Lady:  "Do you need a box?"

Us:  "Yes please!"

Lady:  "You'll have to go next door to the Mr. Price and see if they have any."

Okay, so clearly they do not have boxes at this post office.  We head over to the Mr. Price and corner an employee who is emptying a box of items to restock the shelves.

Us: "Hello, can we buy a box here?"

Employee:  "What kind?"

Us:  "Umm, pretty much exactly the same kind as you have right there."

Employee:  "Here, you can have it."

Score!  And back to the post office.  Now with a box.

Lady:  "Do you have tape?"

Us:  blank stare

Lady:  "You need to tape and address your box.  Do you need me to weigh it?"

Us:  more blank stares

She finally took pity on us, and gave us a pen and paper to write the address on, then took the box and taped it up for us.  Thankfully, she did not make us go back to the Mr. Price for some packing tape.

Box mailed, we returned to the hospital, and our cars, and the entire group (minus Matt and Amalie) drove to Dublin.  After checking into our very cool hotel (Blooms Hotel), we had some amazing tapas then headed to the Temple Bar area for a night on the town.