Ireland: Can't back out now...

The flights are booked.

Well, actually, the flights were booked nearly 2 weeks ago, but I sort of forgot to mention that. Oops.

Anyhoos, flights are booked. Dates are therefore fixed and there is now no going back. Instead, onwards!

Onwards to the booking of other things, beginning last night with hostels. I say hostels... the first one we booked was a Travelodge in Derry. Because obviously. Basically, it's the same sort of price between the 3 of us to get a Travelodge for the night as it is to book a hostel dorm. So we figured, hey, make the most of it.

We're also looking at a lovely place out on the edge of Donegal near the highest sea cliffs in Europe. This is super cool, obviously. That one's Claire's job to book. No idea why. Just is.

We've also booked hostels near Sligo and Tralee. Standard criteria for our hostel selection is as follows:

• Free parking (or at least parking nearby)
• Free tea (because, tea)
• Free interwebz
• Small rooms where possible - I don't think we've booked anything over a 4 bed dorm yet. Which means the inevitable making the fourth person feel really awkward...

We're not too fussy. I hope.

Really, I suppose, we should have started the hostel booking fun at Dublin. That's where we're flying into. Should maybe sort that out...

Also trying to sort out car hire. New Zealand lulled us into a false sense of security with it's whole "if you're over 21 we'll let you have a car" attitude. Ireland is not quite so keen on young drivers. Most of the companies will only hire to over 25s and those that do hire to under 25s have a tendency to charge ridiculously high additional fees. Not good. Claire'll be all of about 3 months short of her 25th.

Looks like she might have found one that won't charge us stupid extra fees, though. Hurrah and all that.

This post is evidently going nowhere, so why don't you hop on over to the nice shiny new page I've set up with our current planned route? This one 'ere.