Germany/Ireland — Sept. 06, 2010

I said good bye to my hosts Monday morning, left Rothenburg at about 10:40 a.m., and arrived at the airport in Frankfurt at about 1:00 p.m. I'm still amazed at how quickly I was able to go between Frankfurt and Rothenburg. Maybe it's because the autobahn has been improved to avoid the traffic jam I always used to hit at Aschaffenburg. Maybe it's because I didn't stop along the way or take any secondary roads.

When I checked in, I was surprised to learn that I was flying business class to Dublin. It had originally been booked that way, but I hadn't noticed. The rest of the trip was economy class. The business class lounge was pleasant: free coffee, snacks, beer, wine, newspapers (and I had just bought one before going there!). But the best thing was on the plane: more room. There were two seats on each side instead of three. That extra space makes things very much more comfortable. I'm not sure if I'll go to Europe or Japan again, but if I do, and if I can afford it, I'm definitely going to go business class. Of course, the longer the flight, the more difference it makes (and probably the more it costs); but my travel tip for the day is: for long flights, go business if you can afford it.

I arrived at Dublin about 5:15 p.m., got my rental car, and was on my way by 6:00. On the approach to the motorway, there were lanes for Belfast, Dublin, and All Other. Of course, I took the All Other, but quickly left because it seemed to be headed to the southwest, and my destination, Monaghan, was north. After a short while I realized that I was getting nowhere fast and had no idea how to get to Monaghan from the spot where I was. A check of the map confirmed that I wanted highway N2 and I needed to get back on the motorway. So that's what I did. But during my useless side trip at one point I hit the curb with the left front tire so hard that I thought I'd better stop and check for damage. Thankfully, there was none.

Before I got to Ireland, I had thought that the danger in having to drive on the left would be a tendency  to move over to the right. But that only happened in parking lots and driveways. On the road the problem was not knowing how much space to leave on the left. Let's say x represents the driver's position and – the passenger's, | the side of the road, and . the center. When you drive on the right, the situation is:  |  .x–|  but when you're on the left it's:  |–x.  | . It's easy enough to keep to your side of the road, but judging the space you need to leave on the left is the hard part, because you've got to allow for the passenger side, which you're not used to.

Well, it was raining fairly heavily (the remnants of Hurricane Earl), which cut down on the view, but the highway was good and well marked. The roundabouts, which some people seem to think are a problem, actually were helpful. They prevented any tendency to drift into the wrong lane when making a turn. So I arrived in Monagahn Town without any trouble. But I didn't know exactly how to find Ashleigh House, the B+B where I was staying. Fortunately, I had just enough memory of the map of the town to guess that when I came to the roundabout, I should go right. I did so and then just kept going as the road curved slowly around to the right. Presently, there was Ashleigh House on the left side of the road. Even though I wasn't completely sure I was still on the right road, it wasn't pure luck. I had studied the map enough to be able to guess correctly that I should keep going through town until I got to the roundabout (although a  right turn  a block sooner would also have worked) and to make an educated guess about how to proceed from the roundabout.

So at 8:00 p.m., about 11 hours after leaving Rothenburg (2 flying, 4 in airports, and 5 on the road), I was in Monaghan, having successfully driven on the left for the first time in my 50 years of driving, and ready to explore one of my ancestral homelands.