Bad Luck in Derry

Today was our first bad day of the trip. It started with breakfast, which was overcrowded, and a woman in our group had hot tea spilled on her by a waitress. They didn't seem to have enough waitresses to handle the crowd. Then we went to the Museum of Country Life, and just as we arrived, they had a preplanned fire drill, so we had to wait to use the bathroom after our long bus trip. At least they had delicious scones in the cafe. Good thing we had those scones, too, because we had to wait forever in line at our lunch stop, some restaurant with five choices on the menu, all meat. (Richard Bonomo would love it.) It was cafeteria-style but very expensive. The line snaked out the door, and Travalon and I were at the end of it, so we shivered in the cold weather. We went to the Belleek Pottery factory, which was the only thing about the day that seemed to go fine, because then when we got to our hotel in Derry (Doire), they didn't have a room key for Travalon and me. Finally they "upgraded" us to a normal-sized room, begging the question: what was our original room like? To top it all off, the front desk sent us a message that our flight home had been canceled, and the first one they could get us on is June 1st. The downside: I'll be really exhausted when I get back to work the next day. The upside: maybe now we'll have a chance to visit Knock, the one place I'd wanted to visit that wasn't on our itinerary. Here's hoping tomorrow is a much better day!


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