Holiday Expectations

I don't think I'm alone in anticipating that my vacations are going to be awesome.  I acknowledged, in advance, that there would be some downsides...the six hour plane ride across the Atlantic in this case.  But, now that I'm in the thick of my Irish holiday, I find the awesome stuff:lame stuff ratio is skewed the wrong way.  I know, abstractly, that I don't sleep as well in beds that aren't my own, but now that's an omnipresent reality...I haven't slept a full night in a week, and it takes me hours, every single night, to fall asleep in the first place.  We've spent the past few days in the urban centers of Cork and Dublin, walking everywhere...my calves are in constant pain.  We've taken a couple of bus tours (Newgrange/Hill of Tara, and to the Bantry Bay area), which have consisted primarily of sitting and waiting...in the case of Newgrange, not even waiting while driving, but waiting in the visitor center since they limit the number of people at the actual site at any given time.  The route and bus combination to Bantry was so bumpy we had to to take anti-naseua meds half an hour in, then could hardly stay awake for the rest of the day.  Frankly, we're spending a lot of our time hoping the next destination will be better.

Neolithic art at Newgrange

And yet...we stood in a 5,000-year-old tomb, made of stacked rocks, that has never leaked. (where I received a compliment on my Zelda hoodie while in said tomb...world first?)  We heard a pair of Leo Rowsome pipes played in unison by father and son.  I've made peace with the combination of milk and tea.  We've walked in astoundingly beautiful places.

Taken moment by moment, this whole vacation thing is wildly overrated, but annoyance is ephemeral...I wonder, in a few years, if I'll remember why I was complaining at all. Even if it's 90% chore, I'm thinking the 10% awesome is probably worth it.