Sleeping in the airport?!?

Sleeping in the Shannon, Ireland airport
August 18th/19th

With all the delays, Sheri and I weren’t sure if we would make our hostel reservation for that night, especially since you are supposed to check in by a certain time. So we decided that rather than try and chance it, we would just sleep in the Shannon airport since we needed to take a bus from there to Doolin, Ireland at about 8 a.m. My favorite experience was when we stopped to talk to the young lady at the travel and tourism office about the bus schedule. She asked us where we were staying, and Sheri answered, “Nearby,” thus leading the lady to believe we were staying at a bed and breakfast in the area rather than the airport itself!
Sleeping in the airport was not as bad as you might think, but if you have ever seen the movie “Terminal” we definitely had a similar experience. We pushed together two benches which were located under a staircase and had relative privacy (minus the fact it faced a glass window leading to the outside!) But we had a nice set up where we put the two benches together and carefully stowed our suitcases underneath so no one would be able to remove them without alerting us. It was quite a sight to see us trekking to the bathroom to change into our pajamas as well as carrying our toiletries. I am sure we got a lot of strange looks as we washed our faces and brushed our teeth, but we paid them no mind.
Unfortunately, while we were able to get a couple hours of sleep, around two in the morning the jet lag set in, and we realized in was only like 6 p.m. in the states. So we explored the airport and realized we were not the only people that had the same idea of sleeping in the airport, and that there were random colonies of people in different niches around the airport. It was quite the experience!
We ended up staying up, and getting our first “Full-Irish breakfast” before boarding the bus. Let me tell you, I don’t think you can live in Ireland and be vegetarian! It’s just not possible! For breakfast we had sausage, bacon, mushrooms, hash browns, as well as something they call black pudding—which is not in fact pudding but rather is another type of patty-like meat. It was all good, just a bit different than anything we had experienced. But by this time, we were definitely ready to leave the airport and really see Ireland!