Stuck in a Roundabout!

May 23, 2014

We have visitors again from Virginia! Yeah!!! Mom C and MC arrived safe and sound this past Friday. We all met them at the airport since the children did not have school. It was an election day here in Ireland. The children were so excited to see their Grandma C and Aunt M!

After waiting 15 minutes...they finally came out of customs! 

We all took the shuttle bus over to the rental car agency so we could get a minivan since there would be 6 of us traveling this weekend (I only have a 5 passenger car here). We picked up the minivan at the Avis desk and got everything in the car.  As I left the parking spot I stalled out the car. Then when we got out to the little access road I stalled out again. I think thats when I said, "it feels like the clutch is a rock...it was really hard!" I kept on driving and then we got to the big main roadabout in front of the airport. We noticed this horrible smell...but we thought it was the big truck in front of us. When we were half way around the roundabout the smoke was coming into our car. OH NO! Then I could not move the car and it would not go ANYWHERE! Everyone was beeping honking etc. It was HORRIBLE! We had only all been in the car for FIVE minutes and it broke down. I called Avis and told them where we were and to come pick us up asap. I was able to start the car again and move it down the road a little to a smaller street in front of all the car rental agencies. I called Avis again to tell them where we now were stopped. It seemed like it took forever for Avis to come and pick us all up. I thought it would be simple to exchange the car and get another one and then we would be on our way. WRONG! The lady at the desk told us that we would probably have to pay for the clutch because it was our fault. WHAT! NO WAY! I argued with her for awhile and yes I was a jerk but there is no way we broke a clutch from driving a car for 5 minutes. I asked to talk to the manager and honestly he was no use either and said they have clutches break all the time and he even admitted that this car model is hard to get into first gear. So why does Avis even buy this car? Are you kidding me? Apparently its their policy that once you break a clutch (which I did not do) they can not rent you another manual car that you have to rent an automatic (which is an additional 75 Euro a day!) They did tell us that if the mechanic tells us that the clutch was not our fault they would pay the 75 Euro a day. Automatic cars are very expensive to rent in Europe. I can't tell you how stressful this whole situation was and I just wanted to cry! I really could not believe that they tried to tell me that I broke the clutch from driving it for 5 minutes. There just had to be something wrong with it before we even got it. What about the previous driver? We finally just agreed to take the automatic van. We packed up all the cases in the van again and finally were on the way to our house. WOW! What an ordeal...it honestly stressed me out for the rest of the day! I am just praying that Avis tells us that the clutch was not my fault. By the way the whole car rental is on MC's credit card...so that stresses me out even more so I need to pray even harder that the clutch was not my fault.

Ohhh and Mom C and MC  - Welcome to Ireland!!!!

Here I am on the phone with Avis...NOT HAPPY!

We finally arrived at my house safe and sound - no smoke, no fire, no accidents! When we arrived T said, "lets get out the car before it starts to smoke again." He's funny boy! 

We all had Irish Coddle for breakfast which really ended up being a late lunch by the time we got to the house. Ughhh! We sat around and chatted for awhile with my mother and then we packed up for our weekend road trip south! 

Kilkenny here we come!