Heartbreaking Day - Day 14 (Back in Dublin)

We are absolutely drained and ready to head home tomorrow. The opportunity to do and see all that we have has been wonderful but dealing with the airports and flights on TWO consecutive days with a 3-year old has exhausted us. And to think that we have a trans-Atlantic flight tomorrow AND a connecting flight from Newark to Buffalo! All three of us are drained and to the point of getting testy and everything is starting to annoy each of us.

We started off today with breakfast at the hotel, a swim in the hotel pool and a flight to Dublin. I must say that London's Heathrow airport in and of itself is the size of a country. Just navigating that would exhaust anyone. We checked into our room, dropped our stuff and caught a taxi to head out for dinner and some souvenir shopping. Madeline was getting a kick out of these two Leprechaun street performers. I wanted to get a picture of the events and that is when we realized that David forgot to grab the camera when we got out of the taxi. I have to say that it felt like someone died. David and I went back to the location that we asked the taxi driver to drop us, thinking that the taxi driver might have returned it there - no luck. We hung out near the corner where the driver dropped us off thinking that he might circle around - no luck (and there are about a gazillion taxis in Dublin). Luckily I happened to glance at the Taxi Drivers name id and I remembered his name. We spoke to three different taxi drivers, who were all very helpful. They gave us information on the best place to call to check in on the camera however, it is not open on Sundays and we have a flight out in the morning. We were chit chatting away with the taxi driver and we do believe that the taxi guy was a nice, honest man. However, it is quite possible that he didn't notice the camera bag before another fare hopped in the taxi and that person could've snagged it. We gave contact information all over the place and pray to God that somehow it gets back to us.

Luckily for me, I do blog and therefore I uploaded pictures into the computer every night. So, the only pictures I missed out on were of Madeline in the pool this morning and this evening in Dublin. What is truly heartbreaking is, not the camera. Although there is expense there, it can be replaced. It's not the pictures, as I said most of that is already in the computer. What is heartbreaking is our pin collection. It began when David and I got a free souvenir pin for riding the Bobsled in Lake Placid. We thought, "What the heck are we going to do with this?", so we stuck it on our camera bag strap. From there it grew and every time David and I would travel places we would add to our pins. We had a Hard Rock Cafe pin from Moscow, another Russia pin, Berlin, London, Dublin, Outer Banks, Chicago, Frankfurt, Disney,.....and I can't remember the others off hand. Like I said, it felt like someone died. BOTH David and I said that we just felt like crying.

So now you know why there are no pictures with this post. I thought of pulling a graphic off of Google Images like I often do. Yet, I thought the lack of photo would more closely represent the loss we are feeling.

So, tonight, please say a prayer to St. Anthony (the Patron Saint of Lost Things). St. Anthony has interceded for me many times and he has always done the trick. I will pray the prayer to St. Anthony that my Grandma O. would always say, "Tony, Tony, look around. Something is lost and can't be found."