Our final day in Ireland, the flight to Boston, and a few days with Allie including her birthday
Wednesday, Oct 2 – To Dublin
We slept in a bit later than usual, had a relaxed breakfast then waited until 11am when our driver Jason arrived to take us to Dublin. Jason was a strappingly tall man with many tattoos and a thick accent. Barb engaged him in nonstop chatter most of the two hour ride but we were both glad he was not our tour guide for the whole trip. He was nice enough but not particularly informative about anything other than the Gaelic Athletic games and/or Star Wars (big storm trooper fan, as perhaps befits a former military man). Did you know that the Irish Army operates entirely in Gaelic so the British can’t understand them? I was right: Gaelic is really just a secret code. On the plus side, we learned Jason was a doting grandfather of a 3-year old and he was due to see her after dropping us off — so we were all incentivized to get the ride over with as soon as possible.
The only stop we made along the way was at Sean’s Bar in Athlone, allegedly the oldest continuously operating pub in Ireland having started in 900 AD. The Guinness Book certified the claim so it must be true. We wandered around the bar for about 10 minutes, resisted the mild urge to order a pint, and got back on the road after a couple of quick pictures of the River Shannon in Athlone. Been there, done that.
From there it was all highways to the Clayton Hotel at Dublin Airport, a massive structure that felt like an anteroom to the afterlife. People were coming and going at all hours, especially flight crews and folks recovering from cancelled flights. Our room was pleasant enough and Barb found a reasonably quiet place in the lobby to read for a while. Barb had a steak sandwich and I tried the chicken curry for dinner. Both were passable. We retired for an evening of Champions League football. The Orioles played their second wild card game and I stayed with it as long as I could but fell asleep, quite like the Orioles’ batters. They eventually lost 2-1 to end their season. It was just as well that I wasn’t able to watch.
Ireland Ruminations
My overarching takeaway from our first visit to Ireland is that it’s an unspeakably lovely green land, certainly earning its Emerald Isle reputation despite its weather. There’s an endless array of gorgeous views of ocean, lakes, rivers, green hills, meadows, ruins, stone walls, villages, and oh so many sheep and cows. Even the weather is pretty, constantly shifting the light, blowing through low clouds with misting rain showers and rainbows.
Ireland is at a historic peak right now, having survived millennia of very tough history. Ireland’s culture and people have deep roots but it’s surprisingly young as a nation, only gaining full independence in 1949 and not really achieving peace until the Good Friday accords in 1998. Since then there’s been a Celtic Tiger boom, a global financial meltdown, a decade of recovery until Covid knocked things back again, but the latest recovery is well underway.
There was a near universal sentiment among the Irish we spoke to that Ireland will eventually, inevitably be reunited with the northern six counties that are currently Northern Ireland. And there’s a commitment that the reunification will be peaceful, not at gunpoint. Tis an outcome devoutly to be desired and well deserved…but then we never spoke to anyone on the Protestant side of the equation.
The English really did a number on the Irish soul. There seems to be a full consensus that the depth and effects of the famine of the 1840s-50s was fully the result of English policy, not just bad agricultural luck. We didn’t even know about the genocidal attacks of Cromwell’s army two centuries earlier. One hundred years before that, Queen Elizabeth through the likes of Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake (the West Country Men) cut England’s colonial teeth on the Irish people just as they were embarking on piracy and colonization in the Americas.
This is a nation that welcomes tourism for the time being, especially from its American cousins. There are 20 times as many Irish people overseas than the 5 million that currently inhabit Ireland, and all are welcome back to spend money. It’s a very easy land for Americans to visit and feel welcome. It seems like a fair chance we will come back at some point to see other sights, particularly the northern half of the island. If so, we hope to have Michael guide us once again.
Thursday, Oct 3 – To Boston
Breakfast at the Clayton Hotel was a big bustling buffet. Barb found some good ham and salami to make sandwiches for the flight which was a good thing because the Delta inflight menu was pretty mediocre — good enough for me but not for her.
We got to the airport 3 hours early, bought some duty free whisky to take to Boston, went through US Customs which took quite a while, tried to get into the multi-airline lounge but were denied by our lowly Delta Club status, so made our way to the gate and waited a quiet hour. We were delighted to find the flight was not full and there were empty middle rows beside our seats. Barb hopped over and we both felt like we were in first class. I was glad I didn’t pay extra to upgrade to economy plus (which would have been tighter).
We arrived in Boston a little early, got our bag and caught a taxi to Allie’s. Our guest apartment was a larger one-bedroom model that gave us more room than Allie’s studio. We were able to do laundry then had a nice dinner with Allie at a new Chinatown place, Fuchun Ju. We shared soup dumplings, scallion pancakes and noodles with crab sauce. Yummy.
We went back to our guest room, caught up with Allie a bit, recounting our trip and her weddings, and watching the Mets catch and beat the Brewers in the culmination of their wild card series.
Friday, Oct. 4 – Boston
Barb was very happy with the TV arrangement at the Kensington. It seemed to be YouTube Live with access to many more channels of live TV than I realized. She found her Hallmark Channels, Golden Girls last night, the Midsommar Murders channel for the day. She found some easy jigsaw puzzles in the Kensington common room that she could do in our room. She went for Dunkin in the morning and I fetched her a greasy slice of pepperoni pizza for lunch. I went to Bakey for a goat cheese croissant. I found quiet spaces either on the 6th floor or in the bedroom to type notes and listen to music. Yasmin Williams’ Acadia dropped today and it’s exquisite. We had a nice Greek-ish dinner at Krasi in the evening.
Saturday, Oct 5 – Boston
Allie arranged to have an early 11am “afternoon” tea with Barb at the Four Seasons Hotel in Back Bay, Boston. They invited Allie’s friend Catherine who had joined us in Punta Cana earlier in the year. Catherine finally had her wedding in September and this was a chance to hear all about it. I decided to tag along with the ladies and had a gin and tonic rather than tea.
After tea, we walked over to the new Boston Raffles Hotel and indulged in an afternoon drink at the Sky Bar. We met Catherine’s husband, Spencer (?), and had a pleasant conversation among all the rich folks at the bar.
We adjourned back to Allie’s apartment for the rest of the afternoon. At around 5pm we met Allie’s boyfriend, Jimmy, for the first time and had a little time together before heading to Allie’s birthday dinner at Mooo. Jimmy seemed like a fine young man – he passed the initial test.
Sunday, Oct 6 – To Home
We reconvened for one last meal: an early dim sum at the new location of Hei La Moon. We got there as it opened at 10am and had a small selection of dim sum basics. It was Jimmy’s first exposure to dim sum and he did fine. He and Allie then kindly drove us to the airport for our flight home. As we flew into Baltimore on a nice, clear day we got a good view of the sad gap in the highway where the Francis Scott Key Bridge used to be before it was rammed and collapsed.
We returned to a nerve-wracked Manny who loudly protested that we’d been gone too long – nearly three weeks. He demonstrated his displeasure by ostentatiously peeing in several places where he shouldn’t. It wasn’t until the next day that we discovered he also pooped in many more places upstairs where he shouldn’t have. It took several days for him to calm down and then several more weeks to fully get over some level of infection he gave himself. The experience, including several visits to the vet, forced us to reconsider how long we can realistically leave him alone in the future. It complicates our retirement travel plans, but then again we’re not sure how many more long trips we’re really up for, anyway.
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