Wednesday, Sep 18 – To Dublin
I made our flight arrangements with the idea of stopping in Boston on the way to and from Ireland to see Allie. As it turned out, Allie was quite busy in this September window with several weddings and other activities so she didn’t have as much time or patience for us as I’d hoped. We decided to simply fly through Boston on our outbound trip and then spend a few days with her on the return leg. To make Barb more comfortable, I booked a mid-morning Southwest flight from BWI to Boston so we would have plenty of time to spare before our evening Delta departure to Dublin.
We left home at 8:30am and were a few minutes down the road before Barb started to think of things she hadn’t quite done to get ready for The Maids who would be coming the day after our departure. We also started hitting traffic just a couple of miles down the road so it took a while to get to Clarksville to turn around. We got back on the road about 30 minutes later and I decided to forego our traditional McDonald’s breakfast stop in favor of getting to the airport.
We ran into more traffic a bit after Cedar Lane and were at a standstill by the time we got to Route 29. Unfortunately, that’s when the emergency vehicles showed up and emphatically stopped all traffic just 50 yards in front of us.
We stayed stuck for about 30 minutes and decided to call Southwest to see about getting on a later flight. A very nice agent, Tasha, calmly talked us through the options, concluding that if we didn’t make our flight in time to check our one bag we should got standby on the next flight to Boston which would still give us plenty of time.
Barb was mildly assuaged by this option and traffic soon broke up enough for us to start rolling. We got to the airport less than 45 minutes from flight time, usually too close to luggage onto the flight. As we entered the airport, Barb looked in desperation at a couple of Southwest agents at their podium. At first they waved us toward the line of people waiting for regular agents but then relented and helped us. They said we still had a couple of minutes and put Barb’s bag on with an expedited “late” tag. We hustled to the gate and after a short mixup with Barb trying to get on the wrong flight we were able to get directly on our flight. I was relieved to see Barb’s bag loaded on board just after us.
We arrived in Boston with about seven hours until our Delta flight to Dublin, plenty of time to (eventually) retrieve our bag and wait for an inter-terminal bus to get us to international departures. The next drama was whether Delta would honor my lifetime SkyClub membership, a holdover from my PanAm Clipper Club lifetime membership. We almost never flew Delta but this was our chance. Happily, the computer burped up my membership and the agent at the SkyClub door welcomed us in.
Barb and I settled in for the long wait, pacing ourselves at the free buffet and bar. Barb was a little disappointed with the food offerings but she found enough odds and ends to repeatedly fill her plate as did I. With a few naps, bathroom breaks and intermittent texts with Allie, the time flew by. Hooray for clubs!
We went to the gate in time to see a cute baby happily scooting around the floor on her butt, entertaining us and a few onlookers. Her Dad informed everyone that she would turn one the next day. We were a little less thrilled to find that she and her family were assigned to the row adjacent to ours on the plane.
The economy seats on Delta were snug even for Barb, and the seat cushions were surprisingly uncomfortable. Barb tried sleeping on the red-eye flight and she did a better job of it than I but neither of us were very happy. We arrived in Dublin on time at 7:45am, followed by an announcement that today was the first birthday of one Maeve Elizabeth, the baby across the aisle from us. Her father raised her up like a trophy to the applause of many people nearby. Maeve had actually been a pretty good traveling companion, sleeping most of the way on her Mom’s shoulder. She slept better than us.
Thursday, Sep. 19 – Dublin
We staggered off the plane, made it through customs and immigration and found our Walter’s Way greeter, Kevin. He led us to his taxi and drove us into town, chatting all the way with Barb just as I’d hoped he would. Kevin gave us a number of suggestions for restaurants and approved of our choices of museums to visit.
We were too early to check into a room at the Wynn’s Hotel, which was no surprise, but Barb was able to change and get ready for a day touring Dublin. We walked first to the EPIC museum to make sure we had flexibility about when to enter the museum — I wanted to do it later in the day. After that, we waited for our Hop On Hop Off Bus. I was a little surprised to learn there were three separate companies offering such service, with somewhat different stops and routes. We finally got ours and took it in the direction of the Irish National Museum of Archaeology, our first destination. Unfortunately, the bus route skipped the stops near the museum and we got off near Trinity College. Evidently the roads near the museum were closed.
We walked about 10 minutes toward the museum, doing some window shopping near Grafton Street along the way. We came to a set of barricades with police officers who informed us that the roads were closed in anticipation of a protest about immigration. The friendly policeman also informed us that the museum was closed — it seems someone could have told us that much earlier.
We shifted gears, did a little more window shopping and souvenir buying along Grafton Street, then caught the Hop On Hop Off bus for the rest of its meandering route back to the EPIC museum. I had actually done this tour on my own in 2018 during a layover in Dublin on the way to Portugal. Plus, I’d recently seen a lot of Dublin highlights on various YouTube videos so I mostly knew my way around. But, for better or worse, Barb nodded off for most of the ride, missing much of what was supposed to be her orientation tour of Dublin.
We finally made it to EPIC and plunged in. The museum was very modern with an emphasis on expensive interactive graphics. It did a good job spelling out the sad drivers of Irish emigration over the centuries, making the point that the emigration story extends well beyond the potato famine of the 19th century. About midway the museum shifted gears to emphasize the productive contributions of Irish immigrants all over the world. Evidently there are now 70 million people of Irish descent alive in the world, over an order of magnitude more than the number of Irish in Ireland. That counts for something. The museum told a number of compelling stories and perhaps Barb absorbed them better than I did; I was impressed but admit I kind of glided through the last few rooms in an increasingly jet lagged state.
We were both definitely feeling the effects of jet lag as we staggered back to our hotel and checked into our room around 3pm. The Wynn’s Hotel was Walter’s second recommendation for us in Dublin. I vetoed their first suggestion, the Leonardo, based on its low TripAdvisor rating (#100 in Dublin). The Wynn’s was only somewhat higher (#60) but in a much better location just north of the River Liffey near the General Post Office. It was still an older hotel with no air conditioning but the room was adequate and the breakfasts proved pretty good. It worked out fine as a base of operations for our time in Dublin.
We took a while to unpack and catch up on our respective communications. I did some local shopping for Diet Cokes and some whisky — Powers, per the recommendation of our concierge.
Just around the corner from the hotel, I bumped into Dublin’s installation of The Portal, a live link to another location in the world. A link between Dublin and New York City had opened with some fanfare about six months earlier but shut down quickly when viewers on both sides started behaving rudely. I was surprised to see it still operating in Dublin but it clearly was no longer connected to New York. Despite watching for a while I could not figure out where the other location was, just a nondescript street in some other European-looking city — nor was there any indication even when the scene shifted to another location. There was a small cluster of spectators on the Dublin side taking selfies but little interaction with anyone on the other end, which seemed to defeat the purpose. I learned later that other portals were operational in Vilnius, Lithuania and Lublin, Poland so I imagine I saw some of both over the course of a couple of days. It’s an odd piece of contemporary live art and there is something compelling to the concept, if not the actual execution. Or does it really come down to the viewers/participants on either end?
We went to dinner at a nearby pub, Brannigan’s Bar, well recommended by TripAdvisor. When we walked in the door every head in the place swiveled to check us out which made me a little uncomfortable but at least indicated it was mostly frequented by locals, not tourists. I asked if there was seating upstairs and we were led to a quiet table in the corner away from the only other group of upstairs patrons. Barb and I split a fish and chips and seafood chowder…and a Smithwick’s. I enjoyed the chowder and a bit of the fish but Barb was disappointed in my overall appetite and the amount of food we left behind.
We returned to the room somewhere near 8pm and found some Champions League soccer matches on TV, perfect for falling asleep to. We were both out by 10pm, our first day in Dublin in the books.
You must be logged in to post a comment.