And just like that, the trip is over…well…sort of.
I dragged my feet but eventually got up and started getting ready for the day. We all met downstairs for breakfast at Copper Alley Bistro again. I think we all basically had the same breakfast as the previous day. It was a fairly limited menu, but it got the job done, especially since breakfast places are definitely not as big a thing in Ireland…and especially not on a Sunday.
After breakfast, we headed back to the rooms for the last of the packing (all of us needed to join the suitcase expansion zipper club), and then met downstairs with our luggage probably half an hour later. The guy at the front desk stored all of our luggage for us, and we set out to explore a bit more of Dublin.
First stop was Dublin Castle. We skipped the interior tour here and just wandered around the exterior. Not really what I picture when I think castle, but cool just the same.
When we finished exploring Dublin Castle, we walked a few more blocks to Anne’s Lane, to see the umbrellas. This was…not as big or as pretty as it looks online. Cool, but…it’s a pretty short span of umbrellas in a smelly alley.
Then we headed towards St Stephen’s Green. This took us down Grafton Street, which was just starting to come to life at this point in the day. It was clear that this was a higher end shopping area. Lots of brands that don’t exist, or at least don’t have their own store fronts in NH. And then there was…The Disney Store!
My dad and Nick just groaned when they spotted it as I commented to Laura that I didn’t know actual Disney Stores still existed. She laughed, and the two of us headed inside, while Nick and dad found a spot to wait for the two of us.
The Dublin Disney Store isn’t huge, but it’s got three levels. We had fun exploring, laughing about how, with all of the, what I consider, St Patrick’s Day Mickeys on display, plus Halloween decorations (it is August and Disney after all!), it was like they were celebrating two holidays at once. After thoroughly exploring, I picked up a Dublin Disney t-shirt, because, while I didn’t love Dublin, this was a fitting one. And I knew I could still squeeze that and a reusable bag into my suitcase.
Shopping done, we continued on to our final Dublin destination, St Stephen’s Green. Along the way we passed a MASSIVE line…for Oasis tour merchandise. So many people. It really was wild. We continued walking, obviously.
St Stephen’s Green is a really beautiful park in the middle of Dublin. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed walking around here. No one even complained that it was MORE WALKING! It was worth the visit on this really nice day.
We then started walking back towards our hotel, stopping in a watch store for Nick to decide that the watch he’s been drooling over online for years actually isn’t right for him, for some more Cadbury Dairy chocolate bars for me to take home (they’ll fit in my purse, no suitcase space needed!), and Starbucks for Laura to “get a real coffee”.
We then finished the walk back to our hotel where we collected our luggage from storage and then hung out in the (small, but big enough for our crew) lobby for a bit. Dad even managed to get the front desk dude to charge his phone for him. He’d been borrowing Laura’s charging cable in the car all week and had been insistent (since we all had NUMEROUS chargers…and adapters) that he’d be fine for these two days in Dublin without his. He also finally admitted it wasn’t actually the charger he’d forgotten; he’d brought the wrong adapter. Again…we had extras!
Eventually we did the final luggage rearranging and bathroom visits. And then I asked the front desk guy how we would know when our taxi was there (we had pre-booked a taxi to the airport through the front desk). His response? Oh…he’ll be here in 6 minutes, I’m tracking him now. Well…that’s a good service.
Sure enough, 6 minutes later, our taxi driver walked in and greeted us by room number, and we headed outside. Despite the front desk guy promising to book us a van (and given the knowledge and old school hospitality this front desk guy had demonstrated towards a variety of guests while we’d been hanging out in the lobby, I do believe he DID), this was a sedan, but somehow, the driver got all the luggage in the trunk (minus backpacks that rode on laps), and we all piled in for the half hour drive back to the airport.
The drive was pretty uneventful and soon enough we arrived at Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport. Time to go home.
We paid up and headed for check in. Dad and Laura were able to check in at the business class desk. Nick and I tried the express check in, but apparently I’d missed one button doing online check in the day before, so we had to go to the lengthy real line. We were in line a solid 20 minutes, with me trying to determine the dialect of any screaming toddler to figure out if we’d be stuck with them on our flight, but eventually we had checked our luggage and we were on our way with boarding passes in hand.
We met back up with Laura and dad and headed upstairs to security. The first stop was Irish security, which really was very similar to American TSA. Because pre-check doesn’t work here, we did have to put our liquid baggies in a bin, and Nick’s shoes had to come off because they reached his ankles. All other shoes could stay on. We were through security within 10 minutes of entering the line. Then we cruised through Duty Free and headed for US Pre-Clearance.
This is where we made a mistake. Anything interesting to eat is BEFORE pre-clearance. After pre-clearance was really just stands with pre-made sandwiches, and the classic airport candy stands. But anyway…
We headed downstairs to Pre-Clearance. Ireland is unique in that it is the only European country where US-bound passengers clear customs before actually entering the United States. Both Dublin and Shannon airports offer this, and it makes it so that you arrive in the States effectively as a domestic passenger.
We were all prepared with our mobile passport control apps (that works here, when they open a line for it), but couldn’t even find a line for it. It wasn’t needed though; we were directed straight to passport checkers, and after two questions each (“are you bringing any fruit or meat into the country?” and “when did you leave the US?”), we were welcomed back to the United States and sent on our way. We didn’t even have to go through a US based TSA line. My understanding is experience here can vary in terms of what they put you through, but it’s always easier than landing in the States as an international passenger.
Officially back in the United States (but definitely not technically!), we headed in search of food and our gate. Nick and I had cheese paninis that they heated up for us, and that honestly were more like pizza…there was some sort of tomato pasty situation happening with the cheese. They were really good, especially for being pre-made sandwiches and made Nick a little less salty that we hadn’t realized all the “good” food options were pre US Pre-Clearance. He then took some time to find some more Irish candy and dad bought himself one more bottle of Irish whiskey.
Boarding began eventually and it was way more orderly than it had been leaving Boston. For one thing, we could actually hear the announcements! Nick and I were row 17 for this flight, so we boarded later in the process, but soon enough we were taking our customary “we don’t want to go home” picture as we settled in for the flight back to Boston.
The flight was good. No screaming toddlers, and decent movie and TV series offerings. We were fed pretzels and soda shortly after take off and then a bit later our dinner choices were mac and cheese or creamy chicken and rice. Nick and I both had mac and cheese, and the flavor was very good. My only complaint was there were onions in it. But they were big enough to pick around. Dinner came with soda bread, Kerrygold butter, some sort of bean salad situation, a lemon mousse and a water, as well as milk for the coffee and tea service that happened after dinner. About an hour and a half before landing, they came around with a pre-landing snack of an oatmeal bar and a “chicken caesar wrap” (chicken and sauce in a mini wrap). Service was excellent. The flight was very smooth too. Only one very brief patch of turbulence, which they announced beforehand (and locked the bathrooms for to keep people in their seats). And it was mild turbulence. I alternated between Gilmore Girls and the flight tracker before eventually buying a few hours of wifi and facebooking my way back into Boston airspace.
We landed in Boston a solid half hour early, which was awesome, so the flight took less than the scheduled 7ish hours. It was pretty interesting taxiing to the gate, since it was peak international flight departure hour. The line of departing planes was a combination of the giant international planes and the teeny props that fly from Boston to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
Deplaning was pretty quick once we were back at the gate, and then after bathroom visits, we headed downstairs to get our luggage, relieved that we didn’t have to go through customs. While we knew Laura and dad’s business class luggage would emerge quickly, Nick and my suitcases also showed up surprisingly fast for how many people were on our flight. Luggage in hand, we followed the directions our driver had texted me and made our way over to the limo section of the parking garage. We found the driver, Kevin, easily enough, he loaded everything in the back of his big black SUV, and we were on our way back to NH.
The drive back was uneventful, and about an hour later we were back at dad’s, retrieving car keys and loading luggage in our respective cars and headed home.
Final thoughts:
Ireland is beautiful. We saw so much but there’s still so much I want to see there. I’ve got two more trips over in mind.
We really lucked out with weather.
Irish Cadbury Dairy chocolate is fantastic.
Dublin is unnecessary to visit, but that didn’t really surprise me. It met my expectations. It fell well short of my dad’s expectations.
The long flights weren’t as bad as I expected from a sitting still standpoint.
Aer Lingus had better airplane food than I expected, and really good in-flight service in general.
National has been very good to work with with regards to rental car damage. But next time I go to that country, I’m just going to pay the extra for their insurance, so I don’t have to deal with the process.
My sister was easier to travel with than I expected. My dad was not. But, for having not spent that much time with him since we drove across the country with him when I was in high school, it went better than I expected.
Driving on the opposite side isn’t so bad. The narrow, curvy roads, though are another story.
Roads starting with M or N are easiest to deal with. R is narrow but doable. L wouldn’t even qualify as a driveway here.
America needs European bottle tops.
European orange Fanta is better than American orange Fanta.
Rockshore is an excellent cider, but Orchard Thieves definitely won the cider contest. It’s too bad we can’t get either in the States.
Now that I’ve done one trip overseas, I’m ready for lots of trips overseas!
Phew, I finished this before my next scheduled trip!
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