Well, Kasey was right. These last few days have flown by in a blur! It is Thursday morning and Kasey and Eric have had about 6 hours sleep after a late night playing cards. Kasey did pretty well coming in 3rd and winning some money!
We were soon on the road to the Dublin Airport and the Clarion Hotel. Like I said yesterday, the road is mostly interstate all the way to the airport. 120 kilometer/hour speed limit - 72 mph. The trip was just short of 2 hours. Getting to the airport turns went OK, but we had to make a couple loops around to finally find the Clarion. We unloaded the car, said good-byes and thank you's, and checked in.
I must say right here that without Kasey and Eric and their knowledge of Ireland from a previous trip, we would never had seen so many things. The drives themselves would have been way too intimidating and even when you finally do get near a locaton, there are few signs helping you find attractions. Ireland would really help themselves out, and encourage even more tourism, if they would put up more signage. I know we would never venture out without guidance or being in a tour group.
The Clarion is typical of many airport hotels, not much is provided. Wi-fi was available, but only in the lobby area. For an extra 20 euros, you could "upgrade" your room to business class and get wi-fi as an amenity. Plus, the lift (elevator) wasn't working! Really? Luckily our room was only on the second floor.
Food costs a bit more there as expected. And there are no other places to go. Being at the airport and within a shuttle ride (which also cost money!) of our terminal was wonderful. We left the hotel at 8 a.m. since Aer Lingus asks that passengers arrive 3 hours early. We got our boarding passes and found ourselves in a long, snaking line to check baggage. The line moved quickly and soon we were headed to the security check. Nothing unusual - all very smooth. Now we had about 1.5 hours before departure, so Cindy went off and did some shopping. They had quite a large shopping area.
We begain boarding about 50 minutes before departure. 8 across seating; 2 seats, 4 in the middle, 2 seats. We were located in just about the same area as the flight over, just behind the wings. I had the aisle seat and Cindy an interior seat. But no one was sitting to her right, so she had lots of room. We both watched a couple movies on the way to Boston. It's a 7 hour flight, about 1 hour longer than going from Boston to Dublin because of the prevailing headwinds. The flight was actually very smooth - almost no instances of turbulence. We were given a beverage and snack cookies early in the flight, a full meal just before mid-flight, coffee or tea anytime, and then a snack about an hour before landing.
We landed in Boston a few minutes early. We had to exit the plane and go through customs. They provide a form to fill out ahead of time outlining what you're bringing back to the US. Then the agent asks you what you brought back, making sure you didn't bring certain other items. Our checked bags must be randomly checked because Cindy is sure her's was checked (a zipper was closed that she didn't close) but mine might not have been checked. We had to pick up our checked bag and take it with us to the departure gate for US Airways. This required another bus ride (free) to a different terminal. We found the weather outside to be quite a bit warmer (only in the low 80's) than we had been used to for the past 2 weeks! Got to the terminal, got our boarding passes, and checked our bags. Security once more. This time I was asked to step out of the x-ray machine and stand on a matt facing an agent. I was expecting a pat down, but he just looked at me and then said I could move on. I'm sure they're looking for visual cues on this.
We had time for some food, a cup of Starbucks caramel machiotta, and some wi-fi. I was finally able to log onto WalMart and place the order for the pictures I had uploaded. 118 4x6 pictures for $15. They would be waiting for us at home. The plane that arrived was the same flight we had taken to get to Boston from Rochester on our trip to Ireland. This flight was the return leg. We were seated near the front so getting off would be quick in Rochester.
The flight went fine, event though it was far bumpier than the long flight over the Atlantic. I'm sure it's because of the much smaller plane and the incoming stormy weather. In fact, we arrived in Rochester just 30 minutes or so before the thunderstorms arrived on Friday night. Our baggage showed up right away on the conveyor and we were soon on our way home. My brother, Corky, was there to get us. We had some time to give him a quick review of our trip. And then..... HOME. So nice!!!
I called WalMart and our pictures were ready. I went there and Cindy went to visit her mother. Driving on the right (correct!) side of the road was no problem. The pictures came out very nice giving a quick summary of all the things we had done. Next up, Cindy wants to create a few photo albums using Shutterfly. We'll have to go through the approximate 2000 pictures we have and get the shots we want for the books. Plus, I'd like to do a couple larger sized prints of a few images.
We should both have been quite tired by now. After all, 10 pm EDT is what our bodies perceived as 3 am Ireland time. But the daytime travel seems to have kept us from getting tired. We were finally asleep by about 11 pm Friday night. I found myself waking up at about 5:30 am on Saturday. My body thought it was 10:30 am! The same thing happened on Sunday morning, but I think we're both pretty close to being back on Eastern Time!
I have completed uploading quite a few pictures to my Facebook page, which Cindy is sharing so all our friends there can see our albums. This is likely the last entry in my blog. I hope the descriptions and pictures have given you an idea of what our trip was like.
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