New Thing #81 - L/S/I, Day 14 - Home

Friday, May 24, 2013

Heading home today. Just like Italy, I felt a sense of overwhelming sadness that our journey was over, but also happy to be heading home to familiarity and routine. These two weeks actually didn't go by as fast as I thought they would. By the time we arrived in Ireland, it was hard to believe that one week prior we were in London. Actually, by this time, it felt like months since we had been there.

We woke up early to make our flight. We called a cab to take us to the airport, since we were tired of coordinating public transportation. He too was early. I guess not too many other people were up and needing cabs this early in the morning. It didn't take us long to get to the airport, and we wound up being there three hours early. Yes, THREE HOURS EARLY. I'm all for getting to the airport early so as not to miss a flight, but this was nuts. Turns out, we needed just about all of those three hours.

Dublin offers US customs service right in their airport (who knew?), which tends to take longer than a normal check-in process. In other words, we would be going through all of our customs paperwork/process while in Dublin, so when we arrived in Chicago, we could grab our luggage and go. This sounded awesome, especially considering the nightmare that was customs when we got back from Italy.

What wasn't awesome was how long it ended up taking. But, I suppose it was better before the trip than afterwards. We had lots of questions before we even checked our bags, including where we had been, who packed our luggage, how long we had owned our electronics...blah blah blah. You know the usual. We checked our bags and headed up to security to just get into the airport. We hadn't even gotten to customs yet.

Security took longer than expected, so we were running on borrowed time by the time we made it into the terminal. Once in there, we saw signs saying that there were little food options in the US departure wing, so we tried to find something for breakfast before we went through customs. There was a Burger King that I entertained for a few minutes, but no one was really working it, and there were no breakfast options. And I really REALLY didn't want BK. I tried another area with fresher foods like cheeses and meats, but nothing was easy to carry on to a plane. So, I opted for about 3 different kinds of pastries (I was hungry!), and a bottle of water.

Man, I couldn't wait to get home so I could eat healthier!

We stopped in the gift shop for some last minute duty-free shopping (we made sure to get receipts IN the bag this time), and then headed to US customs. At this point, we had to go through mini security again (they stamped our passports, scanned our carry-ons and showed us a picture of our checked baggage from earlier to verify it was ours), and we seemed to be in the slow lane the entire time. They made someone throw out their coffee, and Nikki and I panicked that we'd have to throw out our brand new water bottles.

Luckily, all was good and we were able to collect our belongings and head to our gate with about 20 minutes to spare. Looks like getting there early had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. And they weren't joking when they said there weren't any food options. Good thing I had all those carbs to load up on.

The flight home was smooth, and I was able to sleep on and off for the first half (in between meal and snack breaks). The latter half was spent reading or watching the movie. Now, why couldn't I have slept on the way there? I had three days to get over jet lag on the way home!

We made it to Chicago with no issues, actually arriving earlier than scheduled. Because of that, Nikki's boyfriend wasn't at the airport yet, so we had some time to kill before he arrived. Then, we had the long drive back to get Brenda's car, and then another long trek back out of the city on a gorgeous holiday weekend. I really need to rethink this flying out Chicago stuff. It seems like the better idea until it's time to get home.

At least this time we were driving in the daylight instead of 1 in the morning, but I was still fading quickly and ready to be home. It took about 5+ hours to get home, and I finally rolled into my house around 8pm. I was ready for bed, but I forced myself to stay up just a little while, so I could get back on my regular schedule. And luckily, my tiredness over the next few days was from exhaustion rather than jet lag.

Well, another European adventure is in the books, and I'm already planning my next one. Who knows where I'll end up. I may even try for a different continent next time. I have to give a big shout out to my traveling companions, Nikki and Brenda, for another stellar trip, and I apologize for my body trying to kill me, thereby making me cranky at times. I had an awesome time!

And now for my final thoughts on Ireland.

1. Favorite thing to see: tie between Cliffs of Moher and Giant's Causeway. I love architecture, but I have to say that nature's architecture is way more awe-inspiring.
2. Favorite beer: I can't say for sure, since I tried so many, and lots of them weren't local. I still love a good glass of Harp though. The fresh Guinness was pretty good too.
3. Favorite meal: Hands down, the salad and stew at The Front Door in Galway. That Guinness gravy still haunts my dreams.
4. I want to live in Galway, so they'll call me a Galwegian. (Glaswegian sounds cooler, but I don't want to live in Glasgow.)
5. Irish accents are sexy. Period.
6. Irish people are very friendly. Love it.
7. Note to self: don't take the bus from Shannon to Galway.
8. I want to go back to Ireland and see the smaller cities/towns and meet more people.
9. We need more live musicians like they have over there.
10. If you have the opportunity to go to Ireland, do it. Don't question it. Don't hem and haw. Just go. You won't regret it.
11. Just don't go in the winter/spring. Rain+wind+cold=sucky
12. If you see the bartender at Farrington's, tell him he should dump that crazy girlfriend of his. American girls are way cooler.
13. Being constantly on the move from city to city was tiring, but also so worth it. While I definitely want to go back to each of these locations and see more, we got to see so much in such a short amount of time. I'd probably cut out Glasgow if I were to do it again, but then again, we never would have met Juliet that way.
14. There is Gaelic in both Scotland and Ireland, but the dialect is different, so you have so specify if you're talking about Scottish Gaelic or Irish Gaelic.