Day 9 - All good things must come to an end. Final Impressions.

Tuesday we made our way home. It was relatively uneventful other than when flying from Dublin to the USA they recommend arriving at the airport 3 hours early, and you should.  It took nearly all of the three hours to get through the check-in and all the required screening. It is nice that you do US customs in Dublin so there is none required in the USA, but it all takes time.

We flew from Dublin to Stewart in Newburgh, NY on schedule, then drove the 3.5 hours to the Allen's and picked up our car, arriving home around 10PM. All and all uneventful..as it should be.

We very much enjoyed as much of Ireland as we could fit in the short time we were on Irish soil.

This is a google timeline of our travels, yes google was watching me the whole time.

Even though Ireland is farther north than we are in Vermont, the climate is much more constant than where we live. The range in temperature between night and day is much less and more predictable. We had temps basically from 40 to 60 for the whole week. However the wind the never stops, which can make it feel a bit colder when the sun is not out. When the sun was out, it was very comfortable.

My impressions of the Irish are that they are very proud of being Irish but a very friendly people. They bristle a bit when talk of the British come up, but also recognize that they have a very symbiotic relationship with their neighbors to the east. It is just hard to overlook hundreds of years of oppression.

Our tour was booked by AAA through a third party called Abbey Tour Group.  Frankly, for the price of the tour, I was very pleased. There were about 28 total in our group, we all got along well. We even had a group photographer, Abraham.

This is a group photo with Abraham in it, with his wife Mary, center under the sign.  (Calvin took the picture)










Abraham would often assemble the group for a picture. He gathered our emails and will forward them when he gets home.

As has been repeated many times, our tour guide made the trip fun, I have no regrets.

All in all "The craic was mighty!"