Boston and Washington Spring 2016 - Boys, Blades and Balls! - Day 1 (Stansted to Dublin)

[Guest]

This is my first trippie (please be gentle)...

Trippie Index Here

Pre-Trippie Here




What:


Boston, Washington D.C. and Baltimore


When:


Spring 2016


Who:


Me (April) A Woman in a Panic

DH (R.C.) A Man With a Chainsaw

DM (Judybat) Offstage for Now

DS (Pooter) Aged 9, Just Wants His Taytos


Travel Day 1


For those of you who don’t remember or who live abroad… “Storm Katie” hit England pretty hard on Easter Sunday. We live just north of London - and we had CRAZY loud wind and rain all night long and into the morning of Easter Monday. When it was light, I could see (BIG) branches down all over our land...and I had a sinking feeling about our lane...


So...I sent DS to check the red button for weather and traffic news.


While...I got in the car.


DH slept on - having worked until 3:00 AM he was still dead out.


Now we live at the end of a VERY narrow, lonely country lane - and, as I had feared - there was a massive great tree blocking it - about half a mile down from our house. The lane looked something like this…

So...after reversing all the way back up the lane (shudder), I woke my husband. As you can imagine, he was DELIGHTED to be woken by a shrieking madwoman!


Me: Unintelligible Gibberish...Tree!... More Gibberish!...Lane!...Taxi...Mud!...My new Kipling case!


Him: Wake me in another hour...snort…

[Guest]

After a quick meeting with DS (he reported trees were down all over England and many flights were cancelled due to the strong winds) - I called my neighbour. Now my neighbour is the loveliest man on God’s Earth, and he and his son were out with their chainsaws in ten minutes. To DH’s credit, he was too. DS was assigned the task of branch dragging.


...I stayed inside doing all the last minute packing/cleaning/panicking.


DH has a friend who runs a car service, and the car was to arrive at 10:00 AM. Well, the car arrived on time...and then sat behind the tree while the men finished chopping it up.


We finally left at 10:45, with poor DH still a bit sweaty and grubby (his wicked wife hinted - strongly - that a bath could be had - later - in Dublin, once we had safely made our flight).


The Controversial Boomerang Begins:


Today we were only off to Dublin. In the past, I’ve always made this journey on BA, from either Heathrow or City. But DH really prefers going from Stansted - which meant Ryanair.

I’ll state my prejudices - I am not Team Ryanair. I flew with them once (in 2006) and I swore never again (after my tiny mother was terrified/jostled/bruised by the scrum at boarding)...


To be fair, this was before seat assignments, and it was important to DH, so Ryanair it was.


I haven’t flown from Stansted in ages, so I didn’t know that one now has to PAY to drop someone off. Sigh…


Moving on...the Ryanair check-in was fine. It was VERY crowded (Easter Monday, after all) but I was able to figure out how to print the luggage tags (and to be fair, I had to print my own tags in Saint Paul last year - flying BUSINESS on United). We checked two bags - they were too big to be hand luggage on Ryanair but would be fine tomorrow for the transatlantic leg. I would carry on my stripy new Kipling spinner (an Amazon Warehouse Deal - £30!).

Security was BUSY, but pretty efficient. Travelling with a child, I am not a fan of the self-scanning passport machine-gates (what are these called?).

We were told that DS was old enough to use them, but it really was a mob scene, so I decided we’d wait and use the family gate (a manned gate) instead.

Kudos to a security officer working the x-ray machine. When DS’s safety scissors had to be visually confirmed, the officer showed him what they looked like on the screen and explained the whole process. It was very interesting to him. Anything that helps to demystify our byzantine security protocols (for children) gets a thumbs up from me. Well done, Stansted security officer. I wish I had noted her name, but it was SUCH chaos that I forgot. I did press the green button for her, though.

Stansted Tarmac Selfie:

We had no problems with boarding or indeed on the flight. The steward was up and down the aisle every five minutes flogging something (raffle tickets (?), newspapers, food and drink. etc…) - but it was just a skip over to Ireland and then we were on the ground.

At Dublin Airport:

We have different (national) passports in our family. This is sometimes good (we can pick whichever queue is shorter in America or England), but sometimes not…

The chap processing non-EU passports at Dublin was miserable.

Now maybe he was a lovely chap and just having a bad day, etc...but I want to be honest in this report. And honestly, his manner nearly had me in tears (especially as they are usually so friendly at Dublin).

He told me that he was “suspicious” of my one-night stay (I have no problem with this question, it does seem a bit strange). I pointed out that I had done this several times (my passport duly stamped each time) - and explained the big savings to be had when travelling from Dublin (as opposed to London).

He said, “I find it hard to believe that anyone would do that.”

I offered to show him my onward ticket.

He said, “What would that prove?”

Well, fellow Dibbers, I was speechless.What could I say? What did he imagine I was doing? Did he think I was a drug mule? Why did I ever watch “Nothing to Declare”?

Luckily, DH and DS had cleared the EU line by then, and my husband had wandered down to see what was holding me up. I pointed at DH and said, “That’s my husband, he’s English.”

I’m not sure why I thought that last bit would help, but what can I say, I was flustered.

The immigration chap waved my husband over and asked him about travelling via Dublin. Thirty (bleeping) seconds after my husband started explaining (in his lovely public school accent) my passport was stamped and we were through. It was rather vexing!

Ah, well...we were through.

[Guest]

Luggage collected we walked outside and across the road to get the little bus for the Premier Inn (it’s called the “Premier Inn Dublin Airport”, but it’s in Swords - you couldn’t walk it with baggage). For those of you who’ve yet to do this, walk out of the airport, across the road, take the little covered path past the church (it’s a nice little church, we stopped in a few months ago when we didn’t have cases) - and the bus drop-off/pick-up will be right in front of you.

Kids are free on the bus, DH and I were a euro each. Pick-up is every 30 minutes, I think (can’t remember until what time, though).

I’ve stayed at the PI in Swords a few times now, and my experience has always been good. Interestingly, all the staff (reception/bar/restaurant) have always been Polish or Lithuanian - I know because DS loves to ask people where they’re from. He always hopes that they say Poland so he can tell them that the only word he knows in Polish is the word for bottom. We’ve yet to determine if the word is the same or similar in Lithuanian.

One thing was different - when I presented my currency card (a Thomas Cook one - it was in Euros), I was told there would be a surcharge for using it. I didn’t think this could be right - it had never been surcharged before, but I REALLY don’t like arguments - so I just paid cash (it was only 45 euros). Has anyone else had this experience? Am I just late to the party?


DH led the way to our room and his much-anticipated bath.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant - there’s a TGI Friday’s next door, but I asked DH to choose, since that day he had:


a) done hard manual labour

b) flown grimy

and

c) gotten me admitted into Ireland

The meal was OK. My brother has a friend who calls restaurants like this “pleasantly disappointing”. And this fit his description. Not “bad”, but the food is never quite as good as the menus make it sound!


No food photos (sorry, I didn’t actually plan a trippie for this holiday) - but I had a chicken sandwich, DH had some kind of pie and DS had bacon and goats’ cheese salad.

We couldn’t manage dessert. Having begun the day with a Chinese Fire Drill, we were by now (it was 8:30 or so) ready for University Challenge and bed.

Goodnight, Jeremy Paxman.


And thank you to my neighbour and his son, who spent their Easter Monday sawing up the trees and branches that were down all along our lane!

NB: Some of the above photos are stock ones off the ‘net. I did take pictures, though...really!


Day 2 Here

[tocpe321]

Good start to Trip Report. Looking forward to reading this. We did Boston last time and thinking about doing Washington ( or possibly revisiting Boston ) next time we go to USA.

We also stayed at Swords PI and braved freezing August weather (not joking) to visit McDonalds.

[jocat]

Well the day ended better for you than it began - I'd have been in a right state over that fallen tree! Thank goodness for your neighbour.

[NatsyNoo]

Great start albeit stressful. Look forward to reading more

[Guest]

Originally Posted by tocpe321

Good start to Trip Report. Looking forward to reading this. We did Boston last time and thinking about doing Washington ( or possibly revisiting Boston ) next time we go to USA.

We also stayed at Swords PI and braved freezing August weather (not joking) to visit McDonalds.

See more...

Ah, fine Scottish cuisine!

I really enjoyed Boston - my sightseeing was limited by the skating, so I would like to go back. I want to try new places, too, though...we're thinking of hiring a car after a few days and driving up to Maine.

It was harder for me to enjoy Washington this time around. We last visited in 2002, and while there was a visible security presence at most places, it was discreet (and polite). This time not so much.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by jocat

Well the day ended better for you than it began - I'd have been in a right state over that fallen tree! Thank goodness for your neighbour.

See more...

He is a prince. And ladies...he's single, too.

Originally Posted by NatsyNoo

Great start albeit stressful. Look forward to reading more

See more...

Thank you - as always, it's funny in hindsight, but not so much at the time.

[tocpe321]

Originally Posted by GopherLass

Ah, fine Scottish cuisine!

I really enjoyed Boston - my sightseeing was limited by the skating, so I would like to go back. I want to try new places, too, though...we're thinking of hiring a car after a few days and driving up to Maine.

It was harder for me to enjoy Washington this time around. We last visited in 2002, and while there was a visible security presence at most places, it was discreet (and polite). This time not so much.

See more...

We did Maine on the same holiday. Stayed in Bar Harbor. Lovely scenic area and nice people.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by tocpe321

We did Maine on the same holiday. Stayed in Bar Harbor. Lovely scenic area and nice people.

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Good to hear - my DS fancies Acadia National Park.

I am trying to visit all fifty states (33 so far), and haven't yet done Vermont, New Hampshire or Maine. It seems like that area could be enjoyed in one driving holiday...