Europe 2024 - From Dublin to Chicago

We didn’t have to be at the airport until early afternoon that day, which meant that we had the entire morning to do things and also that we needed to figure out what to do with our bags if we didn’t want to cart them around Dublin with us while doing so. We didn’t have a lot of bags – we’d done this trip with carry-on luggage, after all – but even that is more than you want to haul around for longer than you have to.

When we asked the staff the night before they were adamant that they could not possibly let us stash our bags behind the front desk, which was confusing since they’d let us do that when we arrived. We’d gotten there a couple of hours before check-in and they were happy to let us keep the bags back there while we foraged for snacks. So there was a bit of a puzzle to work out.

Fortunately Kim asked again that morning and the new person said of course we could do that!

It turns out that there are two entirely separate staffs there – one for the student housing part of it and one for the summer rentals part of it and even though they sit at the same front desk and rent out the same rooms they don’t talk to each other much and they have different policies. The student housing people are much friendlier.

So we dropped off our bags and decided that the best thing we could do on a Saturday morning was to tour a whiskey distillery that included samples, because nothing says “vacation” like drinking whiskey at 11am. Fortunately there was a distillery in the neighborhood, a short walk away, and we got there just about as it was opening.

The Teeling Distillery opened in 2015 and was the first new whiskey distillery in Dublin in over 125 years. Most of the big distillers – Jameson, Powers, and so on – moved out of the city a while ago, and it took a while for pioneers to resettle the place with new distilleries. There are a few more there now. But this one was right in the neighborhood.

We got there before the tours started so they directed us to their café which featured a wide variety of whiskey-related food and drinks including a fascinating joint venture with the Keogh’s potato chip people to produce a Smoked Barbecue and Irish Whiskey flavor chip. It has the Teeling logo right on the bag. They weren’t bad, actually.

When the tour starts you don’t just launch into the tour itself. They let you into a little area where you can look at some displays and get some of the history that way, and there were a few others with us – mostly Americans (including people from Wisconsin and Philadelphia) but also various sorts of Europeans. Eventually we were called to order by Gary, who introduced himself as a “genuine hung-over Irishman.” He had us introduce ourselves and told us that he planned to move to Broomall (a suburb of Philadelphia) with his girlfriend in the next few months and then launched into his presentation.

Where the Irish Whiskey Museum tour was a fairly broad history of both whiskey and Ireland that sought to put it all into context, the Teeling tour was just what it said it was – a walk through an actual working distillery where we could see how the stuff was made. It’s fascinating. Gary took us into the business end of the distillery where he told us about the process – malting, triple-distilling, and so on – and let us wander around a bit to get a closer look at the equipment.

He then ushered us into a darker room where he told us about the aging process – how they age the whiskey only in specific sorts of barrels and how it gets darker and more flavorful over time – before opening up another door to the tasting area.

Our tour came with two drinks – a straight sample of the Teeling Small Batch variety, which I was pleased to discover on sale here in Our Little Town after I got back, and a cocktail which rivals the Aperol Spritz for the title of Summeriest Drink Ever. They were both very good, and they had the cocktail recipe written out for you right on the bar if you wanted to photograph it.

Afterward they let us wander around a bit. On the side wall there was space for people to write their names, so we did that. And then we headed over to the gift shop though we didn’t buy anything, mostly because we didn’t want to lug it home. Fear not – I am now the proud owner of a bottle of Teeling Small Batch Whiskey, purchased upon my return, and as the days get darker and the weather slowly cools I look forward to enjoying it, probably after rather than before any grading I need to do.

We walked back to the apartment lobby to collect our bags and head to the airport, which we decided to do by taxi rather than bus this time. We sat there in the lobby trying to figure out how to do this until the desk person called us over and pointed to a button that they just have sitting on the counter. Apparently so many people call for cabs from this place that the local cab company installed a hot line and all you have to do is push the button and wait about four minutes and a cab will appear as if by magic.

We got to the airport in plenty of time which was good because for the second airport running we found ourselves in a place where the baggage handling system had broken down.

It has to be said that the folks in Dublin were a lot more organized about this situation than those in Naples. Instead of having to fight our way through a madding crowd to get to an immovable line in front of a desk, we were directed to the end of a miles-long line that looped up and down the sidewalk in front of the terminal and just follow along. The line moved briskly and people were pretty generous about letting those with impending flights cut in front. We weren’t particularly worried since we had plenty of time and weren’t checking bags anyway and we soon found ourselves in the actual terminal where we were given directions to security.

Security also moved quickly, surprisingly enough, and suddenly we were on the other side with time to spare.

Our first order of business was lunch, since it was about that time. This was a bit of a struggle since everyone at the airport had the same idea at the same time, but we are Resourceful Travelers and Not To Be Put Off though in the end I got rather turned around by the computerized menu screen where I went and ended up with rather more than I could eat but better that than too little, I suppose.

Also, there was shopping.

All European airports double as malls. Up to 15% of the total GDP of every EU and Schengen Area member comes from people buying things at airports, and we did our bit. Kim found someone to sell her the Jo Malone fragrance she’d been looking for, and Oliver and I continued our Boots reconnaissance and found snacks and beverages for the flight.

Eventually we had to get to our gate, and here we experienced firsthand the wonder that friends of ours had told us about: if you are flying from Dublin to the US, you can – and indeed, must, as I didn’t see any way to avoid doing so – go through US Customs in Dublin.

I KNOW!

This turns what is normally a 90-minute process in Chicago at the end of a trans-Atlantic flight when you are tired and cranky and just want to go home into a 20-minute process at the beginning of the flight when you still have the spoons to be polite and humane to the people checking you through. And when you arrive in Chicago you are treated as a domestic flight! It was just glorious.

The flight was long and uneventful, as you want flights to be. It felt like it took forever, even though it was as comfortable as that sort of thing gets. I read the book that I’d borrowed on my phone and started another. The clouds drifted by. Darkness took me and I strayed away through thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead and every day was as long as a life age of the earth. And then we arrived, safe and sound in Chicago.

Lauren picked us up and took us back to Our Little Town, though with a slight detour that just meant we had more time to talk together and that was a lovely thing. We got home and I immediately unpacked my carryon to give to her so she could take it with her on the trip that she and her friend Arden were planning for later that week, and we hung out a bit before she had to go.

It is good to travel, to see new places and friends, to be a bit uncomfortable in the service of greater experiences.

It is good to arrive home, to the familiar and the comfortable.

It will be good to travel again.