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Normally, we don't follow the advice of showing up at the airport three hours before an international flight, but having flown out of Dublin before, I remembered that it isn't a stream-lined process.  For some bizarre reason, there is "US Preclearance" at the Dublin airport which means we clear customs at the airport.  Yes, there are immigration booths and agents there before we head to our gate.  I don't know why this happens only in Dublin, but it does.  So, despite John's resistance to leaving for the airport at 10 a.m. (when our flight left at 1:15), we did. And good thing. I don't even think I can possibly recount the nightmare that the next 48 hours would be, nor do I really want to remember the nightmare that the next 48 hours was, but I'll give a quick outline here. After we dropped off our rental car and got on the shuttle bus, I wondered what we were going to do with all of our extra time at the airport...until we got to the terminal and saw ...

We got up EARLY, because we had several things to get done before our tour at Kilmainham Gaol began at 12:30. Our final breakfast.  Ugh, talk about heart-breaking.  We finished up our last bits of bread and eggs and fruit, but we still had an unopened block of delicious Irish cheese.  Yeah, I packed it in my checked luggage ;-) We were off.  When we had left Newgrange six days earlier, the gift shop had already closed, and we all wanted to have a look, so the Newgrange gift shop was our first stop.  Thankfully they let us in without a ticket.  I hadn't bought much of anything except food all week, so when I found a beautiful leather purse embossed with the three concentric circles that are endemic to Newgrange, I took it to the cash register almost immediately (I did do the thing where I imagined walking away from it, and I knew that I would regret it).  Glo wanted to buy some local jewelry, but Gordon wasn't enthusiastic about her doing so.  We h...

Our final day in Northern Ireland.  To be honest, I was ready to settle down and never leave, and I wish we had the cash to buy a smaller home that was for sale in the same rental community.  I love the isolation of the Causeway Coast--it reminds me of some of my happiest places: Preist, Interlochen, even our home in State College.  A place of refuge and peace. This was our Bushmills day.  For the Kennedys, no trip to Northern Ireland is complete without visiting the Bushmills Distillery, and I wondered if Gordon would like it.  Something we didn't know is that September is the month when the distillery has a mandated closing of much of its machinery for maintenance and cleaning.  So the usual noise and aromas and heat weren't present without the mash fermenting all around us.  We didn't miss the nausea that sometimes accompanies the tour, but it didn't feel quite real either.  At least not to us.  Everyone was given a small bottle of whiskey...

With only two days left in the North, we knew we needed to get serious about planning out the remaining time so we got on the computer and bought tickets for the remaining visits. Since we are here in the off-season, and since the weather has been so dodgy, we've found that many of the sites are fairly easy to book (not Newgrange or the Gaol in Dublin however).  Carrick-a-rede bridge, a Kennedy classic, had a million  tickets available. Thankfully, the rain held for most of the day today (and even if it hadn't, we would've been prepared as always).  But shoot, the views on a clear day from the top of Carrick-a-rede can't be beat.  We could honestly see the shore of Scotland. It was a beautiful walk out to the bridge.  We tried our best to get some good shots of "the Bridges" but the rangers kept us going fairly steadily across the bridge. One interesting thing that we'd never seen before: between each group that would go across, a ranger would walk out to ...

I never had any idea that Day Five would be Day Five.  On the way up north, I had seen signs for the "Game of Thrones Studio Tour" and when I mentioned that to Glo (she had been asleep during the drive), she looked it up and decided that she wanted to go.  It IS her graduation trip, so I was happy to oblige. Despite John not wanting to drive the 1.5 hours there, we bought the tickets and set out.  But not before we made breakfast here at home. Breakfast has become a beautiful tradition that I wish had been part of our family's life through the years.  Glo cooks up "bacon" which are really ham steaks, Gordon cooks up spinach and eggs, I toast sourdough bread and put out butter and jam, and we have a large bowl of yogurt and fresh fruit.  Turns out, there are blackberries everywhere  right now, so John or Gordon heads out and picks enough berries to throw into our yogurt.  They are seriously delicious. There was a series of these large photos on the wall...