And Off to Ireland

Sunday Morning

So we are off again to Ireland. We are spending a couple of nights in Boston to visit family – my sister and Elaine’s cousins. Then we will jet off to Shannon Airport (near Limerick, Ireland). I won’t be posting much from Boston in this kickoff post. Or will I?

From the plane approaching Boston.

Rental car (unnamed) from Alamo. Black Chevy Equinox. Nice car. We are staying at the Marriot AC in Medford located in the Station Landing complex right next to Wellington Circle and busy, busy roads. But Station Landing is a nice development with lots of expensive apartments for rent – not busy, very good for walking, and quiet as could be with nice restaurants to walk to. When we first got to the hotel, we walked two minutes for dinner at Regina’s Pizzeria just down the street. Same ownership, but not quite the same pizza as the pizzas that you get at their original location in the North End. If you’re from Boston, you know about Regina’s Pizza.

We spent one day in Rye, NH visiting my sister Sue, her husband Jeff, and my cousin Heidi. We’ll all had lunch at Ray’s Lobster Pound in Rye. No pics of our visit with Sue, Jeff, and Heidi. (My bad! I meant to.) We were too busy reminiscing and eating – lobster rolls, fried clams, fish and chips, onion rings, etc. Fried food frenzy. (No dinner that night!) We used to go to Ray’s almost seventy years ago when we were just kids. My mother especially loved Ray’s. I did get a couple of pictures from the road of the area around Wallis Sands Beach where as kids we were beach rats and where I had my first ever jobs – dish washing at Florence’s Restaurant and then behind the counter serving and fast food cooking at Dinnerman’s. Those places are long gone. (See those cabins on the right in the background of the picture of Dinnerman’s? Those were the Rosecliff Cabins which were owned by Heidi’s late husband’s mother and father. The cabins are still there, now converted to very nice small residences.)

Day two we were to meet Elaine’s cousins, Patrick and Mark, along with Mark’s wife for a meal at the Union Oyster House in Boston. Alas, Mark and Sharon had to cancel because of a family situation, but it was great to see Patrick again. Elaine and I were early, so we stopped for a beer at the Pine Bar. It’s interesting that the Pine Bar serves only beer, wine, and liquor made in New England. The Union Oyster House is an institution and arguably the oldest restaurant in America – Daniel Webster ate oysters at the bar here. (He and I have something in common.) More good food! Patrick and I shared some oysters and then we all had lump crab cakes. See Elaine with glasses on? She borrowed my readers to read the menu.

Sunday we were off to the airport to board our Aer Lingus flight to Ireland. We’ll get there at 5:30 am Monday morning, pick up our rental car, and drive to Dingle (about 2½ hours). Our new digs will be ready when we arrive in Dingle. More about them once we arrive.

So the next post will probably be sometime on Tuesday once we have settled in. I think probably I will post every other day on this trip rather than every day. But that’s not a hard rule if I get inspired. If you’ve followed the blog for awhile, you won’t be seeing much new in the way of sights. There are a bunches of old posts of previous trips to Dingle, and much of what you will see this time has already been posted on those old posts.