New column by David S. Grant at TouristTravel.com

Excerpt from The Dublin Trip (part I)

THURSDAY Night
“I’m bombed” says Terence from an airport bar in Philly. Terence and Olga spent approximately seven hours at the airport. It is assumed five of those were spent in the bar – leading to Terence stealing a bottle of Jack Daniels from the duty free shop.  The purpose of this public drunkenness was to forcefully overcome his fear of sleeping in long metal objects. Some would say there is a Freudian response to this, but he insists it only extends to planes.

MEANWHILE…
Beth and I are at Gallagher’s restaurant inside beautiful Newark Liberty Airport, enjoying excellent food and awful service that includes a glass of red wine being dumped on a customer and little flies circling all around the stain. One bartender upsets Beth to the point where she was almost unable to finish her glass of wine. Almost.

FRIDAY
On the plane Beth and I got some semi-drunk sleep, as did Olga on their connection flight from Philadelphia to Manchester. Wide awake, Terence watched five movies. Our flight from Newark arrived in Dublin on time. We were at the great O’Callaghan Davenport by 10:30am, checked in and ready to see the sites.

MEANWHILE …
Terence and Olga where delayed in Manchester by approximately an hour, making it “tight” for the planned Guinness Brewery tour.

Back in Dublin (and away from airports) nice walks through Merrion Square, on to view the National Gallery, walk through Grafton street, and then looking at the incredible St. Stephens Park…we were well into our site-seeing vacation.  The weather?  Rain. Gray. Sun. Rain. Gray. Sun…all within fifteen minutes.

MEANWHILE…
at the great O’Callaghan Alexander Hotel, Terence and Olga had unexpectedly accepted an “amazing race” mission when they accepted a packet (left by us so we wouldn’t have to spend our first day sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for them) at the front desk explaining simply: “Be at the Long Hall pub at 2:30, leaving for the Guinness tour at 3pm”.  It was 2pm when the package was received.

BACK IN THE city Beth and I found the way to Temple Bar, an incredible neighborhood made up of completely of bars – so it seemed. We proceeded to consume several beers and a small pizza, figuring out the quickest way to get to “The Long Hall” pub, arriving at the pub only to find that it was closed.  Where were Terence and Olga?  Apparently they had unintentionally taken the scenic route and were walking around the Dublin Castle, several times before eventually finding “The Long Hall”, at 3:05pm.  Way past the deadline noted on their paperwork they had received from the front desk.  Tired, jet lagged and one would expect, sick of the Dublin Castle, they decided to eat and head back to the hotel.

AT THE GUINNESS brewery long lines greeted us. Luckily the lines moved quickly.

Read the full column at Tourist Travel.com

David S. Grant is the author of several books.  His latest, The Italia Diary: A Travel Narrative with Inspired Fiction will be available shortly.  For more information go to http://www.davidsgrant.com.  Follow David on Twitter .david_s_grant