Landed in Dublin at 4:45 AM after a quite decent flight over. Started watching Fargo on the Aer Lingus inflight entertainment system. Love it. Will pick that up on the way home! Breezed through immigration and customs and then quite the little hike to the hotel shuttle bus location but with a couple of phone calls (thank you project Fi) we located the bus and took the short ride to the Holiday Inn Express Dublin Airport. Spartan but very adequate. 4 hours of sleep and a hot shower and we were feeling just fine!
Next adventure was catching a Dublin bus in to the city centre. With a bit of help from the hotel manager, we pulled that off and disembarked a few blocks from the Irish Emigration Museum. We grabbed a coffee and a quick lunch and then went first to the Irish Family Heritage Center. Got a laugh out of this sign along the way
The CHQ building is great place for a bit of shopping, a coffee or a lunch
Here’s intro to the Heritage Center
Spent about half an hour (well over the promised 15 minutes) with a geneologist searching records and getting advice on tracing the family tree. A few new things were learned and Tom will have some additional resources to follow up on when he gets home. Well worth the extra cost to get that consultation.
Then it was on to the museum. We initially attempted to take an elevator down and although that was wrong I totally loved this
That -1 floor turns out to be the museum but the elevator took us to the end of the exhibit. We corrected our approach and started our journey through the exhibits, complete with passport that we could stamp as we left each room. It started….
We heard peoples’ stories of why they emigrated and the challenges they faced
And saw room after room of increbibly artistic, interactive and engaging exhibits that dove into the Irish emigration story
Around 6 PM we located our bus stop which by now was jammed with commuters and made our way back to the hotel. Dinner at the restaurant in the fancier hotel next door and now off to bed. Tired but happy – what a great day