St. Patrick Island

We saw clear skies on the flight over! Then we decended into a smokie city.

As we exited the airport to make use of our 12hr layover we chuckled spotting 3 pine cones dropped (by a kid?) in the baggage arrival over a 80 ft distance. Or was it a squirrel?

Stop one was a pair of International Driving Permits, which we'll need in Europe. It was a warm 26c day, and the transit train was not operational downtown due to maintenance, during a long weekend?! Why? This added some extra time and mental gymnastics to the journey.

We also shopped for light summer jackets. Ironically a hot day isn't ideal when your toting luggage across town, but what the hey! We got it done and will probably be glad in a month or so when in cooler areas of Europe.

Refreshments and a snack at Leopold’s Tavern. The pints arrived fast, but 30min later no food! I asked the server if our food got lost? Yes! The Printer rang out of paper, so the kitchen never got it 🤣. They covered our meal cost, so that was a win!

Transit back to the airport to make great use of our $11 day passes. I recalled that I had free airport lounge passes from my credit card. It was a bit convoluted getting to the Domestic area for the lounge even though we were flying international. Everyone I asked said it was ok.

The lounge was amazing! We lucked into getting right into a shower to freshen up after the smokie, sweaty afternoon! The food and drink order in goon the app was incredibly fast. It was delicious! For the small cost of the tip, it was a another deal for the wallet! We stayed until closing, as our flight wasn't until midnight.

Turns out nobody on our flight was precreened by American customs. But we did get cute stickers on our passports from some security people.

Boarding first made us feel like rock stars! We looked forward to the extra service in our Premium Seats.Read more