Drinking Vacation in Dublin Thanksgiving 2014  Day 1

• BOS-JFK-LHR-DUB on AA (77W)
• Galleries First at London Heathrow
• Junior Suite at the Westin Dublin
• Thanksgiving Dinner at Gallaghers Boxty House

Like all of my other adventures, I found a mileage run on The Flight Deal to Dublin and got my friend to come with me over the Thanksgiving break. It was BOS-JFK-LHR-DUB-PHL-BOS, all on AA so I got to use my SWU for both me and my friend both ways. This would be his first time in business class so he was excited to try out the new product.

We were in domestic first from BOS-JFK and we were lucky we were in First since there was about an hour delay so we drank the entire way to JFK. They ran out of Baileys real quick and we moved onto rum and tequilla. When we went got to JFK, we had to speedwalk to our next flight since we were delayed getting out of Boston. We made it just before they started boarding and luckily the LHR flight was late too. We had to weave through the crowd to board with the other 50+ business class passengers. Eventually, we made it on our 77W to LHR.

The meal was pretty good. I got the beef and it was cooked a nice medium/medium rare (it was between the two) and tasted good. I also got the ice cream sundae as well and fell asleep shortly after. Despite having a good seat, my friend didn’t get any sleep. I did the best I could for him.

We landed at LHR and we had about two hours until our connecting LHR-DUB flight so we hung out at the Galleries First Lounge.

There was the normal spread for breakfast, including ham, tomato, hashbrowns, eggs, baked beans, sausage, blood sausage and bacon. There was also Irish Oatmeal (not pictured) and it was amazing. I think I had three bowls of it the next time I flew through there. I tried making it at home with abysmal results.

We eventually walked downstairs and to the nearby gate for the Dublin flight. The business class was a good seat. For European domestic first class flight, it is the same seat as coach, but they block off the middle seat. The food is also slightly better but we didn’t get a full meal for such a short flight from London to Dublin.

Once we landed, we took the Dublin bus from the airport to downtown Dublin to check into the Westin.

We got an upgrade to the Junior Suite because I used some of my Suite Upgrade vouchers. I had so many of them that I had to use them. It was a pretty nice sized room. It would only be the two of us, but my friends girlfriend would be arriving Saturday and I leave early Sunday morning so I wanted a slightly larger room for that night.

The room also came with a small desk so we used that to charge phones and laptops.

Since we were there for such a short time, I didn’t bother getting a sim card so we used Wifi wherever we went. I have been here a few times, including running the marathon last year so I knew the downtown fairly well. The first thing we did was go to Hot Wok takeout restaurant. It permanently closed shortly after in 2015 but it was a small noodle takeout stand right near downtown Dublin. A lot of locals went there for a quick meal, including bus drivers. I doused my noodles with some hot sauce and it was great, all for 4 EUR.

For dinner, we tried to find a place that had something resembling Thanksgiving dinner. We found a good restaurant called Gallaghers Boxty House that served turkey. I got a crepe whereas my friend got turkey. It was a good meal, but not very Irish.

Our next stop was Bad Bob’s bar for a few drinks. I would normally take people to Temple bar, but it was pretty crowded and I wanted to do that when his girlfriend arrives a few days later. We got a few beers and I ended the night with an Irish Coffee.

This was a nice warm-up for the drinking we would be doing once his girlfriend gets here on Saturday, where we drank from about 3pm to 3am. The next day, we would be doing some touristy things like visit a castle.