When the Dollar is High ...
One weekend morning, I saw back-to-back stories about Irish tourism and the rising dollar. A light went off: "We should go to Ireland for Thanksgiving," I said to Ned. And, by the end of the day, we were booked--because ... us. So, here we are, a few months and about seven hours on a red-eye from Dulles later, having used the Chase points we earned over the summer to arrange lovely accommodations in Dublin, Waterford, Valentia, and Galway, nearing the Emerald Isle. (more on those plans later) We grabbed our bags from the supermod and sparsely decorated Dublin airport ... and found our way to the gracious but not-yet-ready to check-in Morrison Hotel on the Liffey River. Penn and I had slept some on the plane; Ned and Harper had sleep not-at-all. The front desk held our bags and directed us around the corner to a breakfast place, Jay Kay's, so we could eat our jet lag off. We snagged a table just before brunch rush. It is here that I must address an issue brought f