Beer, Harmony and Shamrocks, too!: On our way

The ultimate meet-up…at Baltimore Washington International. The whole crew caught up with each other at the gate D14.

D-14 - Gateway to our first leg of the trip

Luckily, we were located near the second home for many of us – Dunkin’ Donuts! Time to fuel up on some serious Joe… if you haven’t done so already. Many of us didn’t sleep as well as we should have last night. Talk about being excited for this trip.

Peggy and Heidi found the coffee to get themselves going

Our flight to Newark was uneventful, thank heaven. No, we didn’t pass Pope Francis in the air. He made it to Philadelphia before we even left Baltimore. One major blessing is that it was a short flight. Landing in Newark was no problem. I looked out the window of the plane and saw the Jersey Turnpike-with all the congested traffic- and felt right at home. The airport itself is huge. I thought Dulles was humongous… Newark is a close second. And just like everything else in Jersey, it’s still under construction. We pulled in from Baltimore in one wing of the C-concourse. Then we walked to Hoboken to our gate for Shannon, IR. Or it seemed like it.

Abruzzo Steakhouse in Newark Airport - after lunch and libation

Lunch was in order before we headed on our major hike to the gate. We found an Italian restaurant on the concourse that was really great. The first thing we had to navigate was the I-pad menu and ordering system. We had to scroll through a lot of entries to find the foods we wanted. The selection was pretty varied too. Abruzzo Steakhouse even had a vegetarian and gluten free menu. Paying for the food was easy too. Just swipe and put your e-mail address in. Whamo… there’s your receipt waiting for you on your laptop. Of course, there was the bar menu too. Taking advantage of the bar was a must. The only problem was the airport prices.

Anne's shopping spree netted her a sign for group shots, just in case we can't find her.

We had plenty of time to do some shopping. Louise and Anne found a journal at one of the bookstores. This journal had some stickers and a big sign so you can find yourself in crowd scene pictures. Sarah and Sally went looking for adult beverages. (I’m about to join them) The rest of our bunch found the United Lounge and decided to hang out there for a bit.

Many of us hit a kiosk bar and knocked back some beer. We wanted to be well lubricated for our flight.