FUDGE! Only I don't mean fudge. I mean THE Word. The queen mother of dirty words... That's not really a bad way to start a post on Ireland as it is a fairly common word in the Irish vocabulary -- The real dirty word I mean, not "fudge". However, I didn't intend on scaring away those with sensitive ears right off the bat. The thing is, though, I lost my little notebook that I carried around hundreds of miles around the Emerald Isle taking notes of the things we did that day and little observations. That's part of the reason that I am so late in getting around to finally writing more about Ireland than just the adventure that we had in getting back. Procrastination due to anxiety, stress, and depression play into it too. I'm clawing my way back to some normalcy just by starting on this. A friend sent me a quote about just getting started and then everything falls into place or some such thing. The quote's around here somewhere; I just can't find it at the moment.
Anyway, I figure I can piece together what we actually did each day based on the photos that I have and that my mom and Jen took. (My mother was a photo taking MACHINE... which i guess would make her a camera. Hm.) I will probably lose some of the little observations that I had written down, though what is going to stick with me are the little memories that I still have stuck with me. Maybe those will do. Or maybe the photos will evoke some little thoughts as well. I'm not sure. There were just little things, like thinking it was sort of funny how Trinity College had sweatshirts the sort that fans would wear to a football game. Maybe fans do stop in the university bookstore to buy some apparel before rugby matches or quidditch tournaments or whatever they play on a Saturday afternoon.
So I know that we landed in Dublin. Yeah, that much I am certain of.. but I need to rewind. Our flight from Orlando to Washington Dulles was delayed by almost an hour. We ate dinner at MCO. I had a hazy IPA, which was my first alcoholic drink in 171 days. I need to write a completely separate post on drinking during this vacation. It's a complicated feeling, even now after we are done and back home. Then I had a Sam Adams Hazy IPA NA (non-alcoholic), which was really pretty good. Less hoppy than the IPA I had just had (sorry, I didn't take notes on what brewery that first one was from).
Okay, so the flight from Orlando to Dulles was fairly uneventful. I don't remember what I did on the flight and don't have my scuzzy little notebook. Do people still use the word "scuzzy"? The plane got to the gate in Dulles, though just as the flight from Dulles to Dublin was supposed to be taking off. They held that flight, though, as there were apparently enough of us trying to make that connection. Besides myself, Jen, Mom, and Mike, there was another couple that was in our group coming from Cape Canaveral. Plus I think there were three or four others. Also, I had Usain Bolt's brother pushing my wheelchair. I've never gotten through an airport so quickly. So thankfully we all made the flight to Ireland, plus Jen had worked it that we had a ton of extra leg room, you know, for my booted leg and all. (If you are just joining us, I made either the courageous or insane decision to have lapiplasty done to correct the bunion on my right foot a couple months before leaving for Ireland. The initial surgery got pushed out due to me getting Covid over the holidays, so at this point I was just six weeks out from surgery and had just been put into a walking boot rather than a full cast. I was still on crutches, though.)
I do remember what I did on the flight from the U.S. to Ireland. I slept. However, I really didn't even sleep all that much because the in-air entertainment had the show "What We Do in the Shadows". I honestly don't know what prompted me to decide to watch it. I think the one beer in Orlando must have gone to my head because I was laughing out loud at this ridiculous vampire comedy. Laughing out loud with headphones in on a full plane. I believe I binged the full season. And haven't watched another episode since.
I really thought that being away from work and doing a lot of travelling from place to place would afford me a lot of time to get caught up on all the reading that I've been meaning to do. If you plan on following my series of blog posts regarding this trip, notice just how often I mention reading a book. Compare this with the number of times I mention watching rugby or playing video games on my tablet or staring vacantly out a window. Compare the number of books I mention finishing to the number of bookstores I stop in and number of books I mention buying!
Anyway, we made it to Dublin without the plane crashing or even losing an engine. All the way across the Atlantic Ocean with zero engine failures. Tied a record.
