Travel Tips and Other Random Observances

                                                      

So I have decided to write a travel trip blog intermingled with stories. Or will it be stories intermingled with travel tips? I’ll let you decide. As far as my trip to Ireland thus far…WOW! I actually could just stop there because that is all that really needs to be said. But then that wouldn’t be much of a blog now, would it?

In the Beginning:

So for me, no trip would be complete without a ride to the airport from my bro-in-law, accompanied by my sister in the front seat gripping the “oh shit handle” and wondering if we are gonna make it out alive.  My brother-in-law is the poster child for road rage driving. He has the unique ability to make one shit in one's pants whilst also hysterically laughing one's ass off. The assortment of curse words tempered with a wide variety of facial expressions and fist and/ or finger waving is, in my mind…priceless.

 So travel observance # 1 Airports are fun. Planes are big. Waiting in line sucks. There you go; my in-depth analysis of plane travel. But hey if you need a ride to the airport let me know.

Travel tip # 2. Check-in online 24 hours before your flight. This may or may not be widely known but because I did so a nice lady at the airport who asked if I had checked in online took me from the back of a VERY long line and plopped me down in a line with only one other dude in it and who was, as am I, a genius. It seems he also had enough sense to check in ahead of time. Obviously, the other poor slobs, the ones in the line that stretched around the building, weren't as smart as he and I. Yea us!

Travel tip # 3. Freakin’ smile and say hello to people. This in turn will always get a smile and hello back which in turn gives you someone to talk to. A trip like this is not meant for an introvert that’s for sure. In just the few days I have been gone I have met a lovely woman from Louisiana who lives in Hamburg and who, much to my surprise, sang for me while we were waiting for the plane in Miami and by chance happened to sound just like Etta James. On the bus leaving the airport, I met a super hot college professor from Berkeley who by the end of our bus ride had invited me out to visit. I also met Suzie, a study abroad college student from Iowa who was heading in the same direction as me. After realizing she had no cash and only a debt card  (buses in Ireland don’t take debit cards) I paid for her to get on the bus. She became my travel companion and when we arrived in Waterford she gave me back my Euros and introduced me to Paddy the boy she had met in Dublin. Go, Suzie! And last, but not least, Faye and Robert who kept me company on the ferry and were from my motherland, Canada. Now that is just a chosen few. No sense in taking a trip like this if you aren't going to enjoy the people you encounter. And they enjoyed me, whether they liked it or not.

Travel tip # 4. Do your research!! It will pay big time in the end. Case in point; as I got off the plane at the Heathrow Airport I really did not want to go east 40 minutes into London to catch a train west to the coast…duh! But the folks I asked all said that was what you had to do. So never listen to the first (or second or third, or…well you get my drift) well-meaning person you talk to, and if it seems to make sense that there has to be a way to go the direction you want to go then listen to your gut and make it work. Here comes the “do your research part.” A dude at the airport hooked me up with a bus that was heading to Reading (pronounced Red-ing) and then I could catch the train to the coast; all of the above heading west as required. Thanks dude I do appreciate that. So as I was digging my money out of my wallet he said “That will be 144 pounds.” I was like “WTF are you talking about my friend?” and promptly put my cash back in my wallet. I politely made him aware that “I know for a fact that I can get a ticket from London to Fishguard for 65 bucks.” He said, "Oh well the price he had quoted me was for 'peak travel.'” I said I’ll wait or I’ll go elsewhere. I got my ticket for 65 Euros. Hence, my Sherlock Holmes-type wit and finely honed investigative skills served me well.

All in all, this entire trip, so far, has been awesome. I happened to make the conscious decision to fly into London as opposed to the Shannon Airport in Ireland. One; there was no stinking way I was going to pay an extra 400 bucks to get stuck in JFK for a 5-hour layover. I would rather have taken a plane into London, a bus to a train, a train to a ferry, a ferry to a bus, a bus to another bus which, gratefully, took me to Killarney. Good thing, cause that’s exactly what I did. It took me an extra 10 hours of travel but just think If I hadn't gone the extra mile, or 100, I wouldn't have met all those cool people that I was able to meet along the way. Nuff said.

Killarney: My layover, before I got started on the Kerry Way trail, was in Killarney. As a matter of fact, I am sitting at my hostel writing this. If you are going to go to Ireland you must go to Killarney. It has that small Irish town feel but it is…well, bigger. The greatest thing about Killarney is everything! Oh also that it lies snuggled up to the Killarney National Park. So you get the best of both worlds; the wonderful town and the vast expanse of the park to explore. Killarney is a must-see. Of course, I didn't see it last time, but still.

Other handy tips for traveling in Ireland: (thus far)

Keep in mind that ALL roads are N25, period. And, they are never straight and seem to have no end.

The toilets cost 20 cents, even at the bus or train station, so keep some change in your pocket or get used to doing a running slide to get under the turnstile. (My personal favorite.)

Don’t forget your sunglasses because when the sun does make an appearance you want to be prepared.

Making time with the desk clerk will get you a free bowl of cereal.

If driving yourself remember: one near-death experience will keep you in the proper lane for the rest of the trip.

If you do take the bus, only look across the horizon. If you look down you will certainly shit your pants at how close the driver will get to others: cars, signs, ledges, cliffs, and any and all other objects that happen to get in the bus driver’s way.

Trust your bus driver as they have been blessed with balls of steel…no really.

If someone tells you to meet them down at Murphy’s Pub, it is always prudent to ask “Which one?”

And last but not least: It is cloudy in Ireland ALL the time and it rains…well…a lot. Keep telling yourself it’s called “ambiance.”

In a Roundabout Way

Alright friends and neighbors the ole blog is up and running. Thanks, Zack for your rather frank suggestion and for helping me set this all up. Now, thanks to you, I can drone on and on and on… Anyway, the challenge now is to figure out what I want to write about. I could just be a complete smart-ass. You know, like Al Franken. I just finished reading “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.” Now THAT is what I call entertaining. Although politics isn't my strong suit… you never know. Maybe I will just talk about interconnectedness like John Muir or wax poetic like Ralph Waldo Emerson. Keeping it real dude…oh and deep. Then again I could dig down into the depths of my inner being and tell you all about the tragedy and triumph of my life. You know like Sophocles. It probably wouldn't be as entertaining as say Oedipus however. But I am thinking something along the lines of oh let’s say writing my life story by emulating the style of a Greek tragedy, but setting it in the Deep South. There is nothing like the smell, the feel, the aura, of a redneck waxing poetic. Now we’re talking! There is no telling what will spill out of this pea brain of mine at any given time. Hopefully, I won’t offend anyone, but I make no promises. Possibly I may make you cry, or make you laugh or if I am really good I will make you laugh when all you want to do is cry. Now that would be poetic. Then again there is always the risk of putting words on a page that actually say something meaningful. If I do that I apologize ahead of time. Possibly I may write about what happens to me as I go; like a minute-by-minute play-by-play of my upcoming journey. Hopefully, it will go something like this: words written about slogging (and by slogging I mean dancing) along through the hills of Ireland or stories of me gazing out over the Irish sea at sunrise with a crazy, shit-eatin’ grin on my face. Or, me drinking Guinness and batting my baby blue eyes at some hot Irish musician. Okay, so I don’t have baby blue eyes, but still. Shit, poor me…okay so much for the Greek tragedy.

Side note: So what I am trying to say, in a roundabout way is; that I am just going to write. This will not just be a blog/journal containing stories and anecdotes about my trip, but a running commentary of whatever just happens to be floating around in my brain; lordy, lordy, lordy, now there’s a scary thought…

Testing,testing, and in the Begining...

Testing, testing, is anybody out there (banging on the mic)? Hey dude is this thing on? Okay. And a one and a two…huh? I’m not in a band? No? Ok, I’m a writer? Say something intelligent? And inspirational? Hmmm,...

So, with a wink and a smile, I say to you, that is exactly what the process of writing is. It is testing the waters. Banging on your own brain until something spills out. Trying at some point to put on paper something worthwhile, or funny, or deep. “Writers… write.”  It is something that for me has often fallen by the wayside. But, it is also something ultimately that I cannot ignore. The need to write poured out of me when I was twelve or so. I wanted to wax poetic and say something about the world, but at that point, what the hell did I know? Most of the things I wrote back then and over the years have been lost along the way, as was my desire, my drive, and the need to write. That desire got lost along a path of mundaness that most of us call life. But, that drive to say something worthwhile, to entertain, to write something interesting, intelligent, or poetic, was always there. And I now dare to share those thoughts and feelings with an audience. I wrote to a friend not too long ago that it was time. It was time to begin to share with others what I have for so long held inside my own self. To share my humor, my sparkling wit and charm (if I had any charm or sparkling wit) and my perception of the world, of how we are all connected, and of the depth of my love for all things beautiful. And I wrote that one day just maybe I could put on paper something that moved someone or inspired them. That they would read those words upon that page and think, “Wow that was deep.” But, then again, maybe they will read it and think, “Dude, what a load of crap.” This last comment was supposed to be self-deprecating. Either way… it is my time. I will, at least for now, attempt to put my pen to paper in the same way a painter puts his brush to the canvas. Or the way a musician puts his fingers to his guitar. I find it interesting, and comforting, to know that we all can express how we feel about our connection to…things. When we venture out into the realm of artistry we hope to play, or paint, or write something funny or beautiful, or inspiring. And in doing what we are driven to do, we as humans, as artists, open up our hearts and souls to friends, family, and complete strangers while trying to relate our thoughts and inner ideas to them about how we perceive our surroundings; how we express our connection to the world, and our connection to the people that we touch, with strokes, music, or words. Then again, quite possibly, I may just end up with a big pile of crap. I guess only time will tell. Psst…hey dude, is this thing on?