Day One
"Jet Lag Fever"
Taking off for Ireland - 3/20/03
Actually, we kind of cover three days here. I'm throwing in the night before leaving, and Thursday and Friday kind of ended up being one day for us. Kind of confusing with all the time differences and the layovers.
So it finally got to be Wednesday, March 19. All the planning was over. I got off work at 5:30, turned off my computer, and changed my voice mail to let callers with their wrecked cars know I was out of the office for 12 days (OH yeah). I headed over to Russ's house, near my work, and Aaron and our friend Tony soon joined us for a final pre-trip evening. Aaron would be staying at Russ's house for the week we'd be gone and taking care of Russ's two dogs (and taking the chance to fly his girlfriend into town for a Mike- and Russ-free extended weekend).
It was during this evening that President Bush came on the air and gave his big speech. The war against Iraq was beginning. It was a little later in the evening that the news reported the first bombs dropping on Baghdad. Here was a dramatic twist to our little trip. America was going to war, and protests were lighting up all around the world, and Russ and I were leaving the country and flying to Europe. Nice timing, huh? This added a bit of a sobering mood to things, but we weren't going to let it get in the way of the trip. We knew, though, that we'd be spending a lot of time in Ireland watching the news and the progress on the war. And we hoped we wouldn't run into any anti-American sentiment.
Aaron crashed at Russ's place, so that they could take Russ's car in the morning to take Russ and I to the airport, and I raced home to try and get some sleep. Didn't get as much as I wanted, of course, because I ended up watching news until about 1 a.m. As I listened to the radio on the way home, you see, there were rumors that not only were we dropping bombs directly on Saddam, but that American troops had moved into Afghanistan and were chasing after Osama. Turned out, of course, that this was just wild speculation based on a thousand U.S. Troops on an al-Qaida hunt. I got up with the alarm at 5 a.m. and got myself up and showered (I'd actually packed two days before, taking no chances). Soon Aaron and Russ showed, we loaded the car, and it was off to the airport.
We flew out of San Diego at 8 a.m. Our layover for the flight was in New Jersey, and the flight there was about a six hour jaunt. They showed the movie "Barber Shop" on the plane, which I didn't plug in headphones for, but it actually looked pretty good, which kind of surprised me. I mostly listened to the many CDs I burned for the journey. We hit Liberty airport in New Jersey a bit after 4 p.m. local time. We had time to hit an airport bar for a beer and some food to tide us over. Then it was back on another plane, for 5 hours and 40 minutes over the Atlantic. In a cheesy moment, Continental decided to show "Far and Away" as the movie on a flight to Ireland. Hey, it killed a lot of the flight time, so I watched. Then they decided to put on a second film, which was cool, because 1) it killed even more time, and 2) it was "Good Will Hunting", which I had somehow managed to never see. Good movie. Those guys ought to get an Academy Award or something. Damon was better than Affleck, of course, but Affleck was the bomb in "Phantoms"...
The coolest thing about the Continental video screens, though, was when the movies weren't running. Then they had this graphic up showing a map and exactly where the plane was at that given moment. It also told air speed, altitude, and, most importantly, how much time was left on our flight. I sat there watching the plane graphic get closer and closer to Ireland, and that's when it really sunk in that it was finally happening. I was really going there.
We finally got there and de-planed, and got ourselves through customs. And there we were, in Ireland, with no rental car and no place to stay. That was our little adventure portion of the trip we added in. We didn't want reservations of any kind. Just wanted to get there and wing it. And so we did. After a little price shopping, we ended up going with Budget car rental, and got ourselves a little Fiat (and the extra insurance...we remember what I do for a living, right?) with the steering wheel on the wrong side (or the proper side, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're from). Russ decided to add more adventure to the trip and get a manual transmission.
It's an O'Connell's store in Dublin, baby! Yeah!
We left the airport, knowing we were near Dublin, but not exactly sure how to get there. We did get a little map from Budget, so we followed it, and soon we were cruising through Dublin. A lot. As there's really no place to park in the entire city, we couldn't seem to find anywhere to stop. So we spent a good couple of hours driving around, looking for landmarks, soaking in the European city life and culture. While Russ had been over there before, this was all new to me. I was loving it, right down to the billboards and street signs. We knew we were pretty close to O'Connell Street when we saw a big banner on the side of a building for Burger King, claiming it was "Your home for the Whopper on O'Connell Street". We finally did find it, and finally found a metered spot to park in. Not having any Euros yet (winging it, remember?), we ran down to an ATM machine and got cash, and got a little change at a shop to use. For some reason it wouldn't take most of Russ's coins, and we could only get an hour of parking. Oh, well. I was a little worried about getting towed, but we'd soon ask someone about it and find out you don't get towed in Dublin...you get your tire booted. I can only assume this is because there's no room for a tow truck on any of these streets.
Russ parking our Fiat in Dublin
Walking down a ways, we spotted a Comfort Inn. Okay, a little touristy for our purposes, but we really just needed a place to crash for the night so we could get up and get out of the city at first light. So Russ ran in and got us a room. After that, we walked a good jaunt down to O'Connell Street. And there I was. The plan since 6th grade. I was standing in front of the Daniel O'Connell statue. Kind of wish I hadn't been up for 24 hours and been less out of it so I could enjoy it more, but I enjoyed it plenty. I got in front of it for Russ to take the picture I'd been waiting so many years for. However, the encyclopedia entry on it didn't mention that there's a couple of benches in front of it that homeless people hang out on. And there was this pissed-off looking bald Irish guy sitting there who was just staring Russ down as Russ tried to take the pic. But, doing his best to keep the bald guy out, Russ took the pic. Mission accomplished.
Me in front of the Daniel O'Connell statue on O'Connell Street in Dublin
We dropped in to the General Post Office next to it (another important historical site, dealing with Mr. O'Connell) and checked out the historical paintings and such. Which was funny, because while the place is half museum, it's still a post office, so people were in line sending packages and getting stamps while we did so. Then we started the walk back to our hotel, and went a ways past it and found a pub..."Mayes" I think was the name. Great. Our first Irish pub. We headed in. Definitely got a feel for really being in Ireland at that point. Being in Dublin, the crowd was a mix of urban professionals (old and young), local workers, and a couple of the expected old guys in the wool hats. The news was on the TV with all the war footage. We got a table and ordered a couple of pints of Guinness. Let me just say right now...it really is better in Ireland. It was totally pure. The head on the glass was solidly foamy and almost silky. It was grand.
So we each drank a couple, and then Russ decided instead of us leaving, he'd run the few blocks back and feed the meter. So I stayed behind. Russ was gone for about an hour. Seems his adventure included trying to parallel park on the wrong side of the road--while drunk, and while trying to figure out the stupid gearshift that made you use a button every time to wanted to go into reverse--then finally making it happen only to realize the non-meter spot he was trying to move into wasn't a spot at all, then driving around searching for a parking garage and finally finding one, then getting lost on the way back and going a number of blocks in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, I was sitting there alone, and really starting to feel the Guinness. I realized I was drinking on an empty stomach while in the middle of major jetlag. I was loopy. So I ordered up some food--a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and some chips. Chips! Yes! I was finally in Europe and referring to fries as chips! Russ finally showed up, exhausted and really feeling the jetlag too. After another pint, we headed back to our hotel. We watched some more war news--on Sky News, the British CNN, I should add--and both realized we needed to sleep. By this time, it was 3 p.m. We went to sleep, and slept until 5 a.m. Both of us woke up briefly around 11:30 p.m., though, and could hear the sounds of Dublin Friday night partying going on outside. We were both too tired to care. But at least we managed to get over the jet lag in one step, and felt the real trip could now begin.
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