The Trip
"#1 on the List"
Russ and Mike, your Irish adventurers
This whole trip started out with a simple thought I had one day. Everyone has (or should have) a list of things, either on paper or in their head, of things they want to do or accomplish before the meter runs out. My list, at that time, was still in my head. And it occurred to me, that day, looking at my life, that nothing on my list was getting done. I was 33 (at the time), and no longer 18 or 20, that age when there still seems endless time to do all the things in your imaginings. Maybe it was my heart incident of the year before reminding me of the illusion of time and immortality. But whatever it was, I decided that it was time to start checking off the list. And why not, I decided, just shoot for #1 on the list?
That, of course, was Ireland.
I'm an O'Connell (as you probably guessed by the domain name) and proud of it, and proud of my Irish heritage. But I've never taken the time to fully explore it. I do remember looking through an encyclopedia in the 6th grade and seeing a photo of the Daniel O'Connell statue on O'Connell Street in Dublin. I decided then that one day, I would have a photo of myself in front of that statue. The seeds for a trip to Ireland were first planted in my head then.
So once I finished doing my life list thinking many years later and decided it was time to make the trip a reality, I happened to mention it to my friend Russ one day as we sat out on the back porch of his house, smoking cigars on a Sunday overlooking the golf course. Without hesitation, he said, "Let's do it." Russ had, not too long before, taken a European trip for 2 weeks, and saw several countries (specifically falling in love with Wales), but he hadn't made it to Ireland. So it was simple as that. We tried to make it a group trip and try to get more of our friends to go, but it's not a cheap trip, and the rest could afford neither the time nor money involved. So, it was to be a two-man trip.
We decided on a general time frame of late March, this right around the time my annual profit-sharing check from work would come through and help with the financing. In the months that followed, we watched airfares closely as they rose and fell, finally getting our tickets in December (which, for me, was a Christmas gift from the folks). I got my first passport of my life the same month. We both arranged the time off work. I did lots of shopping--a new bag big enough to hold a weeks worth of clothes, travel-sized toiletries, some slightly warmer clothing (as I live in San Diego and really don't own any), film, etc.--all with the key thought in mind of traveling as light as possible. My sister mailed me her new digital video camera to use on the trip, as it's smaller and lighter than my own, which again helped a lot with keeping things light (aside from just being a really great camera). And our friend (and my roommate) Aaron volunteered to housesit and dogsit for Russ while we were gone. So all the pieces were in place. It was just a matter of waiting for that date to come, and the journey to begin.
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