Ireland 2017; Day 1ish

Day 1(ish) March 22nd/23rd, 2017:

Do you know what’s awesome about international travel at age 37?

Nothing. It’s expensive and uncomfortable.

I got flagged for an explosives search at the Charleston airport on my way out.  The bag I’m taking is one I got in Afghanistan.  I’ve flown with it with no problem before, but I can’t say for certain there isn’t explosives residue on it.

I should mention here at the start, that I purposely look like a vagabond.  Beat-to-hell boat shoes, cargo pants, a Peruvian poncho, and an Australian-model cowboy hat.  I also haven’t touched up the facial hair in a week.

Of course I got flagged for an explosives check. 

No, officer. I don’t have anything sharp or weapon-like in the bag (as I do the mental check to make sure that I didn’t leave a pair of scissors in my dop-kit). I have a compass in there.

Turns out the machine didn’t like my lonely planet guidebook. Officer says it shows up as excessive “organic material” in the machine.

And I’m off.

What is there to say about a flight from Charleston, SC to New York?  Nothing. It’s uncomfortable. I told you.

I’m 6’2”(ish; probably shrinking after a lifetime of mashing on knee cartilage).  I got put in a window seat. I’m squished.

I get to JFK and discover that the gate I exited is the gate I’ll enter in 7 hours.  I lug my stuff over to a charging station they have set up that includes free iPads to use.  Then I discover that I can have food and beer delivered to me at the charging station.  I get a beer and a burger and with the delivery fee and tip, it costs $34.  For NYC, I consider that a steal. Plus, I didn’t have to move.  Once that’s done with, I have four hours to go.

Eventually, I realize the concession stand next to me isn’t just slinging soft-drinks.  Up starts the tab and by the time I’m fairly well toasted, they’re seating for my flight to Ireland and I’ve just bought 4 large beers for $60 (and then a tip on top of that).  I pour myself into the plane and my window seat. There’s a lovely Irish housewife seated next to me (by which I mean she’s a nice person, not sexy one).

The back-of-the-seat entertainment panel has movies. I turn on Fight Club, wondering how they’ll edit it since movies that have plane crashes in them get replacement scenes shot so that airlines will buy them.  Not Fight Club. I watch Edward Norton fantasize about being ripped from his seat and flung out into the great beyond.

What is there to say about a flight from New York to Shannon, Ireland? Nothing. I’m uncomfortable. I sleep maybe an hour, but I’m awake to watch a deep orange sunrise just before we land.  It’s three in the morning US time and it’s 4 hours ahead in Ireland.

Customs is a joke.

Me (worried): “They didn’t give me a landing card.”

Customs lady: “No worries. We Irish are the modern-day masters of white terrorism. We’d smell you a mile away.”

Okay, she didn’t say that. She just smiles at me, glances at my passport, asks how long I’m here for, and then says “have fun.” 

I’m here for friends’ wedding in Mulranney, just outside of Westport. To get to Westport, I could drive, but hell no.  When I came to Ireland in ’03, driving was so terrifying I said I’d never do it again.  It’s not the wrong side of the road thing; it’s the small back roads that were barely big enough for two cars to pass by each other, let alone the massive tour buses that came roaring along.  And many of those back roads are effectively in ditches, so when you try to get as far over as you can, your side mirror scrapes grass on the slope of the ditch. 

So my plan is buses or trains.  I say “plan”, but there is no plan. I haven’t researched squat.  I don’t believe in it. The stress of planning is more than the stress of trusting that I’ll figure things out. I used to plan. Now I don’t. My method is only effective because I’m traveling solo and can handle if things don’t go well.  

But everything goes well, other than the fact that I’ve been awake twenty hours and sobered back up and I’m exhausted. 

What is there to say about a bus ride from Shannon Airport to Galway? Quite a bit, actually.

A bus that will take me to Galway comes very quickly.  I’m quite pleased with my figuring things out.  The bus has power for charging computers and phones and free wifi. I’m pleased as punch.

Then we head off.

This is when I realize I have made a crucial error.

It was scary when I drove in Ireland 14 years ago.  It’s scarier when the Irish bus driver drives. 

I should have known when I got on board. What the hell kind of bus has seatbelts?

Then it’s all: OMIGOD! HE’S LITERALLY CUTTING CORNERS AND TAKING TURNS 5-10MPH FASTER THAN HE SHOULD! THE BUS IS LEANING!

I’m having to put my hand on a grip whenever we turn to keep from being slung out of my seat.  The driver is disinterested in his mayhem.  He’s wearing sunglasses on an overcast morning and mostly seems annoyed he’s having to drive folks anywhere.  He spends his time fidgeting with his headphones and whatever’s in the bag next to him. What’s happening on the road seems incidental. We swerve all over our lane and the bus’ automated system beeps at him constantly to warn him he’s too close to the edge of the road; he looks up from his bag and jerks the wheel to get us back straight.

The only thing worse than being on this bus is if I happened to be a car in the other lane with this damn thing careening towards me. 

On their version of the interstate, even though there’s an unbroken median wall that’s gone on for miles, I see a sign on the other side of the wall telling drivers they’re on the wrong side of the road.  I can’t decide if that sign is for confused Europeans and Americans or for drunken Irishmen.

I escape the bus in Galway and have a layover for a few hours. I try to sleep and do, in fits and starts, but it’s not great, sleeping whilst sitting.  It’s cold; under forty degrees. A pigeon has found his way into the waiting room and has placed him/herself next to the radiator. 

I don’t try to shoo him/her out.  Eventually, a very annoyed employee comes in and does it for me.

What is there to say about a bus ride from Galway to Westport? Nothing, thankfully.

I arrive and my plan has been that wifi is everywhere so I’ll just use my phone or computer when needed. I use the tablet at the local corner store to call the B&B owners (Google Voice is massively useful. Cost me $0.02/minute.).  The husband arrives and gets me all set up. 

I facebook chat my friends who are elsewhere in Ireland to figure out when they’re coming in town and get their advice that I should, as I feared, power through and not take a nap.  The B&B husband (no idea his name since he never introduced himself even when I introduced myself) tells me which pub to head to so off I go.

What is there to say about an Irish pub? It’s lovely. Quaint. Perfect, really. Matt Molloy’s pub. 

I drink beer. My plan is to write. I’m hoping I can make serious headway on a novel while I’m traveling. It’s to be a nasty, mean-spirited thing. I have Thus Spake Zarathustra with me.  

I’m reading the introduction and sipping a Guinness when an Irishman walks by me with a book in his wool-coat pocket.

I ask him about the book and it turns out he’s not Irish at all. He’s a twenty-five-year-old from Buffalo who is pleased as punch that I mistook him for a native.  He’s a self-admitted lazy drunk on vacation with his family. I tell him that’s not so bad.  We chat. It turns out, while he’s impressively astute with his self-analysis, he’s not very bright. I fear most of my words are large and scare him.  Still, he seems to enjoy being confused and it’s warm in here and there’s beer after all, so why not keep chatting?

Eventually, he wanders off to find his family, and then, an hour later, his sisters and mother and brother-in-law arrive and shake their heads when I say he’d been in here for hours and went to look for them. The mom says he’s pretty much a lazy drunk but that he usually can fend for himself, so, oh well, she hopes they find him before they leave tomorrow. I confuse the family for a bit and then I’ve had my fun and I’m exhausted and I’m ready to go to bed. It’s still daylight, but barely.

But instead of walking straight back, I’m in Ireland, dammit. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk down a street full of pubs and only go into the one I was recommended to. So I wander in one and there’s a poor bartender who’s an Irishman who’s just returned from 25 years in NYC and can’t handle the lack of stimulus. Westport is too small. He moved back because his wife wanted the kids to have an Irish childhood. He’s miserable yet resigned.

If I wanted to think about being miserable and resigned, I’d ponder my own life. No one tells you, but your thirties are a bridge between the no-responsibility of your twenties and the eventual success and financial stability (hopefully) of your forties. In between is a blech time of having to put your nose to the grindstone and crank it out and pay off debt.  Sorry, kids. That’s just how it is. Unless you inherit early, of course.

So I wander to a different pub and have a fun time insulting American beer with an older bartender.  So far, every pub has had Budweiser on tap. Two of the three have had Coors Light. Must we Americans infect everything?

By the time I get back to the B&B it’s 9pm and I’ve only had a couple hours of sporadic sitting-up sleep and I’m into my cups and I’m warm and sleep, blessed sleep.