timmyjimi

I expected some extra weight, even though I gave away or threw away most of my belongings between the time I packed up my apartment and arrived at the airport on Saturday.  After sending a ten kilo package in the mail, I was left with two pieces of luggage to check weighing roughly twelve kilos a piece, plus a ten kilo carry-on – not much, considering that’s all I had left to my name after two seasons in Norway.  Unfortunately, Ryanair limits me to checking a total of fifteen kilos and conveniently omits an overweight charge on their website.  I had to cross my fingers, and in the end, I had to pay just over two hundred dollars for nine extra kilos.  As the sympathetic lady at the ticket counter explained, Ryanair is great for traveling with a gym bag, but not necessarily for moving to a different country.  I suppose that makes my trip on the “Low Fares” airline no different from the price I would have paid elsewhere.  Fortunately, I was able to charge the additional fee and bid a final farewell to Tina.

At last, I was on my way.  I cleared security, got my passport stamped, and waited to board my flight to Dublin.  Once in the air, I tried to distract myself from the looming uncertainty of where or how I would survive my first night in Ireland, so I turned my mind to deciphering diagrams:

It was an uplifting flight (pun intended), and my first sight of Ireland was incredible.  After deplaning, I quickly collected my luggage and tried to piece together a game plan.  This process was complicated considerably by the fact that I had still not received the paycheck I was expecting no later than the previous Wednesday.  This was a critical piece to the puzzle I had put together when booking my flight, and the puzzle was falling apart.  I confirmed with my boss’s wife that the payment had finally been sent late on Friday, but with the weekend it might be Monday before it was transferred to my account.  I tried my Norwegian ATM card anyway, and the first thing I read in Dublin was, “Insufficient Funds”.  The second thing I read – “Insufficient funds (sucks for you)” – came when I tried my American card.  While I tried to solve the dilemma, I must have paced back and forth across baggage claim a dozen times collecting maps, a list of hostels, bus information and – yes! – an epiphany: maybe I could get cash out on my credit card at the currency exchange window.  For a hefty fee, I was able to withdraw enough to get me into town, book a place to stay and buy dinner for the night.  Now I just had to figure out how.  I jumped on the bus I thought would take me to the city center, and when I got off a half hour later on O’Connell Street, it was like Lillehammer all over again.  Judging from my map and list of hostels, the nearest one was just around the corner, so I strapped on my backpack and duffel bag and, with suitcase in hand, made way for the Marlborough Hostel.  They had room, and I had a bed for the night.  After settling in, I went off a tip from Melanie and located the Hard Rock Cafe in the Temple Bar pedestrian district.  After an exciting day of traveling and a ten minute walk, I caught my breath over a pint of Guinness, a French Dip sandwich and the music video from the hometown heroes’ latest single, “Get Your Boots On,” though at that point I would have been quite content to kick them off.

I spent the rest of the evening hanging out with fellow travelers at the hostel, and used most of Sunday resting up and waiting for Money Monday to roll around.  When I checked my account early this morning, the news was good, and I hopped on a bus that would take me out of the city to Glendalough and the Wicklow Mountains (an area popular for the filming of movies like Braveheart).  It was a worthwhile trip through the countryside, and the weather was ideal.  I could go on about the things I saw, or perhaps you would just like to see them for yourself? Suffice it to say, everything here is green, and there is a pub on every corner.

I have been hoping that I would be able to make it to the west coast and the Cliffs of Moher.  There is a train I could catch tomorrow, but it would be an expensive trip and a long day ahead of an even longer day of traveling on Wednesday.  So I will likely spend my last day in Ireland exploring beyond the few blocks of Dublin I have seen so far, hopefully finding a laundromat and one or two spots off the beaten path between the bigger attractions.