Dublin, Ireland (Part 1): Avoiding Catastrophe with the Luck o' the Irish

Exhausting many of the major sites in Southern England, Bill and I thought that it was time to hop off the island and visit another area of Europe. Booking cheap flight tickets well in advance, we were ready for a quick weekend trip to Dublin, Ireland... or at least, that's what we had thought.

Before I get too far into my Irish story, let me explain one small yet important difference between western Europe and the United States. On second thought, I can sum this explanation into two words: military time. Rather than in the U.S. where morning is denoted by "a.m." and afternoon by "p.m.", official schedules in Europe use military time to avoid confusion between before noon and after noon. Consciously aware of this fact, I'm finally starting to adjust to converting p.m. time to hours higher than 12. (For example, 8 p.m. in the U.S. is posted as 20:00 in England.) Unfortunately, my big mistake of the weekend was not making sure that Bill was thinking in military time when he booked our flight tickets. The original plan was to depart via airplane from London Luton Airport at 6:25 p.m. on Friday evening in order to arrive in Dublin around 7:30 p.m. -- just in time to check into our hostel, find a pub, and relax before a busy day of touring the city. The major glitch in the plan was that any flight leaving at 6:25 is taking off from the ground at 6:25 in the morning. Dialing a frantic phone call to Bill, I knew that we were in quite a pickle.

"What are we going to do now?!" he asked.

Making a split-second decision, I replied in a way that he never expected, "I don't know about you, but I'm hopping a train at midnight to catch that plane!"

And that is how I learned the meaning of "backpacking across Europe"...

Throwing only the bare essentials into my book bag, I headed to the Guildford train station to hop on a train to London Luton Airport. Unfortunately, Bill couldn't come with me on my Thursday night adventure since he had a physiology exam on Friday afternoon. Because I only have one class on Friday mornings, I didn't feel too guilty about missing Pharmacology for the first time this semester. Booking a flight for Friday evening, Bill decided to swallow the expensive flight price and would meet me in Dublin around 8 o'clock as our original plans intended. Getting over the initial shock of flying to Dublin on my own at a very early hour, I actually began to feel excitement at the chance to have an extra day in Ireland despite traveling across England in the dead of night.

The trip to Dublin was adventurous to say the least and should probably be experienced by every hardened European traveler at least once in a lifetime. Despite its misleading name, London Luton Airport is actually quite far from London -- nearly 90 minutes by train from the heart of the city, which explains why I couldn't take a direct train from Guildford to Luton Airport. My first leg of the journey started at the Guildford as I hopped on a train to London Gatwick at midnight. Though far past my bedtime, my adrenaline was pumping so fast that dozing on the train was not even a remote possibility. Luckily, I had enough foresight to bring a folder of class notes to study for a Micronutrients exam on Monday. Having the most productive study hour that I've experienced all semester, I soon found myself waiting at London Gatwick Airport for my next train to depart at 2:30 a.m. After buying my second train ticket, I picked a rather hard bench and set myself up for a short airport snooze. Thinking back, I probably looked like a homeless bum with my backpack under my head as I tried to catch a few moments of sleep before hopping on my next train. Not caring much about my disheveled appearance, I did manage to catch a half hour of rest before the bench grew too hard for comfortable sleeping. Feeling slightly refreshed, I pulled out my study notes again and studied a bit of coursework to keep myself awake. Pulling out of Gatwick airport in the wee hours of the morning, I nestled myself into a train seat for a much-needed hour nap on my journey to the Luton Airport. Though I had set an alarm on my cell phone, I woke up a few minutes early to the tapping of a kind man sitting behind me.

"I'm sorry to wake you, miss," he began, "but I wanted to make sure that you didn't miss your stop."

Smiling at his genuine concern, I replied, "No, I'm heading to Luton Airport, which is still a half hour away."

Breathing a sigh of relief, he offered, "Since my stop is after the airport, I will wake you if you fall asleep again."

Thanking him kindly, I felt touched by his concern, which once again showed the kindness of the British towards foreign travelers. Wide awake now, I knew that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep before reaching the airport, but I thanked the man again as I left the train to catch my flight.

Arriving at London Luton Airport at 4 o'clock in the morning, I had plenty of time to catch my 6:25 a.m. flight to Dublin. After checking in and pocketing my boarding pass, I stopped at the airport waiting area to study a little before boarding my flight. Interestingly enough, I found myself "people watching" rather than studying vitamins and minerals. Next to the waiting area was a very crowded airport bar where travelers were buying their last drinks before leaving the country. "This could be interesting," I thought to myself. "I wonder if a drunken airplane is any different from a drunk bus back home in Cincinnati." (For those of you outside the Cincy area, "drunk bus" refers to the campus shuttle that runs to and from major Cincinnati bar areas on the weekends. A great alternative to designated drivers, the buses are always raucous, rowdy, and filled with intoxicated students.) Unfortunately, my thoughts were answered as I took my window seat on the airplane.

Completely exhausted by this point, I picked the nearest window seat on the plane, shoved my book bag into the overhead bin, and fell asleep instantly with my head nestled between my seat and the cabin wall. Hardly asleep for five minutes, I felt myself being prodded awake by a clumsy passenger sliding into the seat next to me. Reeking of beer, he plopped into his seat and tried to start up a drunken conversation. Growing short on patience after a relatively sleepless night, I pretended to be asleep while he carried on a rather dynamic conversation with himself. Aided by booze, he eventually passed out. Breathing a sigh of relief, my last memory was catching a glimpse of the British sunrise before giving into my first hour of restful sleep on one very fanatic trip to Ireland.

(To be continued...)