Traveling to Ireland

*The Times listed below are in the following format [Home/Ireland].

[4:45pm/9:45pm] We arrived at the airport and got in line to check my bags. I’ve been stressing out like crazy this morning thinking that the two bags that I was going to be checking in were going to weigh a few pounds over the allowed baggage weight on my flight. Come to find out, I get in line to check the bags, and the Aer Lingus Representative just threw my bags on the conveyor belt and didn’t even think to check the weight on them. I couldn’t believe it, because I had taken out about half of the clothes that I had originally packed to try to make the weight requirement. ARGHH!

[5:00pm/10:00pm] After checking my bags we headed over to the cafe right before the security check. We had some pizza and a couple beers and it seemed within about 45 minutes it was over and it was time to get in line to go through security.

[5:45pm/10:45pm] I stood in a line at the security checkpoint that once was occupied by 10 or 12 people while we were eating dinner, but it was now pretty much filled back to the front doors of the airport. The line went real quick though, so that worked out. I ended up using like 5 plastic bins for all of my stuff. Plus, when you’re traveling with two laptops, each one has to be out of its case and in its own bin. Everything rolled through and I was good. I sat down in front of Sbarro Pizza to take a photo of my plane on the tarmac and took out my laptop to see if I could pick up a wireless signal in the airport and I did! Although it was LoganWifi and they wanted to charge $8 for 24 hours. Yeah… OKAY.

[6:30pm/11:30pm] Everyone began boarding the plane at this point. Since I bought my plane ticket back in September I got to choose my seat 7 months ago. I ended up choosing seat 13H which is an aisle seat located right next to the exit. Sweet!

[7:00pm/12:00am] We’re about to take off now and I have to admit everything about the location of my seat is great, except there’s just one small problem. There’s a couple next to me with a baby that is randomly screaming and crying every 5 minutes or so. Funny enough, I joked about this situation happening with my parents before I got on the plane saying that I would freak if there was a baby in a 10 row radius of me. Well, it looks like I jinxed myself.

[8:05pm/1:05am] Yawn! Well, I must have fell asleep just after the plane left the ground. I woke up after my head was bobbing all over the place. Don’t you hate when that happens? I felt like the biggest idiot, my head was swinging into the aisle, then I’d catch myself and then my head nearly broke the poor womans jaw next to me. Yeah, I should probably wake up now.

[8:21pm/1:21am] The pilot just came on saying we’re cruising at 37,000 ft. As soon as the pilot came on and said that I immediately thought of my buddy Eddie and I shuffled over to the song on my iPod: “Nickelback – Rockstar” Haha!

[8:45pm/1:45am] The stewardess is rolling this smelly cart down the aisle. Oh wait, it’s full of yummy airplane food. She says: “Beef or Chicken”? My reply is did you say barf? Oh, Beef! Um, how about a big tray of neither! Thanks.

[8:47pm/1:47am] Of course the woman next to me had to choose barf, I mean beef.. Okay, I think I’m getting sick…

[9:00pm/2:05am] The woman next to me is now trying to read what I’m writing here so I had to change my font from size 12 to 8.5. Haha. Imagine she saw me talking about how bad her BEEF smells? I’m sitting here laughing to myself while I’m writing this… Okay she’s still trying to creep, I think it’s time to shut the laptop off for a bit.

[10:05pm/3:05am] Okay so the woman next to me finally stopped creeping and decided to take a nap. The cute little rodent two seats away from me took a really long 10 minute nap and is now screaming its head off. My iPod is on the maximum volume, nearly blowing out both of my eardrums. You know what, believe it or not blowing out my eardrums actually wouldn’t be such a bad thing right now..

[10:10pm/3:10am] The Aer Lingus Shopping cart just went by, so I picked up a few things for my grandmother, and my cousin Michelle. For my grandmother, I got a carton of Silk Cut Blue cigarettes. I will admit that I absolutely hate buying my grandmother cigarettes and the only reason I do is because my mother talked me into it before I left. Nothing that I haven’t heard before: “That’s what she likes, Ryan”. “You’re actually saving her money because she’s going to go out and buy them anyways.”. Okay Mom you’ve persuaded me. For my cousin Michelle, I picked up a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka, the perfect gift for a nearly 24 year old Irish woman. Actually the perfect gift for any Irish citizen is a bottle of some sort of alcohol. As my mother says: “You’re saving them money, because they’re going to buy it anyways”. She couldn’t be more right about that one.

[10:18pm/3:18am] Well, it’s about 3:18AM Irish time. Ireland (GMT) is 5 hours ahead of Boston (EST) and all I know is that my flight is scheduled to land around 6:00AM. That only means one thing, only a few hours left! I have a major head cold, I’m congested ss all hell, and I just can’t wait to get the heck off of this plane. Time to attempt a nap…

[12:25am/5:25am] Wow, it’s now 5:25am Irish time and I just woke up from another “airplane nap”. My neck is killing me from these inverted seats, and my feet feel swollen even with my shoes off. Hope my feet dont’ smell! I look to my right, and I see the moon lighting up the pure darkness. To my left across the plane I see one of the coolest sunrises that I’ve ever seen in my life. Black, Maroon, Red, Brown, Orange Peach, and Yellow fade upwards into blue.

[12:35am/5:35am] I tried taking a photo out of my window and then another across the plane to the far window with the sunrise. Here’s my attempts below. I stopped trying after the people to the left of me probably thought I was weird because I was pointing my camera across the plane. It’s great think that I’ll be landing in just about a half hour or so. The weird thing is that we haven’t made much of a descent at all yet, so It’s hard to believe this flight is going to land anytime soon. I’m absolutely beat, hopefully I’ll be able to take a small nap when I get to my cousins apartment but even that is still another hour and 15 minute bus ride away just to get from Shannon to Galway after I get off this 6 hour plane ride. Yuck! We’ll, I should probably stop complaining and start getting excited right about now. I’ll be in Ireland in less than an hour!

[1:25am/6:25am] Finally landed in Shannon. I was literally the third person to step off of the plane. I ran down to immigration handed over my Irish Passport and walked right through. The City Link bus that brings you from the airport to Galway was scheduled to leave at 7:15, so I knew I had to get my luggage fast. And what do you know, my luggage had to be one of the last to come off of the plane.

[2:15am/7:15am] I jumped on the City Link bus and the ride to Galway that was supposed to take 1hr 15 mins, ended up taking 1hr 45 mins.

[4:00am/9:00am] My cousin Michelle picked me up in Galway and drove me back to her place. She had a nice little room set up for me and everything.

Now I’m finishing up this post and heading down the street to grab something to eat. I’ll probably end up coming back here and attempting to take a nap. I’m so overtired…