And the carousel stopped……. my heart sunk. I looked up to
see my flight number disappear off the overhead screen……my bag hadn’t made it.
I comforted myself by thinking “If you are going to lose your bag, you may as
well lose it in an English speaking country.”
Dublin airport has supplied me with “character building”
travel experiences in the past, this time was no exception. I wondered over to
the Aer Lingus help desk knowing I only had 20minutes before my bus was due to
leave. Even the lady behind the counter was amazed they had lost my bag from
Heathrow to Dublin. There were forms to fill out, Irish accents to decipher,
phone numbers to find……. All the while the clock inside my head was
ticking……loudly!
In a rush I told the lady behind the counter I had to go or
I would be stuck in Dublin and any further info she may need she would have to
call my friend in Ireland, Marie. (Travel lesson 1436, always arrive in a
country with plenty of phone credit, as it also costs to receive calls when
roaming.) Again I was running in an airport……….
I had some rough instructions where to catch to bus and ran
in the general direction. I was over half way when it dawned on me that I had
changed countries and thus currencies……back to the terminal. The clock in side
my head was now deafening.
Unlike last time I had no Euros in Dublin Airport I had a
card that worked, just no time to find an ATM. So I ran straight to the Bureau
de Change at the front door and handed over my £20 note and hoped what I got
back was enough for the bus. As I burst out the terminal doors I was met
something very Irish…... rain.
With just my stop memorised from an SMS on my phone and a
company name I was running in the pissing down rain checking every bus along
the line. There were 30 or 40 coaches at the bus stop and coaches were
departing all the time. I kept thinking to myself “I hope that one wasn’t
mine.” The coaches were all nosed in and sometimes I had to squeeze down in
between them to read the bus company. I should have known to run srtaight to
the end of the line. There was my bus, engine running, just about to pull out.
My 20 quid converted to just enough for the ticket and I took my seat puffing
and dripping wet. As the coach pulled out I thought “At least I still have my
Coolangatta Gold shirt and my good running shoes.”
I had faired OK in England as a drinker… Ireland is another
storey. The Irish CAN drink. It was the usual warm welcome from my Irish
friends at the bus stop….. then straight to the pub. After loosing everything except
the clothes on my back I was well in the mood for a few pints.
The little town that I was visiting, Greig na Manor, is just
outside Kilkenny and now feels like a second home. The crew at my favourite pub
(O’Dricals) have a punishing way of deciding you need a new beer, its about two
sips out of the one in your hand. Before you know it you’re double parked.
After we had settled into a bit of a rhythm I started to meet some new lads.
There was one stand out, he runs by the name “The Boy.” He is roofer, skolled
his first pint of Guinness when he was 11 years old and is a drinking machine.
He had been working on a roof all day and had earned a thirst. We made a good
drinking team. By the end of the night I was glad I wasn’t going to be working
on a roof the next day.
In fact as it turned out, I woke up late to a giant home
cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs, much easier than facing a hot roof……then
back to the pub. I had timed it for the Irish summer racing carnival and those
that couldn’t make it to the course were sitting in O’Driscals drinking pints
of cider placing phone bets over the bar.
Des was my drinking partner for the day. He is Marie’s
partner. I first stayed in Ireland with Marie a few years ago. Back then she
was a friend of a friend who offered me a place to stay in Ireland for a few
days…… 10 days later I returned to England with 5kgs of beer gut that I didn’t
have before. Spoilt rotten.
Des doesn’t mind a punt and new his way around a form guide
bloody well. So that equated to us drinking all afternoon for free on our
winnings. In the evening I challenged my now pretty drunk drinking buddy to a
game of pool. Des was like “Well, you might want to mind yourself, I can play a
good game of pool you know.” I was thinking to myself, “So can I mate.” Before
the game we had a quick discussion of the rules and as expected there were some
differences on how many shots on a fowl ect. After Des’ first turn with the
cue, I was wondering if I should have discussed if they make you do the lap
around the table with your pants down if you don’t sink a ball in Ireland. I
felt like I had a victory because I sunk a ball near the end of the game. I
challenged him to another game and was fairing a little better, then Marie
called and said she was on her way to pick us up. He then hung up the phone and cleaned
up the whole table and said “Well, we best be heading out the front
then”…… demoralising!
Then next day was spent checking out the town of Kilkenny
and chasing the airport about my bag. By this point I had all but accepted that
it was gone. Then I started to ponder was it better to miss the bus and stay
and make sure I had given the lady all the correct details. I had run out of
phone credit on my UK sim card and had no way of recharging it in Ireland. This
was causing panic in that if they did find it, they couldn’t call me anyway. My
only hope was that they would call Marie’s number as an alternative. We tried
to call the lost bag department and got one of those very helpful voice
recognition computers. If the bloody thing said “I’m sorry I didn’t hear that
correctly” one more time……”
It was later that day we did get a recorded message that it
had been located. Now the problem was it would be sent to Grieg na Manor and I
was leaving in the morning. If my bag didn’t arrive that night I would pass it
on the way back to Dublin. My kingdom to speak to a human! Marie did some
quality time on the phone wrestling with the voice recognition computer until
she got a human and it was agreed it would be in my possession that night. Oh
the sweet feeling of clean clothes and seeing something that you thought was
forever gone. Next day it was back on the road to Dublin then back to Paris.
I had my revenge with the airline on the way home. I jagged
a ticket back to Paris on a discount web site for an amazing 1 cent. Take that
you bastards.
