Last-minute details & shopping

Went shopping with Tiffany - got a laptop (planned - using it right now!) and new suitcase & camera (not planned but both were good deals & will make the trip more enjoyable!).   The most fun unplanned purchases were hats!  Lovely, 1930's era hats! We wore them out on Friday and got tons of compliments :)

Now all we have left are the details...wardrobe to take, banks to call so they don't cancel our cards, prescriptions to get hard-copies of, etc.  Tiffany is loaning me an iPod & is loading my CDs onto it this weekend so I will have music for the plane.

I can't believe how close we are to leaving.  I knew this last month was going to fly but I'm still surprised at how quickly it's gone and how much I still feel I have to do until we leave.  Rachel seems pretty calm (she says she's excited & I believe her - she just doesn't seem as frantic as I feel - lucky her!).  I saw a plane fly overhead this week and thought, "In two weeks, I'll be up there!"  Yikes!

The hardest part of all of this has been trying to coordinate my personal life and work life & actually get things done.  There has been soooooo much to do on both fronts - it's been a struggle; I hope I have managed to do a respectable job on both.

This week I plan to pick out my travel wardrobe, wear it to make sure I'll be comfortable and will be able to mix-n-match the maximum number of outfits with a minimum number of items.  Next week, I'll wash & pack them all so I am not up until midnight the last night doing laundry and wondering if I remembered to pack enough socks.  I must be mellowing with age, though...I have heard myself say (more than once), "If I forget something, I'm sure I can find it there."  I guess I am finally learning to loosen up a bit :)

Tiff & I had a discussion yesterday about our philosophy on this trip.  I am greatly interested in having a rudimentary grasp on Irish history before I go.  I'd like to be able to put what we see into context and I want to be able to strike up and carry on conversations with the Irish we meet on something more substantive that the weather or who has the more interesting accent.  That's why I am reading "Irish History for Dummies" - I'm up to the 1650s and it has been enlightening, such as the fact that Ulster - N. Ireland - was historically anti-England (and regularly kicked the English's butt in battle) until the end of the Elizabethan age when they started to support the Crown.  I want to see the areas in Dublin that were key in the civil war in the 1910s-20s.  Tiffany is trying NOT to do much research prior because she has a very strong internal idea/feeling about Ireland already and wants to be surprised by what she finds.  I want to be surprised, too, but I really want context.  It was an interesting conversation.

Travel documents have arrived!!!

Just received our travel documents via email today!  We are not travelling to Dublin through London via British Air  -- we are flying US Airways through Philadelphia.  Our flight is actually leaving at 11:15am rather than 6:30pm, but that means we land in Dublin at 8:50am and have the entire 1st day to do what we want!  Now I am glad I bought the Dublin travel guide -- I have a list of places there that I'd like to see and it looks like I'll get a chance to do just that!

We don't have seat assignments yet.  I had asked Camille at the Chamber to request window seats for us (sequential if possible) & emailed her again today to see if they can accommodate the request.  I hope so.  The other part of the itinerary that we'll need to plan for appropriately is that on the US legs of our journey, we will have to pay if we want to eat on the plane :(  At least the transatlantic portion has meals & snacks.

Tiffany & I are getting together in the next week or so to do our last-minute pre-trip shopping.  I'm getting sooooo excited!!!