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!!! 

5 weeks and counting...

Rachel got her new passport in the mail last week (yay!) so we can officially leave the country!  I found my electricity current converter and plug adapters so we can use the electricity in Ireland without blowing anything up.  Now, I am on a quest to buy a laptop to take along.  If I don't, I'll be the only one in the hotel room at night without a way to update my blog without begging to use Rachel's or Tiffany's :)

Anyway, I need to start with the packing plan -- I have a coat, but I'm thinking I need new walking shoes (buy early and break in!!!) and pants.  I was thinking of just wearing skirts because they'd be easier, but who knows what the wind will be like?  Hate to pull a "Marilyn Monroe" in the Connemara or something.

I went to Half Price Books last week and bought Ireland For Dummies after about a 2-hour review of nearly every Ireland travel guide book in the place.  It has history and current culture and some good tips...not as many pretty pictures and no fold-out maps...but since I am not planning the itinerary on this trip, I am forgoing the "gotta see this" list and just trying to absorb as much about the country as possible before we leave.  Pronouncing the Irish language is still elusive for me...gotta work on that!

I'm scared of how fast September is going to go.  I just know that tomorrow I'll wake up and look at the calendar and find it's actually October 1st instead of September 1st!!! 

Rick Steves' help

Went to Edmonds yesterday to hear Pat O'Connell (one of the Rick Steves tour guides) do a presentation on Ireland.  He clearly loves his job.  Got some fascinating history on common phrases ("by Hook or by Crook" - 2 towns- was how Cromwell was planning to invade Ireland; "hillbillies" were the Irish immigrants who settled in the Appalachians - they were loyal to King William, or King Billy as they called him), but mostly enjoyed his info and pictures.  I have several pages of notes (no big surprise there!).  We talked to him afterwards, especially about the pubs.  He said there should be no problem with Rachel being allowed to stay in the pubs after 9pm - only a few are very strict with the age requirement and mostly only if the minor is drinking.  He said many have signs suggesting that children under 12 leave by 8pm.  So, it looks like she will get to see & hear the local music as long as she isn't drinking the Guiness.  Yay!

Had a dream last night that it was 2 days before the trip and I still needed to pack.  I must be getting more excited than I thought.

2 months and counting...

Okay, so the trip has been paid off for Rachel & me, we have applied for her new passport (can I just say I love the lady at the Federal Way City Hall who handles passport applications? She rocks!), and are now less than 2 months from getting on the plane and flying across the Atlantic! We are officially committed. I'm starting to get excited!!!

I bought 2 travel journals for us to use -- they have space for notes, pictures, postcards, do-dads. This time I want to make sure I document my trip. I hate that I didn't do it previously (except on my initial trip to France in 1985 - I did keep a journal for the first 4 weeks). I know I've lost a lot of cool tid-bits by not journalling, so this time I'm going to do it right :) Rachel & I are going to go up to Edmonds on 8/14 to Rick Steves' talk on Ireland to see what the "must sees" and "must dos" are. I hope we will have enough free time on the trip to do at least some of the things we'll learn about.

The organizer in me is starting to kick in, too. I want to start making packing lists, make sure I have the current converter and outlet adapter, restock my "emergency kit" that I always carry in my suitcase (most of the meds have expired), and start figuring out what clothes to pack and what I'll need to get.

I've also been spending time online reading the Irish Independent newspaper so that I can get up to speed on current events, culture, and especially language. Even though it's written in English, so many words are either Irish or unfamiliar English terms that I need to have a translation tab open when I read. I'm making progress, though. I at least am recognizing oireachtas as the legislature, dail as the equivalent of the house of representatives, and the seanad as the senate -- I can even pronounce them (I think). I also learned that mna is the Irish word for "woman" -- I'm pretty sure that will be very handy to know :)

Last minute notes

Went to pay for the trip today and the Chamber was closed :*( I called Camille and left her a message so I guess we'll try again tomorrow.

The Chamber has spoken with the tour company and has us rolled into another tour group so we will officially be with people we don't know. Yay for us! Automatically we will get to know other people :)

Did a bit of "research" today by reading some of the Independent newspaper online -- really need to learn some Irish words and pronunciations. Glad I knew the Dail was a representative body in their legislature, but there were definitely other terms I better learn before we go. I didn't see one article or one letter to the editor that I didn't have to translate something in.

Not a problem...I love doing "research!"

Last informational meeting

Went to the last informational meeting 2 weeks ago. We are still the only ones signed up to go on the trip, so the Chamber is working with the tour company to see if they will have to "roll" us into another tour group on the same trip. That would mean we'd have to hang out with people who are from somewhere other than here...oh, how terrible (spoken with much sarcasm!). That would actually be a cool reason to get to know other international travellers :)

Final payment is due this week. Looks like it may just be Rachel, Tiffany, & me. Erica doesn't want to go if Brandon can't go (he hasn't been able to raise the money yet). She's going to call the Chamber tomorrow to see if the "drop-dead date" for payment really is set in stone. If it is, she's not going. I'm kinda bummed because I'd envisioned this trip as another family trip, but she will be 18 in just a few days and I'll have to let her make her own mind up about this. We had a good long talk about it yesterday and it sounds like she's thought it through.

I have the Notarized forms from the girls' dad to get their new passports (won't need Erica's after all, though). Wish I had pushed to get them sooner...passport fees went up last week by about $40! And the Euro is going up again as well...was at $1.29 yesterday. I should have bought some a couple weeks ago when it was at $1.19. Anyway, need to get new passport photos for the girls and make an appointment at City Hall to turn in the applications.

After this week, the hard part is done (paying for the trip). Then comes the fun part...the pre-trip research, packing, checking the camera to make sure it's working properly and has enough disk space, etc. I've been watching movies about Ireland (or at least set in Ireland) and am watching/listening to a documentary on PBS about the genesis of modern Irish music. Now all I need to do is commit to a guide book...there's too many of them! It would be easier if we weren't going on a pre-planned trip but I'd still like to know the options available in the towns we'll be in, just in case we have enough time to do our own thing.

My only real concern is that it will take me the better part of a week to really understand the accent as spoken...and then we'll be leaving! I've got to find other ways to hear the language before I go. I want to be able to pronounce things properly, at least (for instance, just found out on the music documentary that the city Donegal is pronounced "donny-gul" not "don-u-gul" like I'd been pronouncing it). I don't want to sound like an idiot!