Planes, Trains and Orthotics: A Middle-Age Woman's Guide to Travel

 My sister and I left Ireland’s west coast for a nearly three hour drive to Ireland’s capitol, Dublin.  After six days of horrific Irish weather, the sun finally came out today and decided to stay directly in our path as we drove east. Suffice it to say, there was a lot of squinting and leaning forward during the drive.  As it was already early afternoon when we arrived in Dublin and both my sister and I have been on nearly every walking tour and visited nearly every museum in the city, my sister thought that our only choice that afternoon was to shop. I would have preferred the walking tour of “St. Patrick’s Dublin” for a second time.  It has to be said from the beginning that my sister, at age 59, is a size 6. At 62 and two sizes larger, the way in which I embrace shopping is very different than her.  I try to avoid clothes shopping unless absolutely necessary, while my sister takes it on as a professional…and I have a closet full of her purchases for me to pr...

The other day my sister said to me that Ireland was a country of talkers and writers.  So far on this trip, we’ve only run into the talkers.  My sister and I, both “IBM,” or “Irish by Marriage”, also like to talk, but as Americans, when compared to the Irish, we are the “JV” of chatting people up.  Although, it appears that my sister becomes a bit of the Irish gift of gab as soon as the plane lands.  I was listening to her talking to “her man” or in this case, “her girl,” at Eircom and she was giving her a detailed description of why we were in Ireland, and that the house was her husband’s family home for generations and why we needed the internet to be working. After the call, I asked her why she went into such detail with the woman, and she said that she wanted to make sure that she knew that the family had a strong connection to Ireland and was not just visiting for a week and so maybe they would fix the problem faster. It’s Day 5 and we still have not had continu...

 It’s been several days since I wrote a blog—and it’s not been because there wasn’t a tale or two to tell. The problem has been the internet, or lack thereof.  In defense to Eircom, or the Irish version of Verizon, my sister’s family house is very rural.  I would say it’s in the middle of nowhere but that would be unfair to the beautiful sea views just a few miles away. The problem has been, as my sister has pointed out several hundred times since arriving on Friday, that she has been paying 92 Euros each month for high-speed internet that never seems to work. My sister’s Irish friend immediately told her, “You have to call “your man.”  Over the years, I have learned some “Irish -speak,” and now recognize that “your man” means any person you need to fix something. In this case, my sister needed to call Eircom. She spoke to a lovely woman immediately after arriving early Friday afternoon, (God forbid there is a period of time when we can’t text) who said that someone ...

 We arrived late this morning at my brother-in-law’s family home on the west coast of Ireland. I’ve been fortunate enough to come to both this cozy home (we have a peet fire burning already!) and this country multiple times and the loveliness of both always astounds me.  But the trip to get here was fraught with problems including too little airplane room, encountering 20-something space hogs, a near concussion suffered by my sister when she practically hit her head putting her carry-on in the overhead and the significant need for more Motrin than usual. My first lesson of this trip is that I am not sure that my body can handle traveling in “coach” for too much longer, particularly when the trips are long.  I am not a prima donna, but between the ever-shrinking seats that require some creative limb contortions for finding a comfortable position and those fellow passengers who seem to have convinced themselves that their coach seats can and will recline just like those in ...

 It’s been a long year.  My last group of blogs focusing on my first post-COVID business trip to San Diego, ended rather abruptly because my dad passed away while I was gone. It was not sudden, he had been sick for a very long time, but losing someone you love is always painful, regardless of the person or the circumstance.  However, my dad’s death, God love him, was living proof that even in death, there can be humor.   During the second day of my San Diego trip, my dad took a turn for the worst, and on the morning of the third day, I decided to change my flight and come home early. I was already on the fully-booked plane, waiting on the tarmac to take off, when my sister, on her way to our parents’ home in New Jersey, called me from Route 81 South, somewhere outside of Scranton, PA, to tell me that my dad has just passed away.   Even though I knew that the end was soon, I began to cry.  The poor flight attendant immediately offered me several types of alc...