Europe 2013: Finally Off

August 7, 2013

I've been planning this trip since approximately February of this year. I got the idea as I pondered what I might want to do for my 15 year sabbatical, and I hit fifteen years on February 9th. In that time, I did a ton of research on importing motorcycles, renting motorcycles, buying motorcycles, cell phones, credit cards, motorcycle insurance, European pre-paid phone plans, motorcycle toolkits, etc. You get the idea. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it.

Once I finished figuring out all that stuff, I made lists of what I wanted to bring, ruthlessly cut them down, rejiggered, re-planned, etc. I tried to imagine every likely situation, and decide how I could be prepared for it. That is, once I'd finished planning, I started planning some more. I've spent six months preparing for this trip.

Thus, it was with some surprise and also no surprise at all that I discovered that my final days before I left were calm, organized, and almost entirely devoid of panic or freaking out. Seattle delivered a couple of really lovely days to see me off, and I'd cleverly taken the Monday and Tuesday off before I got onto a plane at 6:00 on Wednesday morning. (Not very enjoyable: climbing into a cab at 3:30 in the morning.)

But indeed, my time was well-organized on Monday, as I ticked items off the list: set up lamp timers; write emails; do final image processing work for the theater; buy those last few things I forgot (in my case: luggage tags). I was even able to have dinner with a friend that evening, which I hadn't expected to be able to do. Tuesday was much the same, although with the difference that I'd scheduled myself an 8 pm bedtime (I managed to get in bed by 10:30, which was about right given that it was still light out at 8).

In fact, the only panic I really experienced was this morning, when I woke up with the alarm at 3, and realized that I really hadn't left myself enough time to do all the stuff I needed to do. Thus I was frantically unloading the dishwasher at 3:32, with the taxi idling outside, racking up 50 cents a minute. I figured it was money well spent vs. coming home to find a bunch of dishes in the dishwasher, covered in fuzzy mildew.

But I got myself underway, and we were rolling by 3:35. My taxi driver was a man who, from my vantage point in the back seat, looked exactly like the old guy in Up! with the big square glasses and dishevelled hair and everything. The roads were basically deserted, and the sky surprisingly cloudless as we whizzed along I-5 toward the airport. The check-in line was, conversely, surprisingly full for all that it was 4:15 am. Likewise, the security line was ridiculously long, and at one point when I was halfway through it, I looked back to see that it was even longer than when I'd gotten there. I had no idea so many people travelled so early in the morning (to my mind, 3:30 is bedtime, not a time to wake up). I always opt for the pat-down, as much to send a message to the TSA as anything else, and my "male assist" was a guy with a good sense of humor: when I agreed that I'd heard his speech before, he ran through it so fast it wasn't really words, but I did pick out that he wouldn't be buying me dinner.

Then it was wait, wait, wait, as expected, then shuffle onto the plane (where I had surprisingly scored an exit row seat, although it was between a fairly massive gent and a normal-sized gent, so that I was living in a constant state of someone's elbow getting into someone else's ribs. It was honestly quite comical to look at the bigger guy, and compare his breadth to that of the seatback I would soon be caressing with my own wider-than-normal back. I think it's amusing that the seats keep getting smaller, and the people keep getting bigger. It's not a trend that's going to end well.

The flight was utterly uneventful, and now I'm waiting at O'Hare for my 8 pm flight out to Dublin. An eight hour layover seems extreme, but my plan worked: I'm meeting a friend for lunch in Chicago, so my choice of the 8 hour vs. 3 hour layover is vindicated. It's not like I get out to Chicago all that often, anyway. This will definitely be the trip of visiting friends I never get to see due to distance.

The enormity of my trip is only now slowly sinking in, as I review my pictures so far, including a picture of my bed covered in stuff (attached, I hope). I'm not going to see that bed again for six weeks. Six weeks of treading new ground, seeing new things, meeting new people -- to someone who has a fairly set routine, this is both awe-inspiring and more than a bit daunting. I really do wonder what kind of changes will be wrought within me as a result of this little adventure. For one thing, I hope my voice doesn't sound like an unhappy frog by the time I get back (seriously, call my phone, and listen to the hilarious message -- who let that guy in here?). If it's anything like previous adventures, I won't really know what I've learned until after I've been back for a while.

Travelling always expands my horizons in odd ways: it's very easy to let my consciousness shrink down to just that distance I'm willing to pedal my bike, and yet here I am in Chicago, writing to a group of people who are mostly two thousand miles away in Seattle (hi!). I'm destined to travel another 2-3,000 miles before the plane trip is over, and then if I take the shortest, most direct route to connect all my points in Europe, I'll have travelled another 7,000 miles by motorcycle. It's almost incomprehensible to compare that to "Whew, 20 miles! That was a long day!" on the bicycle.

...Later, on the plane to Dublin

The Aer Lingus flight I'm on has screens in every headrest, with a selection of off-brand games, second-run movies, and out of date sitcoms. I tried playing the Hangman game, but after a few hilariously goggle-eyed hangings (parts of a cartoon cowboy appearing like some kind of Frankensteinian creation process, until the cowboy is whole, bugs his eyes out at you, and croaks on the noose), I realized my brain is probably too tired for word games right now. By the clock on my tablet (which is still set to Seattle time) it's 11:15 at night, so I've been kind of mostly awake for about 21 hours at this point. I should be sleeping now, but here we are, instead.

The headrest screen also shows flight data, and so I can say with some certainty that my flight from Chicago to Dublin will in fact be around 3600 miles, and six hours and forty five minutes.

I'm sitting next to a nice couple from Ireland, who have already provided me with useful advice: don't bother with the train to Cork, take the bus instead -- it runs straight from the Dublin airport (vs. having to take a bus to downtown Dublin, followed by another bus to the train station), which I will definitely appreciate, with nearly 100 lbs of baggage in tow (and none of it on wheels). Apparently it's also cheaper. Done. They also tell me that the pleasant way to get to Dublin is to circle around to the west and north, rather than taking the motorway. I certainly believe them, and the only question is whether I can stand riding with the loud exhaust pipe currently on the bike. Only time will tell.

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Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.