When a journey begins badly, it seldom ends well.
Edinburgh, Scotland, 30 December 2022.
Peg is happily splashing about in a hot bath. I'm tired, achy, generally not my best self. Is this the residue of that crud that left Peg asleep for three days straight? Or maybe it's all just a tad too much travel when one hits a certain age.
I feel my IQ diminished along with my energy and general conviviality. So I do a little research and, sure enough, science suggests we leave twenty IQ points on the table by traveling like this. I don't just feel like a dimwit; empirically I am in fact a dimwit.
But we can't blame Delta for all that: in the midst of all the travel chaos in the US, Delta performed like a well-oiled machine with three hops and two forty minute turns between ECP and DUB. I even slept for over three hours crossing the pond, despite a screaming baby and some obnoxious young man who decided the best place to court flight attendants was in the mostly deserted Premium Select section of the plane, where his bellowing baritone occupied my dreams.
Because we cancelled the first day of the trip within 24 hours of our scheduled arrival in Dublin, the room we'd booked for that lost night was still very much ours even if we weren't there to occupy it. This turned out to be a very good thing as the two bedraggled Americans arrived zombielike and wheezing from our flight in the insipid early morning light of Dublin in December, and were allowed to head up to the James Joyce Suite several hours prior to check-in for a couple more hours of deep slumber.
We stirred awake and forced ourselves out into the raw air around three, hoping for a quick foot tour of Dublin.
We trod past the O'Connell statue in the center of his eponymous street.
Daniel the Liberator seems a little less august with a pigeon perched on his head.
Crossing the river, we made our way to Trinity College, where the display of the Book of Kells was . . . closed for the holidays. As was the College's famous library. Dejected, we started wandering toward Christ Church, the cathedral of the Church of Ireland. Surely our Anglican brethren wouldn't let us down.
Along the way we came upon Temple Bar, the famous watering hole beloved by tourists.
Actually, there are several blocks of bars clustered there, each a little more stereotypically Irish than the one beside it, in a space that is cheek-to-jowl with tourists. Been to Nash-Vegas? You've been to Temple Bar. Save your airfare.
Finally we made our way to Christ Church, which was indeed open for tours. We gazed upon the mummified heart of St. Laurence,
and downstairs viewed the mummified cat and mouse who were caught in the church organ over a century ago, then found and placed on display for all eternity down in the crypt.
Our old communion did disappoint us by substituting evensong with a spoken evening prayer. Dejected, we left and on the ticket clerk's suggestion wandered down the hill to the Catholic cathedral, figuring they'd have a more aesthetically engaging offering. But they were closed for the holiday.
At this point P, who's lost her taste for cabernet, began demanding that we find a nice pot of tea somewhere. We wandered through a shopping district packed with bundled Dubliners, offering such time-honored Irish brands as Chico and H&M. Been to Destin Commons? Save the airfare--you already know the drill.
We finally adjourned to a pub where Peg could have her tea and I my wee shot of Irish whiskey, and started to warm up a bit. After a short stop for supper, we ended the evening in the hotel bar, Saints and Scholars. It seemed ironically apt for two folks who'd lost twenty IQ points in the past few hours.
This morning we arose in darkness at 7:30, wind howling outside.
Peg warned me yesterday that her research into how not to annoy the Irish counseled not to mention either leprechauns or the Troubles. So of course in the frigid drizzle we were picked up for our trip to the airport by a taxi driven by a leprechaun who wanted only to talk about the Troubles. Go figure.
Speaking of troubles, have you ever flown on Ryan Air? If not, just picture if you will the worst Space-A military transport experience mashed up with your last trip on a Greyhound bus, crammed into a metal tube with a cross-section of Euro-trash. They made us go outside to board the plane. They were an hour late taking off because the flight manifest was wrong. The seats don't recline. At the end of the flight they load you onto a standing shuttle bus on a freezing Scottish afternoon. Adding insult to injury, taxis were nonexistent due to a strike or maybe just the holiday, so we ended up on a commuter train into town. At least our tubercular hack assured that no one would crowd us in this crush of humanity that is Europe in 2022.
Peg's in her towel now, pretty and inviting and scrolling on her tablet. I smell like Bigfoot's crotch, and will avail myself of the shower while the kids finish their haunted Edinburgh tour in the next half hour or so. It's not so bad, a no kidding adventure, and maybe we'd be a little less whiny if we hadn't embarked a little under the weather. Or at least that's my theory tonight, and it's the best I can do right now without those twenty IQ points.
Selah.
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