Here's July 15th:

Wake up call 7:30am, a.k.a.: same thing in military time….Khan says goodbye surprisingly, somewhat emotionally, and takes back our apartment key asking that we wake Cherry to lock the door behind us when we go. The racket of taking our bags one by one 8 times out the front door two feet from her bedroom door accomplished the wake up part for us. Yesterday afternoon, I called and scheduled a taxi to pick Matt and I up here at our apartment along with our (hind-sight’s 20/20) excessive baggage. 8:00 am: taxi arrives. Yet again, we almost give a taxi-man a heart attack just with the sight of our mismatched luggage strewn across the front step pavement patiently waiting to see how in the tiny island of Ireland he planned to fit them all into the 5-seater he showed up in. When I scheduled the pick-up, I very very specifically requested a van style taxi, knowing what my bags look like. I told the girl I talked to that two adults were traveling to the airport with 8, count ‘em, 8 bags of good proportions. She called back to confirm and managed to get every last detail right, just didn’t manage to translate it all to the driver. Why don’t they ever believe me? After a stretch of inventive luggage/people positioning contributed to by all of us, we were off to the airport; to drive our last stretch of Dublin road, to pass and leave behind our newly routine haunts to dim slowly in the ever growing and changing memory of our lives. How hack was that line? Matt wants me to try and fit the words “heaving”, “ample”, and “bosom” in there somewhere….

Cherry waved a sleep headed goodbye, as though she thought we would be back in a few days again, just off on another Irish tour. She offered to wake up the baby so we could say goodbye, but we declined, knowing sadly that he won’t remember the two American’s that spent months living in his house, eating at his breakfast table, entertaining him on demand, by the time next week roles around. At least I will get to see my own nephews soon…

It might have been the first day in Ireland that I didn’t snap a single photo, that I purposely packed the camera rather inaccessibly away. I don’t know why exactly, I guess I thought the camera wasn’t going to accurately reproduce the feelings of anxiety to get back to our empty-nest home colliding with sadness at leaving what was to be home on any print. We would probably just look irritably tired, so why bother? The flight time scheduled us for a grueling 24 hours of travel, switching airlines thrice (British Airways caravanning for Virgin Airlines, transferring rather uncouthly to America West, who I have vowed never to travel with again…by the way), stopping over in 3 cities (London, New York, and Las Vegas) before landing in San Francisco in the wee hours of the AM.

The first leg of the flight was smooth and seemed to bode well for the rest of our journey. The Unfortunately, it all went down hill from there. On the Virgin Airlines leg, we were assigned separate seats on a flight overbooked by 100 people. The people we flanked looked at us with uncaring stares stating that they had requested the aisle even though they were traveling together. The couple on the opposite side of me were obviously on their honeymoon and therefore sacrosanct, and the guy on Matt’s other side feel asleep before we had even boarded.
By the time we reached New York, we were dead tired, neither of us being able to sleep on the plane, and had to face the daunting prospect of moving our bags sans hand carts from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal via a bus. The bus driver we had was very kind in a new York “I’m making fun of you but its because I like you kind of way“; we only damaged one bag, and only stepped on one set of other peoples feet while swinging baggage around in an attempt at haste. Having reached America West we were further crushed by the fact that they unbendingly refuse the two carry on items standard on every flight I’ve ever been on, making us check in more delicate bags, and charging us $75.00 per, no matter what the weight. If I’d had an extra manila folder and couldn’t fit it in another bag, they would have tried to charge me $75 big ones for it. Then we both got picked for the random security check (where they make you take off your shoes, empty out your carry-on bags and try to joke with you about confiscating your good stuff, like candy, snacks, or anything else they find interesting. My stab at placing literature from my emptied meeting bag failed.) that made our flight later than the 15 minutes lag time it had already accrued. While waiting for our flight to begin boarding, I noticed a disproportionate amount of children among the flyers. Jokingly, I pointed to them each in turn, and told Matt where they would be seated in relation to us on the flight. Turns out, I was right. We had all 6 rambunctious children under the age of 5, two of which were tiny babies, surrounding us in a spokes wheel pattern. Amazing. Maybe our plane was powered by an improbability drive, combatable only with a someone else’s problem field, thank you Douglas Adam‘s.

Matt says he noticed a closer to California/ large people ratio, and I have to say, just remembering the people I was seated next to, he is correct. There were also far more fast food vendors in the airports closer to home…. By the time we reached Las Vegas, the soothing sweater weather 8º Celsius we departed in had mutated into a bone-cracking dry 95º Fahrenheit with little to no transition time. Thankfully California tends to cool off in the evenings, and our 1:00am arrival time made for a comfortable temperature that we could at least endure until we woke up a week later. Once home, the crash we thought inevitable, became staying up until nearly 4:00am talking and organizing our junk. Shockingly we popped awake at something ridiculous like 7am for the next handful of days, and it took as long for our bodies to catch on that they needed the day long solid sleep which ensued.

Which leaves us here, back I sunny California, back on the right side of the car on the right side of the road thank whoever invented that; where sweet alyssum and jasmine flavor (now I’m sad because my American spell checker is no longer prompting me to spell that with a “u” in fact there are millions of misspellings as I look back over the whole blog, because the American spell checker is bringing down the European one like no bodies bidniz, I can‘t spell cozy with an “s“ anymore, or armored with a “u“. In fact, I just tried to and it won‘t stay. It auto-changes it like I didn‘t do it on purpose-pronounced porpoise-the meanie) the air near every porch, and each street divider once the smog burns off; where flesh is always visible somewhere on bodies, whether or not it should be; where 7-11s replace Spars on every corner dotted in between the Blockbuster’s, Noah’s bagels, Jamba Juices and Starbucks; where the unbroken blue of the pale sky that so many Dubliners told us they dreamed of seeing first person, is in comparison to Ireland, actually a bit dull. Oh, and where the salsa is to die for (Bab’s hand in full effect).

It is good to be back.

Blogger is having issues, so consider this posted 7/14/02

Sunday morning late sleeping (affectionately called “having a bit of a lay-in” by the Irish) interrupted by our last day jitters:

Matt and I finished our packing, ate the last of our toast, drank the last of our instant coffee from Avoca to the back ground clamor of parting Pakistani landlord, overlaid with Chinese mothering techniques for Irish baby; studied for our last meeting with our Rathgar family, dressed up, and with heavy hearts and leaden feet, caught our last bus to the Kingdom Hall on Wesley Street....Sniff, sniff...

Upon arriving to the meeting, Matt found that a brother (Geoff Whelan) had tried to contact him this morning about going to a Gaelic Rules football match after the meeting at 4:30...Geoff managed to get a spare ticket for Matt since we had talked about going a few times before. So, of course Matt wanted to go, but had no other clothes to change into. I told him (with Geoff and wife Rebecca shaking heads in agreement) he would be crazy to let that stop him from finally going to a sports match here. So, arrangements were made, all was well.

Before the meeting commenced, I snapped as many pictures of the congregation as I could knowing that I had to relinquish the camera to Matt so I could at least see a game through his eyes via the camera if nothing else. I still haven’t seen the pictures he got, because neither of us managed to finish the roll of film, and no offence Sunnyvale, but there just aren't’t quite as many gorgeously gob-smacking things to use up our remaining film on. After the meeting, I hopped a lonely bus back to our apartment, as the only thing I hadn't’t scheduled time for was the clean-up process. I hadn’t vacuumed in a week, and I knew we had shed enough hair around the not-so-visible parts of our bed to stuff a new mattress. Not to mention cleaning out our shelf in the fridge, and taking out our trash. So, I left Matt to enjoy the sunshine and male companionship he hadn’t really had this whole near 5 months, and set to with my Aunt Jemima-hanky on my head. I thought in my providential minds eye that I would have enough time left over to take a last leisurely stroll up our street, past the Bleeding Horse, past Surma to one of my favorite restaurants,(the vegetarian in me loves this stuff, Matt kindly suffers through it) Havana, for a light lunch and some solitude. No such luck By the time I looked up from my miscellneous tasks it was neigh 6:30, or should I say 18:30 hours. Just as I went for the phone to call Matt and see what the plan was(which had been disconnected any way since somehow our land-lord hadn't managed to pay his phone bill, although we had spent a small fortune on living in his house)He rang the door bell with Geoff looming (6 foot and change) behind him. Have I ever told you that our landlady is scared of tall people? Yeah. She basically said that we got the rental bedroom (previously billed as a one room house, 10 minutes from Stephen's Green park) because we are her size. None of the four of us living in that apartment are incredibly minuscule persons, but being 5'4" instead of 5'8" somehow insured us the extremely mind-boggling and educational experience of living with them. ANYhoo...

That night, I had a vague plan of us going out for a last pub crawl kind of evening possibly with the Brennan's. Instead when Matt appeared like a Calgon representative from my house work day dreams, he told me that the Whelan's had invited us to come to dinner at their apartment, so get dressed, and lets go. Geoff waited in the driveway, somehow sensing the discomfort he pressed on Cherry intuitively, and Matt and I cleaned ourselves up quickly (remember, Matt was sitting in the sun in his meeting attire after an interlude that included running for to get there intime for kick-off). Geoff drove us to their apartment pit stopping for beers, and we had a lovely last evening surrounded by most of the friends we had made over this 5 month hiatus from reality. On the dirve over, I got the scoop on the game seems like it was a great match that could have gone either Kildare, or Dublins's way right up to the end) Matt and Geoff had a great time at the game, Matt learning rules along with lyrics to the "Boys in Blue" (Team Dublin)song so he could sing along. Apparently a lot of good hearted rivalry and slagging went on amongst the 78,000 fans in attendance, so to keep Matt from looking like the opposition, Geoff thoughtfully brought a Dublin blue hat back for Matt when he went for drinks.

For dinner Rebecca made beef enchiladas which she quailed to me about because I mentioned to her a few times how much I missed good Mexican food. she was sure they wouldn't be up to ,uster, but they were fantastic, all except for the beef part... After Rebeca went to some lengths to prepare a vegetarian meal for Lisa, I didn't have the heart to tell her that I don't eat beef, so instead I ate around it...I don't think anyone cared to notice. The Whealan's weren't planning on having us that night, but on short notice of Geoff inviting Matt on the way to the game expanded a dinner party for two couples to a gala for 4 couples. The enchiladas were accompanied by sauseges over mash (which Matt would have stayed in ireland for, job or not, if he could have), and a delicious cabbage salad, I think influenced by our hosts 12 years of living in Germany. The conversation was the kind of lively jovial talk that only occurs with people that have known each other long enough to safely make fun of one another, carry a joke long after it would normally have died, and all listen to the same sorts of music. I've missed that from our friends at home. Each evening that we spend with new friends, at least an hour is spent just getting to know the facts and the backgrounds of the pwople involved, nothing wrong with the icebreakers, but you can dispense with that after a while of knowing someone. Comparing Irish and Silicon Valley economics and dispareging the illogical buisiness practices that brought Matt's former employer to its corporate knees, and thus brought us here to Ireland leaves little mood for comfy friends talk. All in all, our last meal with friends in Ireland was a really enjoyable evening and made me wish even more that we had longer to spend getting to know these people and really getting into a reutine of life here in Dublin. Ah well...such is life. You can't be everywhere at once no matter how hard you try.