And A Recap

The best bits of our trip were serendipitous. We'd planned the bones of the trip pretty well, plotting out the stops and route before we left, but the day-to-day details we planned pretty much over breakfast, with the help of assorted locals, B&B owners, and Rick Steves. Sometimes they all agreed about what we should do, and sometimes they didn't. For instance, Rick and John, the B&B owner in Killarney, disagreed over the best route for driving the Ring of Kerry. They both recommended the Skellig Ring detour (the roads are too tiny for tour buses), but we went with John's suggestion to drive the whole peninsula counterclockwise with the buses, so the driver (Dan) could more easily enjoy the sea views. He was right. But neither Rick nor John told us about the Skellig Cliffs. No guidebook did, either. And they were sick.



About a thousand feet high, and completely deserted (we started early nearly every day--painful at times, but 100% worth it. It frequently felt that we had the wilds of Ireland to ourselves).

We also would've skipped Connor's Pass on the Dingle Peninsula, had the pub-going locals not set us straight.




Holy crap it was amazing. We found the lake by pulling over for a view, seeing a sheep track, and just following it up. Gorgeous. A lot of the sick scenery was just on random pit stops.



Fun fact: Irish girls do not drink pints of Guinness. It was actually a bit of an icebreaker, with locals expressing surprise and occasionally shock that a wee lass like myself was able to drink a full pint of such a brew, which was also weird because dude, doesn't every tourist do it? Have you never seen a tourist before?


Ireland's best old man, Ned O'Sullivan, Dingle resident of 40 years (he was very open about his plans to die there), saw my pint, faked a massive heart attack, crossed himself, and told Dan to never let me go.

Also, in Dublin, cute, wholesome-looking girls pass out the strip club flyers, rather than the sad, beaten men who hand them out in New York.

Even the things I thought would be lame were awesome. Like, was I really interested in an ancient ring fort on the Iveragh Peninsula? We took the detour because it was foggy and there wasn't much else to do until it lifted; it turned out to be a kind of magical, transcendent step into the past.


It took hundreds of men six months to build it! It's been standing for thousands of years with no mortar! How is that even possible? Plus people climb all over it, it's just terrible, no respect.


Mostly, I felt at home in Ireland. I don't know that it's an ancestral thing (my family came over during the the famine... they should probably have a famine museum in Dublin, come to think of it. It did reduce the population by a third); there was an easiness to life there that agreed with me. I want to go every year. Every year once the dollar regains a semblance of buying power.


That euro. It hurt.

Why I Am Partially Stupid

Okay, it's mostly taken care of, so I'll share.

I'm pregnant.


SIKE!!!

I am not. (Sorry, Mom).

I did, however, lose my passport.

...screech.

"How?" you ask? What an excellent question. I don't know, really--my pet theory is that in a giant paper purge a couple months ago it got tossed. But that's just a guess. For all I know it'll turn up tomorrow, in which case I will... do nothing. Maybe throw up.

That isn't even the real idiocy, although it's obviously stupid. The true kernel of moron in this move is that I didn't realize it until last night. I am going to IRELAND. On FRIDAY. That is NOT RESPONSIBLE. As Katie would put it, wailing as we left her peremptoraliy ended birthday bonfire on Hermosa Beach in 2005, "Poor PLANNING!!!! POOOOR PLAAAANINGGGG!!!" Except that was a birthday party. This is a weeklong overseas trip that Dan and I planned three months ago.

But, my friends, all was not lost. Yes, I broke down sobbing after tearing my room apart, slept approximately three hours total, and worked through some intense self-loathing. But also, in the midst of my freakitude, I designed three scenarios, at least one of which would make the trip still happen.

Scenario #1: Maybe, just maybe, the passport is at work. Because the last time I remember handling it was at orientation, this wasn't totally out of the ballpark, but was still kind of a pipe dream. In any case, if it weren't there (as was the case), I could use the early-morning office visit to fill out all my forms etc. for the next plan...

Scenario #2: Go to US Passport Agency at 7:20 AM and spend the day there begging, bribing etc. I figured for appointment-less me (the automated system shut me out) it would be some kind of pit mob requiring sharp elbows. If this didn't work out, it would be on to scenario #3...

...calling an expeditor. And losing half my hair and something close to four hundred bucks with it. I've used expediters before, once for a renewal and once on behalf of a boss. They'll get you your travel document, but you will pay with half your soul.

YOU GUYS. DO NOT EVER USE AN EXPEDITOR. GETTING A PASSPORT IN A DAY IS REALLY EASY.

Ok, kind of easy, but only 50% as frustrating as the DMV. And the ease level is much higher if you are like me, who is very, very lucky to work across the street from the passport agency.

I showed up at 7:20, documents and passport pictures (hair: cute, face: panicked) in hand. Line is massive. Every person is working with various success at not looking completely unhinged, but you can see the telltale signs of crazy. Get into building, go through metal detectors, and apparently switch to present tense.

"Do you have an appointment?"

A "no" puts me at a phone bank of creaky devices connecting to the automated system that failed me last night. I learn that you can trick it by entering specific dates, but no dice, it keeps telling me the rest of the week is full. Slightly freaked, I go talk to the guard.

You guys, the passport agency people are really nice. It was shocking how nice they are. All of them.

"Don't be nervous," the guy says. I tell him I work across the street. "Go and keep calling the line from your office," he tells me. "I know it keeps saying no, but you'll get in. Just keep trying." Then he says that once I come in, it'll take about an hour to process my application, and I can pick up my new passport either that afternoon or the next morning.

So I went back to the office (okay, this is getting pretty detailed. You can skim if you want. Or not. Whatever. It's my blog.) and called the line for an hour and a half straight. At one point I got an actual person, a nice older man who tried to make an appointment for me, couldn't, and suggested I go try Norwalk, Connecticut. Now truly panicking, I decided to give it ten more tries before calling the bloodsuckers. Second try: I got one. Hoopla!

2 PM rolls around. I go back to the agency and am in and out in twenty minutes. The guy sees my work ID and thinks I'm an on-camera TV star. "I thought you looked familiar!" he exclaims. "You're all set."

THAT'S IT. If I'd known how to game the appointment system ahead of time, this would've taken thirty minutes of my day, total, plus some phone calls last night. Although then I wouldn't have met the emotionally broken family who had a flight this morning and went to the airport with expired passports, who made me feel ever-so-slightly less stupid.

Ugh. I am so mean. I deserve all of this. I should self-flagellate. But 10 AM tomorrow, that brand-new book will be in my hot little hand. Government, US Passport Agency: Thank you.

And also to Dan for not flipping out.