confused
Not entirely sure what I am doing here, but after a pain in the arse journey from Madrid to Dublin and then on to Kerry. I am happy to arrive. I apparently missed the importance of an email (which was in spanish) and had no flight when I arrived at the Barajas. Luckily the next flight was leaving at just before midnight and I had time to buy a ticket, check in and then pass through customs and if I was lucky find time to grab a beer ( and preferably drink it). Now you may think that I was safe and sound I had four hours to wait at Dublin for the flight desk to open, no worries.
Brief interlude for life affirming realisation
Proof that there is a god and that he does have a sense of humour: If you need to be in work early you find the traffic jam, you plan a barbecue, you know it will rain!
After a brief walk around the shops, a coolish beer, a tortilla bocadillo, and a relaxing dalliance with actually bothering to buy something in the non duty free shops on the way to the gates, I noticed that there were many spotty, posing teenagers with dumb T-shirts in bright colours with stupid slogans. There were also lots of Sasha Croft style backpacks ruined by the words Irish School and many more ultra cheap and tacky, nylon ones in even more lurid colours.
Second brief interlude
The best was the use of the word school but spelt like this "sChOOL". It is one of those dumb ideas that adults come up with in the belief that kids could actually think that the idea of education is cool in any way form of shape. The proof of this was on the front of the T-shirt, the name of the school was IFFY.
I finally arrived at the gate to find that the majority of the spotty geeks were sitting around in the area of the gate, my gate the one I would be leaving for my first visit to Ireland (albeit for work). The plane for Cork left carrying some of them but there was at least three quarters of a plane load left. I depressingly assumed that that they bound for Dublin on the same flight as me. At least I had the ones with the Sasha Croft rucksacks not the nylon army, and the iffy t-shirt crewe were nowhere in sight.
The plane was delayed, this I knew but as I had a wait the other side what was the point in worrying. I was more worried about the spotty gits posing and yaking loudly to their friends. I was even more worried that I would be sitting next to one (I didn't). On my arrival in Dublin I patiently and gently shoved my way through the veritable forest of the smelly, spotty, objects of hate (if you have read my journal you may know of my opinion of the spawn of hell) to collect my luggage. The experience of a new airport was exhausted within half an hour and the added weight of my educational burden, course books, vodka, and a small lump of something smokable in the lighter pocket of my jeans (these are the essential parts of a survival kit for teachers), proceeded to piss me off as I found my way to a seat and a cup of tea. I then went outside for a constitutional cigarette. and attempted to find a comfortable place to sit to read until the Aerarran flight desk opened. At 3 in the morning there are precious few shops open in any part of the airport.
The desk opened an after buying the next ticket I headed off to the gate allocated to my next flight. When the plane arrived I was sort of excited to see that it was a prop plane. If I crashed it could be said that I had died in an antique plane not some run of the mill passenger jet. I also forgot to mention that for the first time in my life I have experienced a boy racer pilot. He actually braked suddenly on reaching the runway and paused briefly before gunning the engine and blasting up the runway with all the accelerative muscle of... every other plane that I have ever been in. I couldn't hear the wheel spin because of the sound of the jet engines.
On arrival in Kerry, I walked all the way from the plane to the, all of 10 metres, and could see the truck with our luggage drive to the one baggage reclamation thingy, then waited for the suitcases to come round. It was one of about 10 and I could have probably taken it straight off the truck and saved someone a job. I am now at the house but after two hours sleep in the last 48 I am feeling distinctly stoned and I haven't even had a beer yet let alone a joint. The only problem with this picture is that my fellow workers are visiting and discussing serious stuff, like my possible duties, which I am attempting to understand and remember. This may be asking a little too much.