The Ireland Story (Part 1 of 2)

I’ve never claimed to be good at traveling, which is convenient, because I suck at it.

This is the story of my journey to Ireland from Cheltenham UK.

The plan was to be up and out the door by 6:30. Catch the bus to the rail station, take a train at 7:20 to Birmingham International, and then chill a bit until my flight to Ireland at 12:30.

By 6:45 I had already messed up; no more than an hour later I had screwed up royally; and by 10… well by 10 I discovered that I had fucked up almost beyond repair.

I had packed the night before, so waking up just meant throwing some clothes on and stashing my laptop into my bag; I was out the door by 6:30 no problem, and hurrying down to high street.

Spying a bus in the distance I ran up expecting to get a ride to the station, as was planned. Wrong bus.

The correct bus was pointed out to me as it blew past, skipping the nearest stop and ignoring the 21 year old now tearing down the street after it. Since I was already running, I figured, “Why not just continue, Forest Gump ran for weeks, I should be able to make it to the rail station no problem.”

‘No Problem’,if there is an antithesis to this journey, that sentiment is it.

The trouble with running to the rail station isn’t overtly apparent. For one, I had no idea where it was. I had just taken off in the direction I saw the bus go. Luckily I managed to find some people along way that pointed out the best route. Problem two was distance. A maintenance worker I bothered for directions physically recoiled at the prospect of running to the station.

At that point I doubled down and sprinted in the direction he sent me. 15 minutes later I finally arrived.

England and America are very similar countries, almost identical in many respects. When compared to other countries, such as Japan, the differences between the two Atlantic neighbors are almost completely negligible.

Which, in fact, makes those differences, dangerous as hell. Little things can cause huge problems.

For instance, forgetting which side of the road cars travel on can get you killed; misunderstanding the term ‘knock you up’ can ruin your friendship; and having a “chipless”

American Credit Card can make you miss your train. (See figure 1 and 2).

Time of arrivalto train station: 7:15.

Time of train’s departure: 7:20.
Time it takes to retrieve tickets from automated dispenser: 3 min
Realization that my card doesn’t work with the automated ticket dispenser: FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU!

Fortunately,the next train to BHX (Birmingham International Airport, for those of you not fluent in airport abbreviations) was only a 30 minutes wait. I was out £20 for the second ticket, I was sweaty, exhausted, and frustrated, but whatever I was on my train and still going to be early for my flight.

It was an hour, hour and a half ride to the airport, it marked the end of the first leg of my journey, and thus it will be the end of Part 1 of this post.

Figure 1

Card with a chip in it.

Figure 2

American Card without a chip for comparision