Today was a long day that started early (6:30 a.m.) with breakfast (same as yesterday) and a taxi ride to the Swansea train station. My destination -- Cardiff -- where I was to board a flight to Shannon to attend an international law school educators conference in Limerick. Now, as I have mentioned in prior postings, any journey in Europe seems to be rife with danger and intrigue. Okay, not danger and intrigue, but much knashing of teeth and wringing of hands. And, ultimately in most cases with me, an unforseen glitch in plans. My plan was to get the London Picadilly line from Swansea to Rhoose station where I would depart and catch the shuttle bus to Cardiff airport. Sounds easy, right? HA! Needless to say, I missed Rhoose station and had to backtrack.
Because of this, I did not make my Aer Lingus flight to Shannon. So, here I was, in the Cardiff airport trying to figure out how to get a later flight that wasn't so late that I'd miss the conference. There was no later flight that would get me there on time. So, at this point I thought I'd just fly back to Belfast. To make matters more interesting, Aer Lingus doesn't fly to Belfast. Yep, that's right, Aer Lingus doesn't fly to Northern Ireland. Go figure... Plan B -- there was a later flight to Dublin so I figured I could always get that and take a train to Limerick. Cut to the chase -- after arriving in Dublin -- there wasn't one that would get me there in time for the conference. Plan C -- I decided to visit my Donabate contact for the weekend.
So, after making some phone calls regarding Plan C, I got a taxi from Dublin to Donabate. It would all work out well in the end as my contact made subsequent plans (based on my Plan C) to visit with a political leader in the area on Saturday, attend a birthday party, and visit an Irish Medium secondary school on Monday morning. It all sounded like a dream come true. They say things happen for a reason...
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