We landed in Doublin' at 10:30 am today. We chased the sun all night long as there was always a orangey-red glow over the wingtip of the aircraft, never being in the total dead of night darkness, at least, as far as I knew.
I was pretty faithful to my plan. I had a hard, hard workout with Mistress Chie at 9:00 am. My primary goal was to have a good workout without injuring myself. I did have a close call when she had us in some strange contortionist pose and I dropped a 20 lb dumbell on my toes. By the time our friend Mark picked us up to deliver us to the airport, I had done just about everything I could do, including, a walk down to the mail box to see if there were any last minute tax slips. Thank goodness, none.
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| Mistress Chie and me, after having my posterior kicked halfway to Ireland. |
By the time we arrived at the airport, I was starting to get a little sleepy. By the time we were on the plane on our first flight, I was starting to get a lot sleepy. By the time the wheels cleared the Kelowna runway, I was fast asleep. This is not exactly how I wanted it to go; by having a mid afternoon nap, I worried that might jeopadize me to get to sleep later. I didn't appear to have much say in the matter. I slept hard for about 45 minutes.
In Calgary, waiting for our next flight, we went to the pub for a snack (and something to drink). We knew we would get fed on the flight but needed something in the interim since it would be several hours before we
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| Me & Nan, Lina and Rod |
would be served cardboard whatever - we know now how the airlines are keeping their profits up during the fuel crisis: cut back on the food quality. However, this is where I broke my first rule: we each had a half beer as part of our "snack". Despite what we all think, alchohol is a great inducement to passing out, not to sleeping.
Once on the plane, I eschewed dinner, TV and light. I skipped dinner, read a book, played some soothing Sarah McLachlan in my ear buds to drown out some of the aircraft noise and fell asleep for a few hours. Oh, and I ate a 5mg melatonin gummy, the prescribed dose but about double what I would normally take to help me get to sleep. And put a sleep mask over my eyes to keep flickering TV light out of my eyeballs.
This was great for a few hours then I woke up and alternated between sleep and waking. I managed another hour ot two of sleep. What kept me up at THIS point though, was how stiff I was getting after my morning vigorous workout. I'm used to going to the gym and pushing myself but sitting in a cramped seat on the plane, I was aching pretty much all over my body. I had trouble to get out of my plane seat.
We landed in Dublin, had to walk about a kilometre to get our luggage, then caught an Uber to the hotel. I was thankful we had decided to pay a small premium for early check in as there were many people waiting around the hotel lobby with their luggage waiting to be admitted.
In the hotel room, we promptly had a one hour nap. Didn't want to risk going too long as a long nap would mess us up later, so I had set an alarm. Plus, we were meeting our friends Lina and Rod, who were checking into the hotel a few hours after us, arriving from Paris.
The four of us met at around 3:00 pm local time and made a hasty exit to roam the streets, find a pint of Guinness and maybe something to eat. At a local pub, the
O'Doerty, we met Brian, a local, Brian, who made room for us at his table, which was helpful because there was no other place to sit down other than inside the men's room. We became fast friends because we bought him a beer, which he claimed he didn't need but happily drank. He told us many stories and gave us advice about visiting Ireland. Unfortunately, it was a all a complete waste as we could barely understand a word he said!
8:45 pm as i write this and I can barely keep my eyes open. Melatonin gummies in about five minutes and then bed. Good night!
