I’m writing this blog post from the Shannon airport waiting for updates on our flight which has been delayed because “the storm of the century” is currently hitting England, but I’ll come back to that part of the story later!
This weekend, we took our first weekend trip out of the UK to travel to Galway, Ireland. I grew up looking at pictures of my parents and older brother in Ireland when he was a baby, and hearing all kinds of stories from them about the country. Having spent so much time hearing about how much they love Ireland, it was naturally at the top of my list for travel while abroad.
I have to admit, I was somewhat worried that Ireland wouldn’t be able to live up to all the expectations I had for it. But actually, it was everything that I had imagined it would be. We spent Friday walking around the town, visiting the Galway Cathedral and stopping in shops. That night, we went into a pub that was recommended by an employee at our hostel, where there was live music and Irish dancers. There was a rugby game on the TV, and it felt like we had walked into a caricature of an Irish village.
The next day, we went on a bus tour to see the Cliffs of Moher. We had truly terrible weather, it was raining the entire weekend and there were huge gusts of wind that threatened to blow us off the cliffs if we didn’t wipe out on the mud first, but if anything, that made the whole thing even better. We fought our way up along the cliff, pushing through the wind and shuffling through the mud, but it made for a pretty amazing view, so it was totally worth it.
Even outside of the beautiful view, it was really amazing to feel the mist and the wind, to see the birds flying circles by the cliffs, to see some of the bluest ocean water I’ve seen crashing on the cliffs. It was a reminder of how powerful nature is, and how small we all are. It was impossible to draw my eyes away from the misty ocean in front of me. In the words of a woman we passed on the trail up to the cliffs, “This is what it’s like to feel alive! AHHHHH!”
The coolest part of the trip, though, was that we did it ourselves. I’ve been on a lot of trips where things were all planned for me, from family vacations to band trips, but this one, we planned out, and we had an amazing time.
All in all, when we got up at 5:30 am to get the bus from Galway to Shannon to get our flight back to London, we were all feeling pretty proud of ourselves for planning a trip without anything going wrong. But unfortunately, we were way ahead of ourselves!
We heard about other Notre Dame kids scattered around Europe, stranded as a result of the big storm coming. It looked like our 11 am flight was just early enough to get us out of Ireland before the storm hit, and so we were feeling pretty lucky. But first, our flight was delayed half an hour as the plane had been late getting to Shannon. And then, we sat on the tarmac for 20, 30, 45 minutes, and I began to suspect that something was wrong. It turns out, our flight had been delayed further because of a backlog at the Shannon airport, and once we got the all clear to leave, the storm had parked over London, and no one was getting into the Stansted airport.
After three hours of sitting on the tarmac, they finally took us off the plane. We sat in the terminal eating candy and chips and waiting for updates. After a few wild moments where we thought we were delayed until 7 am on Monday, they called us all back to the gate to reboard the plane.
I am now writing the end of this blog still on the tarmac in Shannon, but I am happy to report that we have a confirmed slot to leave at 6:30, so hopefully we have a safe flight and find a way back to our dorm, as we had originally planned to take a train and then the tube, but even the trains in London have been cancelled from the wind.
Of course, there’s no way to control what storms are rolling in while you’re trying to get a flight. And as I’ve learned from all the weather-related ordeals I’ve been put through with trying to get flights to bowl games over the last three years, I’ve learned that even when it’s frustrating and tiring in the moment, you come out the other side with a great story. Honestly, we’ve had fun sitting in these seats waiting for some news, and it could be much worse. All in all, the amazing trip that came before this made the inconveniences worth it.
As we were leaving our hostel in the rain early this morning, I realized how grateful I was for this trip, wind and rain and all. My jacket was still wet from the cliffs the day before, and my boots were covered in mud, but it felt like an adventure. We had gone to the edge of a cliff in the middle of a storm that caused the rangers to close the park down about half an hour after we had left, and we got up crazy early to take a bus through the Irish countryside to get a flight back home, and even then, things didn’t go completely to plan.
But things can never can go exactly how you want them to, and making the best of the problems that come up and finding a way to have fun in the middle of the storm century is all part of the adventure. In fact, I think that woman from the Cliffs of Moher said it best:
“This is what it’s like to feel alive! AHHHH!”
Eileen's London Semester 