Notes from a Spinning Planet—Ireland (2 page)

“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to go
anywhere
. I’ve been so jazzed these past couple of months. Even right now I can hardly believe I’m really doing this.”

And now, as I sit here trying to do the deep-breathing and calming exercises that Sid showed me shortly after takeoff and as the turbulence starts getting seriously bad, I still can’t believe it. I mean,
What was I thinking?

S
id made me promise to keep a travel journal on this trip. “It’ll be something you can look back on when you’re an old lady like me,” she told me as she handed me this dark brown leather-covered book that’s almost too cool to write in. The paper feels as smooth as silk.

“No problem,” I assured her. “You know how I love to write anyway. And besides, you’re
not
an old lady.” Okay, I’m not really sure how old she is, but since she’s my dad’s baby sister, I’ve always figured that she’s way younger than him. Although he is in his fifties, which actually sounds fairly old. But the thing about Sid is that she’s really stylish. With her shoulder-length blond hair and slim figure, I’m guessing she could be in her late thirties or maybe even forty. The weird thing is she’s never been married—weird because she’s really good-looking and weird because I think she’s pretty cool, for an older person anyway.

Of course, she appreciated my compliment. “Keep up the flattery, Maddie, and I’ll take you on all my research trips,” she promised. “Maybe you can be my new assistant.”

Well, I’m not so sure I want to take any more flying trips. I try to distract myself from the nonstop turbulence by writing in my journal, although some of the words seem to be leaping from the
page just now. So far I’ve filled about four pages, front and back. At this rate, I may need a new book by the time we land in Shannon—that’s if we ever do. I don’t know how everyone else can sleep with this plane rocking and rolling its way to the other side of the planet.

Sid said we’re flying over the polar icecap to save time. And now I can’t help but wonder how cold it might be down there and what would happen if we crash-landed. Would we even survive the impact? And if we did, would we survive the freezing cold temperatures and polar bears? And if we did survive that, would we ever be found? Would our cell phones work? Would desperate and starving passengers eventually resort to cannibalism to stay alive? I saw a movie about that once—a bunch of South American soccer players survived after a crash by eating their friends who died. Maybe I should’ve worn heavy socks and boots instead of these flimsy flip-flops, which Katie assured me would be perfect for getting through the security gates without a hitch.
Thanks, Katie!

I pause from my writing as I think about my best friend. Just yesterday she informed me that she thinks she’ll be engaged before I get back. Okay, this seems totally crazy to me. And I told her so. Like who gets engaged at nineteen? But she told me she’s in love, and he’s
the one
, and she knows it’s the right thing to do. They only met last fall—at Washington State University, of course. “That’s what comes from going away to school,” my mom told me after I shared Katie’s surprising news.

Maybe Mom’s right. My parents tempted me into staying home with the offer of a new, slightly used car. They figured it
wouldn’t hurt me or my college account to go to the local community college for my first two years of higher education. Yeah, right—higher than what? But so far, unlike Katie, I haven’t met anyone I’m even remotely interested in. Honestly, these guys all seem to be a bunch of country bumpkins, just like me. I suppose that’s due to the agricultural program the school is known for. But, honestly, why would anyone in his right mind go to college to learn how to be a farmer? Besides my dad, that is. He likes to remind me of this whenever I complain about school.

Honestly, if I didn’t like my car so much (it’s a 2004 Honda Accord), I’d probably back out of the whole deal and go away to school like Katie. But I guess one more year at home won’t kill me. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind being home right now, stuck on the farm. It would be preferable to crash-landing in the Arctic Circle and being cannibalized by my fellow passengers.

“You gonna eat that?”

I turn around and look across the aisle at Ryan. He’s pointing to the chocolate-chip cookie on my food tray, still in its package. “Want it?” I hold it out to him.

“Sure.” He grins. “Who knows when lunch’ll be served?”

I glance at my watch. According to Pacific time, its about noon now, and I’m thinking maybe I should’ve held on to that cookie. “When do we adjust the time on our watches?” I ask.

“Whenever you want,” he says as he eats the cookie in two quick bites. “I already changed mine.” He brushes cookie crumbs from the front of his T-shirt, then glances at his watch. “Right now it’s almost eight o’clock at night in Ireland.” He grins.

“Seriously? It’s night there already?” I try to absorb this fact. “So what time will it be when we finally land?”

“Around eight in the morning,
tomorrow
, which will then be today.”

“That’s so weird. I mean, we left a little after eight this morning. It’s like it takes twenty-four hours to get there.”

“Not really. Remember, we lose eight hours because of the time zones.”

I try to do the clock math in my head, but somehow I keep messing it up. I’ve never been a real numbers person. Finally I just change my watch and try to convince myself that, despite the fact I haven’t even had lunch, it’s already nighttime now. Pretty bizarre.

Following what I know has been the longest day of my entire life, we land in Shannon. While everyone else on the darkened plane pretty much snoozed the past several hours, I remained wide awake with my imagination running wild the whole time. I might’ve actually dozed off a couple of times, but wild dreams (or turbulence-induced hallucinations) of frozen tundra and hungry polar bears quickly brought me back to my senses. Consequently, I’m feeling totally wiped out now. To use an old cliché, which is something a good writer would never do, I feel like something the cat dragged in. Sorry, but that’s the best description I can come up with in my somewhat brain-dead condition. My hair feels skanky, my teeth are wearing furry sweaters, and my breath must be toxic. Somehow I lost the packet of hygiene goodies that the flight attendants distributed at the start of this flight, and now I discover there was a toothbrush and toothpaste in the neat little plastic pack.

At the moment, Ryan and I are sitting in this big, sparse holding area of the Shannon airport. We actually landed in Dublin first, and I thought that was the end of our journey. But we stayed on the plane, and Sid explained that we still had one more short flight. Finally, about an hour and a half later, we got off the plane. I restrained myself from falling down and kissing the earth, but seriously, it felt so good to have my feet on solid ground again. I can’t even begin to think what I’ll do when its time to go home.

We had just started to go through customs when Sid was approached by this guy in a uniform. He told us she’d be right back, but it’s been nearly an hour now, and I’m starting to get worried. What if they kidnapped her? Maybe my mom was right to be so cautious and worried about our whereabouts during this trip. I’m tempted to call Mom on my cell phone right now—to tell her we’re barely here and Aunt Sid has gone missing.

“Your phone is just for emergencies,” Dad sternly told me before I left this morning—or was that yesterday morning? Who knows? But he was pretty worried that international calls would break the bank. So I resist the urge.

“Shouldn’t Sid be back by now?” I ask Ryan, pretending not to be nervous.

He just shrugs like it’s no big deal, but I think I see a trace of worry in his eyes too.

“Who’s she talking to anyway?”

“Just some official dude.”

“I know it’s some official dude,” I say in a less-than-patient tone. “I saw the uniform. But who was it? And why did he want Sid?”

He shrugs again, and maybe it’s my general fatigue, but his nonchalance is really starting to irritate me. Besides that, I’m hungry. And, unlike the American airport we departed from like, a hundred years ago, this part of the terminal doesn’t seem to have any food kiosks or restaurants. There are a couple of vending machines, but since we don’t have any euros yet, we’re out of luck.

“Do you think we’re
really
in Ireland?” I ask Ryan. He gives me this kind of
duh
look. Before I can say anything else stupid, I see Sid hurrying back toward us.

“Everything okay?” I ask as I get up to meet her.

“Yeah.” She nods. “Just had to answer some questions.”

Questions?

“I guess my name was on some kind of list, and they wanted to find out—”

“What kind of list?” I ask.

Sid is already collecting her baggage. “It’s just old stuff that has to do with politics and when I was here before…not terribly important,” she says. “Let’s get you guys through customs now. We’re burning daylight here.”

So Ryan and I trudge along after her. I partially carry and partially drag my stuff toward the customs counter as I wonder what the showers are like in Ireland. I’m in serious need.

To my dismay, it seems the customs guys are really interested in the three of us. They make us open all our bags. And then, wearing these vinyl gloves, they search through everything, including my underwear, which I find just a tad bit embarrassing since I’ve never been one to buy the really fashionable stuff like my friend Katie goes
for. But what’s up with this anyway? Like who do they think we are? International smugglers or spies? Drug transporters? They finally seem satisfied that we’re not any of those things, and after I push my stuff back into the bag and barely get the zipper closed, we head over to another counter to exchange some American money for euros, which really seems like a ripoff since they take far more dollars than I get back. I get about fifteen in exchange for a twenty.

“What was that all about?” I ask my aunt as we wait for Ryan. “I mean, the customs guys. It’s like they thought we were serious trouble or something.”

She just smiled. “It has to do with old things, Maddie. I’ll explain later.”

Okay, this makes me really curious. Like what was my aunt involved in here in Ireland? What makes her the kind of person who would be detained in customs? A woman of international interest? But I quickly forget these questions as we pile into a shuttle bus, and it speeds down the wrong side of the road. It drops us at the rental-car place just outside of the airport, and it takes about thirty minutes for Sid to fill out the paperwork there so she can rent this funny little vanlike car with the steering wheel on the right. Sure feels like the wrong side to me.

“Do you know how to drive this thing?” I ask her as we pile our stuff into the hatchback.

“It’s been a while,” she admits. “But it’s probably like riding a bike.”

Ryan offers to help read the map, and I opt for the backseat, thinking maybe I’ll get to nap as Sid drives us to this place she’s
been raving about. Apparently it will take us a few hours to get there, which means I might actually catch some z’s. However, when my aunt nearly collides head-on with a large delivery truck, I quickly discover that napping will be a challenge.

“The
other
way,” Ryan yells.

We’re driving in some kind of a circle thing, and the cars are all honking, and she’s backing up and actually swearing. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my aunt use bad language before, and it makes me even more worried.

“I’m sorry,” she says when she finally gets back into the circle, going the right way now. I lean over the back of the front seat and just shake my head as she drives around this circle a couple of times.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“I missed the exit on the roundabout,” she says.

“That
one!” yells Ryan.

“Right.”

“No,
left!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says as she turns left. “I know, I know.”

And that’s how it goes until we are finally out of the city. But after this the roads, which I thought were rather narrow before, get really, really narrow. I mean, like about the width of a single-car-driveway narrow, so narrow that someone has to pull over, practically off the road, when there’s two-way traffic, which fortunately doesn’t happen much.

I find that I am gripping the back of Ryan’s seat and practically holding my breath as we hurtle down the wrong side of the road
at what looks like more than eighty-five kilometers on the speedometer! How does that translate into miles? Worse than this is that other vehicles, which seem to be going even faster, are heading straight toward us, like its inevitable we will soon end up in a head-on crash, and I’m certain this tinny little car will not hold up. I wonder if it’s ever been crash tested. Does it even have airbags? I think I might actually pass out.

“Where are we going?” I finally manage to gasp after Sid narrowly misses a sports car.

“We’re heading up to Galway,” Sid tells me.

“How long will that take?” I ask, feeling more and more like the brat in the backseat who keeps whining, “Are we there yet?” But I’m desperate.

“Looks like about half an hour,” Ryan informs me as he peers at the map.

“We’ll stop for a bite to eat there,” Sid says. “Then it’s on to Connemara.”

“What’s that?”

“Our final destination…well, at least for a few days.”

“Oh.” Okay, I really want to ask how much longer it will take to get to Connemara, but I know I already sound like a pest. Better to just shut up and write in my journal. Good thing I don’t get carsick anymore.

Before long the traffic gets thicker, and it appears we’re getting close to Galway. Or so I assume. I don’t want to ask, don’t want to sound as lame as I feel.

Fortunately, Sid seems to know where she’s going as she turns into the next roundabout, and before long she is parking along a city street. “Here we are,” she announces happily. “Now let’s see if Fionna’s is still here.”

“Who’s Fionna?” I ask as I climb from the car and enjoy a good stretch. I am so stiff from sitting and sitting and sitting that I’m not even sure I can walk very well.