Planes, train and automobiles . . .literally.

Today was one of those amazing travel days. I traveled 3 hours by plane, 2 hours by train and 15 minutes by car to reach my destination; and, you might as well add in a 10-minute bus ride to get the ball rolling. And, if you want to include yesterday’s travels as part of this, you can add another three hours by bus. Let me explain. This is all about how I made the move from Ireland to Italy.

Yesterday afternoon I left Glenstal for good. Fr. Fintan drove me to the bus stop, where I caught the CityLink bus from Limerick to Dublin Airport. “The Big Blue Bus”, as it’s known locally, makes an express run from Limerick (two stops only) to Dublin airport in roughly 2 ½ hours. It costs 25 euros and is the most efficient way to get to Dublin Airport from Glenstal. I was, unfortunately, not traveling lightly. (I have yet to master that art). I had two fairly substantial suitcases. One of them, however, was going to be spending a month in the airport hotel’s storage room. The plan was to travel to Dublin, stay overnight at the Clayton Hotel, and be ready to catch a 6:20 flight to Rome. That’s exactly what happened.

The bus trip up to Dublin was fine until the last twenty miles or so. It was rush hour, and the  traffic slowed to a crawl. It was not an issue for me, but I could see some passengers getting anxious as the time wore on. We were about 30 minutes late arriving, but, fortunately for me, the shuttle bus to the hotel was just arriving. I managed to wrangle my bags aboard and off we went. The Clayton Hotel is about as close to the airport as you would want, but not too close. Inside, the lobby was abuzz. There were all kinds of people coming and going. I checked in and got junior stowed away in the storage facility. I went upstairs, got online and checked in for my flight. I wanted to get as much done as possible at night. I sent my boarding pass to the reception desk for printing. Then I went downstairs for dinner.

The name of the main restaurant at the hotel was “The Italian Kitchen”. I did not have high expectations. When I received the menu, my first thought was, “What are the items they can do the least harm to.” Sort of a Hippocratic oath for Italian cuisine. There were not a lot of contenders. I settled for an antipasto plate of cured meats and cheese and a pizza with mushrooms, cheese, pickled red onions and arugula. The antipasto arrived and was quite abundant and OK. The pizza arrived afterwards and was disappointing (big surprise). I don’t know what it is, but Italian food gets sweeter the farther north it travels. I noticed this in Scandinavia and in Ireland. My experience with this pizza is another example of a phenomenon that I have noticed in my travels. My hypothesis sounds something like this: “Any ethnic cuisine, when transplanted out of its homeland, takes on, over time, the characteristics of the new homeland’s cuisine.” I’ll elaborate on this some other time. 

While the food wasn’t great, I did end up having a great conversation with my neighbor, another solo diner and Irish. The conversation turned to US politics rather quickly. He was both intelligent and well-informed, so the evening passed quickly. Following dinner, I went upstairs and got ready for bed. I really wanted to get as much sleep as possible. My new friend, who travels constantly for business, tried to convince me that sleep was over-rated and that you could actually get by on much less than one thought. I wasn’t buying it.