Getting Settled in.

Hello everyone! So, it has been a little over two months since I have arrived in Ireland. I apologies for it taking this long to update everyone on what has been going on.  What I am going to do is take the next couple of weeks on updating you on what has been going on.

Let’s start at the beginning, from where I left off, of the emotions leading up to the departure. It’s now January 17^th getting ready to head out to the airport. Stayed up most of the night making sure I didn’t forget anything. This being my first time traveling to another country, I was unsure what I would be able to get when I am there. It’s about 1230pm and I’m finally on the road with my cousin, and the entire ride down to the airport is a complete blur. All I could think about is how much I’m going to miss my daughter, and what is she going to think of me leaving her home without coming to see her for 6 months. Even though I am going to be going back to surprise her for her birthday that is less than a month away. The thought of her not knowing and me just being gone absolutely tearing my heart apart. Now I have been away from her for this long before when I left for my training for the military. However, this feels completely different. Maybe it’s because she is older now. I’m not sure. But I am not a fan of this feeling.

After the 2.5-hour drive to the airport it was now time for me to start the checking in process. Every step I take is making this more real. I’m still thinking that this is not really happening. I mean, come on, it’s just me. The guy that barely passed high school, and was considered a problem student always getting kicked out of my classes.  Yet here I am receiving an all-expenses paid scholarship to be able to study abroad in Ireland for a semester.

I’m now strolling through the airport 5 hours before my flight. Heard to many horror stories of it taking hours to get through the gate for international flights. So, in my head I am looking at the gates with the longest lines to see if that is mine. Nope, that’s not it. Nor is that one. After looking at 7 different ticket lines I finally ask and showed them my ticket. They said see that one down there with no one in line? Yea… that one is yours. I’m not sure if I actually said it aloud or not, I don’t remember saying it aloud however, I must have because as I screamed “Really? That’s awesome!” everyone turned and looked at me. Yea… at that point I just walked as fast as I could without looking back.

Ill fast forward to my layover in London. Two reasons, that the next 4 hours were kind of a blur, and a bit un eventful. So, it’s now 730am in London time and I have two hours till my connecting flight leaves. Didn’t leave much time to get checked in and go through security. However, the second I stepped off the plane, a wave of emotions hit me. Just about any feeling you could have I was experiencing. It was so overwhelming I had to stop and take about five min to gather my thoughts. After I could put my thoughts together I started fallowing the signs to my connecting flight. Now, only have ever flown within the United States, I felt very lost on how they labeled their gates.

I finally got to the security gate about 40 min after I had landed. I started to panic a little because there were a lot of people in front of me and only had an hour and ten min before my connecting flight took off. However, to my surprise, the line was moving very quickly. There is now five people ahead of me so I start getting everything ready to be scanned. For those of you who have flown know that it can take a min or two to get things the way they want it. By the time, I get up there everything was ready to be put in the trays. I walk over to the full body scanner like all airports in the U.S. do. I get in line the TSA security waves me over to go around the full body scanner and said I was all set. Now this at first made me happy because I could get through faster so I could get to my connecting flight. However, after thinking about it, I was a bit worried of how slack that security was. I started thinking of reasons why they would just let me go through without getting scanned? Nothing good came to mind, and my mind started to wonder what could happen with that lax of security. Made me thankful for all the precautions that the U.S. takes when it comes to airport security.

Now what happen next was such a live changing revelation and I will never forget the emotions that took over and I was un able to control them. It was now time to go through the London passport verification gate. I get up to the counter and the gentleman starts asking questions with a very heavy accent, and speaking very fast for me to understand. Before I go any further I’m going to give a quick back story that may help with why I was overwhelmed with emotions. As I mentioned in my first post I worked at a call center for a bank. In a given night I could take upwards of 80 or so calls in my shift, in which probably 10% of those would be someone with either a heavy accent or could barely speak or understand English. This would be so frustrating, to the point I would get mad with the customer for not being able to speak or understand English. Most of the time with these kinds of calls, I would have to take a few min off the phones to calm down because I could not believe that someone that can’t speak or understand English and would have an English-speaking bank account.

As this man at the London passport verification gate, I had to ask him to repeat himself many times and still did not fully understand what he was saying and would just try to agree and take it one step at a time. At the end of that 15-min conversation is when those emotions hit me and were uncontrollable. I broke down and started crying. Here I am in the exact same situation as those customers calling in to me for help with their money and I was getting mad at them for not being able to understand me, and having to ask me to repeat what I was saying. I was so mad at myself for how rudely I was treating those customers for something that had to do to live in the U.S. I know new how hard it was for them to be calling and not understanding me fully if at all. And I had it easy because they all spoke my language just with heavy accents and I was feeling all this. I can only imagine how hard it was for those customers to call and speak with me, someone that can’t even speak their language. I have an all new look at those situations and will be a lot more understanding of their situation. I will never forget that moment.

Well thank you all for reading, this is all for now. I was a bit long winded with my first post so I’m trying to keep it a bit shorter for you. My next post I will talk about my first couple of weeks in cork Ireland.