Nearly there.....

Well, they say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I'm going a tad further than that (like about 8,000 miles), but I guess the principle is the same. I guess you could say I've started off now anyway, with the train journey from Waterford to Dublin. I've done this part a couple thousand times, and the next part (dublin to heathrow) a few times, but after that I'm into unknown territory. I'm starting to get a bit of the jiters now anyway, feeling a tad bit nervous and a tad bit excited - not sure which I'm feeling more, is a close-run thing. For some wierd reason I have the one song going through my head, and it's not the usual one either. Normally when I'm heading off I have "Leaving On A Jet Plane" (the one from the "Armageddon" soundtrack, not the original) going round and round in my skull. This time tho I have the "sleep song" from Nick Jr going, the thing they play at 8pm to try to get kids to go to sleep!! I blame Brendan & Lou, damn thing must have stuck in my head when I was down in Galway and they had it on to try to get Adam to go to bed.

Anyway, my bags are (mostly) packed, my passport, visa, money etc are all on the bedside locker waiting to go, and my pr0n collection on the laptop's hard drive is tucked away where any Ministry of State Security ppl are unlikely to find it! Just have to go through my holiday checklist now, little tips & tricks I've learned from experience on various holidays:

• If you're doing a stopover somewhere, always give yourself at least two hours to play with, 'cos chances are you'll be taking off late from Dublin airport


• Split your credit cards, keep one with your passport and one with your wallet. That way, if you lose your wallet, you're not strapped for cash


• Keep some high-denominaiton bill of the local currency in with your passport as well, same reason as above (but not in the picture or visa page where it may be misintrpreted as a bribe)


• Keep some sterling with you when you're travelling, 'cos you never know when you're going to be stranded in some english airport for a while (even if you're not technically supposed to be even going through england, your airline may have other ideas)


• Always keep a spare change of clothes in your carry-on luggage, enough to keep you going for a day when you arrive, in case Aer Ling..., er, someone loses your bags along the way


• Keep the international emergency number for your credit cards, bank cards etc in your phone, plus the address/phone number of where you'll be staying. Also keep a copy where you can get to it if you lose your phone (I email it to my gmail account)


• Keep a spare copy of your flight/hotel details (booking numbers etc), plus a photocopy of your passport in your check-through bag.


• Buy chewing gum for when your ears are popping on the plane before you go to the airport, 'cos normally they don't sell it there.

And last but not least, never forget that airport seurity have absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever......