The Rocky Road To Dublin: My Struggle With and Eventual Victory Over Murphy’s Law

I wanted to go to Dublin. There was a contact up there, Chris O’Rourke whom I wanted to visit while in the UK. I figured there’s no telling  when I’ll ever be this close to Dublin again, so why not book a flight over the midterm break! Now as anyone who knows me will tell you, I can be kind of tight when it comes to money (I clearly didn’t come to London because of the exchange rate…), so putting aside the money for the plane tickets, the coach tickets, and the hostel was a bit of a step for me, but I knew the experience would be well worth it.

I booked everything two weeks ahead of time, my National Express coach to Gatwick Airport, the flight through Ryanair, my room at the Avalon House Hostel. I was on top of it. There was just one thing I didn’t take into account… Through a profoundly unfortunate slip of the mind, I thought the coach would be arriving at Gatwick faster than it did. Like by an hour. Well, that certainly was not going to serve my purposes and I sprinted to the Gatwick Express, which got me there much faster, but even so, I arrived at the airport just as my gate closed. I missed my flight to Dublin. Something else about me that anyone will tell you is that I have an obnoxious habit of arriving early for things. So it would just so happen that the one thing I’m a little late for had to be this really important trip I had planned.

I’d like to say that I kept my cool and handled the situation with dignity. Not so, I’m afraid. My flight was gone, I was by myself, and had no way to contact Chris O’Rourke to let him know what happened. I kind of wandered around the airport on the edge of a panic attack, trying hard not to look weird. I braced myself and checked with a flight agent what the price would be for a flight ticket to Dublin that day. It was more than double the amount I had to pay for the  whole thing, flights, coaches, hostel room, everything (and I told you how I am with money).

So I had a choice. I could cut my losses, go back to London and drop my plans, or I could bite the bullet and make this trip work, even if I had to tighten my budget for the rest of my time abroad. I went with the latter. And the phrase I kept telling myself, the phrase that got me over this nasty curveball was: “IT’S JUST MONEY.” That may be a laughable phrase to my fellow college students, but in reality, I didn’t lose my passport or a family heirloom or even my luggage. Just simple, replaceable money. And what I got in return was a weekend full of fun and irreplaceable memories. That’s a winning bargain in my book any day.