Don't forget everything before you leave

We finally made it, our flight to Dublin was smooth and shorter than I had thought it would be. The eight hours flew by because I slept through most of the flight. I find that I get anxious before a trip because I know I am the type of person that does everything last minute, I forget random items for my trip and I'm late for everything. So I end up not sleeping the night before a trip to organize my things and ensure I have everything I need. I have never been a big fan of flying so it makes the trips easier on me if I can sleep on the plane and ever since I was in the military, I have learned I can sleep just about anywhere and that includes sitting upright in a plane for eight hours. Since we were to arrive in Dublin at 8:30 am I wanted to be awake and ready to become a tourist.

Even though I stayed up all night the night before we left, I still forgot a couple of items which is no surprise to me but frustrating none the less. Items we left behind were; battery charger for the Sony cyber-shot camera, rechargeable batteries for the Vivitar video camera and Fuji DSLR cameras, and rain coats. One item that I left behind was the universal plug adaptor that Brownie's father had given us the day before we left. This one was good for Europe, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Thailand and the Americas (pretty much everywhere) and he gave it to me to take with us. Even though I had plenty of time to make sure I had everything in order, I somehow managed to leave that behind which added a bit of stress once we got to Ireland. Brownie had to be able to do her hair, I needed the laptop to be able to blog, we needed our iPhone for GPS and we had batteries that we needed to keep charged so we could take pictures. This adapter is essential for us because all of our electronics use the 110v plugs and now we have all these gadgets with no way to plug them in. Luckily for us we survived in Ireland by borrowing the adapter we needed there. Once we got to Rome we needed a different type of adapter so we immediately started looking for one, even though we feared it would cost us an arm and a leg. I didn't want to pay more than 20 Euro for something I knew I could get on Ebay from a supplier in China for no more than $10 USD with shipping included and since we were already on our journey we don't have an address to mail anything to I figured we were done screwed. Luckily enough for us, when we were in Rome buying a pay as you go SIM card, we found the adapter we were looking for and for only 10 Euro!!! Not only did this save my neck it made life so much easier on us while traveling. Below are pictures of the adapter which is also a surge protector and I highly suggest you pick one of these up off eBay or at a local electronics store. I'm not sure on the availability of these in your average town in the states so I suggest looking online at least a month before you plan on leaving for vacation.



When you try to purchase items you need in the places you are visiting you find that you will pay a penalty for not thinking ahead. Case in point, Dublin is a very chilly city and the wind rips right through you. If you research the weather trends in Ireland, you find that it never gets “warm” for long there. They don't really have a “summer” it's more like fall and winter, then fall again. Much like my home of San Antonio, they have two seasons just not the two I'm used to. Brownie didn't bring any scarfs or anything to cover her head and we spent near four hours of our time in Dublin looking for a cheap matching beanie and scarf combo to keep her warm. Oddly enough even Dublin has seasonal sales and when we arrived we found out that they were selling summer clothes in the department stores so finding a matching beanie and scarf was going to be difficult and expensive. The only beanie Brownie found that she liked was one in a souvenir shop but the matching scarf had a big green shamrock on it and that wouldn't match everything as well so she didn't want that. After stopping at a dozen or so street vendors, she finally found one she liked that didn't cost near 20 Euro. If she had bought them in the states, both of them might have cost her $20 combined but here we ended up spending right at 30 Euro which is roughly $35. Expensive lesson if you ask me. We were lucky that while we were in Ireland, we were able to use some plug adaptors that Brownies brothers had used when they got to Ireland while we looked to buy our own. While there we never found the universal adaptor her father had loaned us and we started to worry about where to find one when we get to Italy, again we realized that with our proper planning and implementation of those plans we added undue stress to our trip.

Buying one way tickets to...

I can't tell you for sure that I know how everyone reacts when buying a one way plane ticket for the first time. What I can tell you is that Brownie has had a really tough time with the idea of buying the tickets, remember money security is our issue right now. I am a care free (maybe a little dumb) American that feels that I can do anything I set my mind to, and my mind is set on being a digital nomad and blogging, the latter being easy since I'm an opinionated wind bag, or so I'm told. We really don't have enough cash in the bank to be doing this and while I know this, I can't exactly tell her. If I tell her then I have to come up with a new plan and answer all her questions like; who, what, when, where and how. It wouldn't be hard to look into my life and see that I'm not exactly the guy that answers questions before he's asked. I don't know if that is because I'm lazy, careless or functionally dysfunctional. So what am I going to do since we can barely afford to take the trip, much less take a chance on a job that doesn't really exist. So for all of my readers, this blog is about my transition from being a simple sales person living a simple life in the states to living a life of travel, backpacks and foreign languages. That's what I think it's about but if I were reading this blog I'd be waiting for the other foot to drop.


I would love to go, dollar for dollar and explain what costs what, how much I have saved up or how much I expect I'll need but all of the answers to these questions vary so much that my answer would be one in a million. So instead of giving you exacts, I'll paint you a picture and hope that you see my wife's frustration. My brother-in-law suggested that we have around five thousand USD to survive the first couple of months while we look for school, work, visas and a place to live. This was when we were thinking about moving to Ireland to live for a few years and take a few classes for the student status but once I did my research and her brother told me that in Ireland he hadn't had the opportunity to wear his shorts the "live in Ireland" idea started to die quickly. I'm sure there is a tinge of Irish blood in me somewhere, but that little ice cube will have to melt cause the devil's been keeping me warm for so long in Texas that I'm not sure I'd survive living closer to the poles than the equator. My saying has always been "If it's cold I'll bundle up with so many clothes I can't bend and end up looking like the gingerbread man in coats" but "if it's hot, you can always strip down buck naked and jump into water to cool off." Granted everyone has a preference and as such it is what it is, a preference. So instead of trying the student approach and build up more loans to repay, I thought I should utilize my gift of gab.

So back to the moral of this little posting, buying one way plane tickets out of your home country is terrifying to some people but what I think most people are missing out on the adventurous feeling of taking risks. People look at the "fear" they feel when taking risks as "warning" signs that maybe you shouldn't be doing that. On the contrary I think that emotion you may be feeling is the feeling of possibility, the emotion of life flowing through your veins. Taking risks will undoubtedly keep your brain firing on all cylinders and sharpen your wit for the rest of your life. There are as many paths in life as there are lessons and there is no "perfect" or "right" way to do anything, there just are ways of doing them. The biggest obstacle we face in our plans is our own fears. Google the word fear by itself and the first four links are two wiki definitions, one video game and one movie. If "fear" was a bad thing then there would be more links warning people on how dangerous it is right? Now Google the words scam, AIDS or something you perceive as bad and I promise you that there will be more negative results than when you look up the word fear. Fear is one of those double edged swords in life that come at you, what is important is how you react. Fear for me pushes me to stand strong, not give up and it motivates me to respond. How many feelings require a response? I'd be willing to be not a lot do but then again I am a man and my wife does repeatedly tell me how few emotions I have or understand but in this case I'd be willing to bet i'm right. So if it's fear that's holding you back from your dreams then your placing blame in the wrong hands, fear is an emotion and it isn't always rational so keep that in mind when your scared of something. Being afraid of falling out of the sky and hitting a mountain at 300mph is rational if you fly everyday but feeling fear about whether or not North Korea will fire nuclear missiles at your home is irrational because there is no precedent for that and unless you are the president of the United States of America, then you really shouldn't think so highly of yourself, +Kim Jung Il isn't after you, I promise.

So buying one way tickets to anywhere is exhilarating, eye opening and promising. I'm about to buy two sets of one way tickets. One set from San Antonio Texas to Dublin Ireland the second set from Dublin Ireland to Rome Italy. Where we go after that and what we will do after that is all a mystery to me but from what my theatre arts teacher once told me, "Mysteries attract smart people because they like to solve puzzles." Well smarty pants, what do you think so far? I'd like to know how i'm viewed up to this point so anyone willing to be honest, shoot me a message or comment. Until then keep coming back for more updates, I've got a scheduling issue to resolve before I buy the tickets but I should have them before the end of the day so we'll see how my post sounds tomorrow when my bank account is half empty. We are down to the last 12 days or so people, things on this site are about to start getting a lot more interesting, stay tuned!!

UPDATE** 4/29/13 0130**
In the event anyone is looking for another site to use to look for flights, I'd suggest using them all but make sure you add THIS one to your tool kit. I had never heard of it until my brother in law living in Dublin told me about it and it blows away the american companies when it comes to flights from the good ole USA to the other side of the pond. We have also found the airline Ryanair to be a very inexpensive airline too.