Weeks leading up to the "Trip"

Government agencies, you have to hate them. Plans made and we still have to push the buttons to get the right people to respond.

Case in Point; One day Juris's boss called and said "you need to be trained, no, not toilet trained, software trained", "go to England, do not pass go, do not collect $200.00". Now Juris being a wild and crazy guy suggested I grab my passport and come along and go visit Lynda and Maggs in Northern Ireland. Sound easy right? Wrong. I am a Canadian, I am married to an American, and I am living in the United States of America. Nothing is easy when it comes to bugging the right person in a different country.. trust me. After reading the Government of Canada website, where it says they pride themselves in a 20 working day turn around for passports and this being November 23, I mistakenly thought, easy peasie. I rushed out, got my photos taken, grabbed reference letters, birth certificate, marriage certificate, enclosed a cheque for my courier fees for the incoming passport (to me). Our first panic was UPS was on strike in Canada, so we did a quick search and realized we could use Fed Ex. All pertinent information enclosed, cheque and birth certificate attached, envelope sealed, Juris rushed to the Fed Ex drop off for an overnight trip to Gatineau Quebec, Canada on November 26. Receiver General of Canada cashed my cheque on November 29 and life was good. 20 working days is all they stated.. 20.. yes 18, 19, 20.. you know - count your fingers and toes and that's how many days its supposed to take which means I should have my passport in my hot little hands by December 23, 2004. WRONG.. life is never that easy for me.. Christmas eve, Christmas day, Boxing Day, December 27 (legal holiday in Canada this year) go by, and nothing. So I find the phone number and call and a nice young lady said "you should have your passport by the first week in January its in the line to be processed". Well I made a big sigh of relief and thanked her for all her help. So I sat tight and waited for the 3rd of January expecting my passport, nothing, January 4th I tried to call and ended up in a phone queue so long it wouldn't let me speak with anyone, something to do with they only allow so many people in the queue else the wait is too long. I spent all day on the phone, and kept trying to call back, getting frustrated and scared, wondering what was going to happen and semi freaking out and making Juris a bit edgy. The plan was to fly out on Saturday at 2:00 from Grand Rapids and here it was 4 days before I am due to leave and still nothing in the mail and the phone was not helping me in the least. January 5, the day was bright and shiny and I was just dying for a fight, we stood to lose over $800.00 for this trip and Canada Customs were not helping. I sat with the phones on redial and dialed forever and a day. Finally got up to 1st place in the queue and waited and waited, was hung up on and redialed and waited and waited - I was not taking no again and needed answers immediately if not sooner. Finally the phone call goes through and the young man told me that he had no clue what was going on - all the questions had been answered, I explained that I had two days to get my passport as my flight was on Saturday. He immediately put me through to a very nice man with a French accent that did his very best to help me. He also couldn't tell me why there was a holdout on the processing but if I sent him my itinerary he would get right on my passport and have it shipped to me the next day. It is not like I didn't believe him, but why should I trust this man who works for my government and lets face it - their 20 days were up ages ago and I still didn't have my passport. I decided to fax him my plane ticket and itinerary and he phoned back and gave me the tracking number. Yes gang, I did have my passport in my hot little hands finally one full day before we were due to take off.

With all this fiasco going on, I was having issues with sleeping. For days and days and days I have been having problems and wondering if I was ever going to get a good night sleep (course the hot flashes are weaved into the restless nights)

"Day of Trip"

I get up at the crack of dawn around 6 a.m. so I can host my coffee chat, I trip over the carpet in the dining room, stub three toes, cry a little, but didn't spill my coffee on the new carpet. LIFE IS GOOD! Lynda and I discussed the airport issue, yes Belfast has two airports, and yes justdar is directionally challenged and easily confused and got that all sorted out. After my chat, jumped into the shower, got dressed and then remembered I needed to pack my ole suitcase. I have an overnighter or maybe a three nighter suitcase but there is no way I can put enough clothes in this baby for 2 weeks and carry over a few treats for my Irish friends. What to do?? what to do?? Another easy answer, cause Lord knows I don't want to run to the store and buy a freakin suitcase, so I call up my step son and borrow his Australian suitcase and bonus, he will drop it off. LIFE IS GOOD! I get packed and make sure Juris is packed (course he's much more efficient then me and can live in his mini suitcase) and we sit around waiting our ride to the airport. 11:30 rolls around and Steve (younger brother of husband) picks us up to take us to the airport. While on our way, I let Steve knows that if the plane goes down, where my important information is, who to contact, where my insurance policies are and am being a general pain in the butt. I am for some reason sure this was going to be a plane goes down situation and wanted to make sure everything was semi taken care of. Yes I believe I was being a fatalist why? Who knows, could be lack of weeks of no sleep and no passport and just nervousness. Get to the airport 2 hours ahead of flight time, which we were told we HAD to be, to get through security. No problem, we get our boarding passes and get to security and guess what? If you ever look at your boarding pass, you will notice that on the bottom right corner its usually blank, well mine is not blank, mine has a series of SSSSS .. which means ….. YES, full security check. So I go to the "other" line and take off coat, boots, making sure I have no extra stuff to make the wand beep, and clear the security, no issue. The gal in the line showed me that the SSSs were their flag to pull anyone over for the full body inspection. Now aren't I just so lucky! (not). We had to sit around the airport for 2 hours and let me say this Grand Rapids airport is a small airport, has one store and a few fast food outlets and to have to sit for 2 hours is crazy. Finally they call our flight and we board the plane for our trip to Chicago and away we go. Flight was uneventful and we get to O'Hare airport, and have to run from American Airlines side to British Airways side. The run was good (not) and this airport is huge, beyond huge, and busy and check our BA boarding passes and yes I have the SSSS on these ones. We stand in the security line, which I think probably had easily 400 people in line. It was taking forever, and we still hadn't eaten and had to go to the Duty free and pick up some more treats for Lynda. We had enough time in this line to eat a stand up lunch, buy treats in the Duty Free hang out. 2 hours later, we are through the line and I am at security again. This time Security is a bit more stressed, a bit bitchier, and a bit more anxious. They inspect my body for about 3 or 4 minutes and I mean a touchy feeling kind of body search and I am panicking cause they left my purse in a box while doing this inspection and its out of my sight and Juris has gone through and I know he's watching but folks walking by can easily pick it up and voila - no purse, no passport, no Green card, no identification, all gone like the wind. Finally after getting me all excited for nothing, they let me go and purse is fine and away we get to our gate. We board our flight and voila away we go. I am in the aisle seat cause I am a bit claustrophobic and Juris is two seats over (thank God no one sat between us). We take off and I have never been on a plane that had personal Video screens for each seat, I was enthralled by this. I cannot only watch movies; I can watch our plane flight.

Awesome, this is infinitely more interesting then the pocketbook I brought. We take off and the only show is our flight path, groovy… I watch us fly out of Chicago, head over Grand Rapids (our home), travel past Sudbury, Ontario (my birth home) and head to the United Kingdom. The flight was smooth, only a bit of turbulence flying just south of Iceland and again flying over Belfast (my place of visiting) and finally land in London at Heathrow an hour ahead of time. The time is now 7 a.m. G.M.T. but that's only 2 a.m. my time and that I have only been up 18 hours, no biggie. I kiss Juris goodbye and head to the bus that will take me to Gatwick airport and on to Belfast; problem is my flight doesn't leave till 2 p.m. The bus ride was cool, seeing the landscape checking out the driving on the wrong (right) side of the road was all very interesting and took a bit longer then an hour to get there. I started to semi nod off in the bus cause it was nice and warm but woke myself up. I get to Gatwick at around 11 a.m. and I cannot pick up my ticket to Belfast till 12:30 so I sit in these seats and chat with folks flying in and out. Met a lovely lady and her daughter that were flying for a week to Tenerife, met a very nice older gentleman that wanted to go to Victoria British Columbia to visit with his uncle.

Finally I can get my boarding pass (no inspections this time) and get on the flight to Belfast. The flight was quick and we get to Belfast in less then an hour (I think - I am so tired by this time I have no clue what's going on) and go to baggage claim to find my bags and to find Lynda. Voila, both found in less then 20 minutes and my internal clock is saying its 11:00 a.m. my time and I have now been up 29 hours and still counting. Hugs all around with Lynda and we get to her place and the first thing I want to do is sleep, but our Lynda, our world traveler, knows that I shouldn't go to bed yet, so I persevere and fake it and sit and enjoy the company of Lynda and her sprogs. After our dinner (I think - remember I am not sure what time it is nor if I ate) we called our Maggs and were instantly invited over to her home. My time is now 3 p.m. my time which is 33 hours and still counting and am still awake and having a wonderful time visiting with Maggs and her hubby, but I am quickly fading into oblivion and Lynda decides its time to go home and I am thinking its around 10:00 GMT which is 5:00 pm my time and watch Father Ted. 30 minutes after watching this comedy, which is hysterical, I am ready to say goodnight. I went upstairs, didn't even brush my teeth, nor wash my face and just got into bed and fell asleep. I woke up a few times through the night with the awesome hot flashes (NOT) but still slept well.

My First Week in Belfast

1st Day. Oh wow, to wake up to the smell of fresh coffee what more can I say! Lynda had our coffee brewed and we laid out our plan for the day. Visiting the city of Belfast, the country of Northern Ireland has been a dream come true, and I am living it. We ate breakfast, had our showers, got dressed and went downtown, to visit the city proper of Belfast. We walked our feet off, enjoyed the shops, had lunch and still kept walking. I think more then anything the company of Lynda as my tour guide was what made this so special. She took the time to show me things, she translated for me (more then once) and was the perfect hostess that as my time went on she only got better. I now know that for example: if you are looking/talking about anything, it's not a SUV, it's a "wee" SUV, or it's not a bag for your groceries, it's a "wee" bag for your groceries. The people of Belfast are amazing. They have recovered from the terrorists that tried to destroy this lovely wee city for a lot of years and finding the people are still warm, friendly and passionate about their city amazing me. We visited a few of the lovely wee buildings in Belfast and did a bit of shopping at the Marks and Sparks store , had lunch at a real Irish pub and had a Guinness and headed home for dinner with the Sprogs. All in all this was a very lovely day, nothing too fast paced for me as I was still dragging a wee bit.

2nd Day. Spent time on the internet, talking to folks back home on MS Messenger, writing e-mails, visiting more with Lynda and her sprogs. Talked to Maggs, talked to Juris in Sheffield and planned for our next day. I spent time reading Coronation Street online to catch-up with this show that I haven't been able to see for 6 years and got to watch it tonight and catch up on the story line (well almost). One word of advice for any of you Pepsi drinkers - DO NOT DRINK diet Pepsi - its gross. I have always loved diet Pepsi and hated diet Coke, but I drank and enjoyed diet Coke more then the diet Pepsi.

3rd Day. We got up, got ready and went to pick up Lynda and Maggs mum. Elsie is a lively lady, quick sense of humour, and has a few good stories to tell. Headed to Belfast Castle, and had lunch, even though we couldn't figure out where they wanted us to eat. Upstairs, downstairs, just feed us!! Lunch was great, but mostly cause of the company I was keeping. Took some great photos of the garden and a few of the sitting area and the stairways and went outside to take more photos, but the wind was blowing so hard, I will bet it was around 50 m.p.h. and we were on a hill. A grand day, I met Elsie, had lunch in a Castle and I was in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

4th day. Lynda decided to take me to her work…. OMG she works with some great folk, but the language that came out of one of them even made me blush… stories were told and we sure laughed a lot. There was a wee lass celebrating her 40th birthday and I swear I wouldn't have said she was 30 - 32, she looked amazing. Great fun at Lynda's work place. By the way if Lynda ever claims she cannot cook, she is telling stories, she makes a great meal.

5th day. We were back in the city shopping again, with Maggs this time. Yes I was dragged into a naughty shop.. oh my.. they had earrings with things hanging off them, they had whips, they had dog collars, they had panty hose, they had bustiers, they had anything in your wildest imagination available to purchase. NO I didn't buy anything but I do think Maggs was hovering over by the cash register. Juris is flying out from Manchester this evening and of course we had to go over to Maggs so she could see her HuggaBugga (puke). We did though have a lovely visit with her and Brian.

6th Day, Today I ventured into another castle at Carrickfergus. We meandered all over the place, almost got blown away from the wind - this castle is built on a peninsula jutting out into the sea. The wind was blowing so hard, and it made the air just bitter. We spent more time wandering the halls and reading up on the exhibit. We did find the well (which we had been looking for) All in all it was a grand day. Tonight we went to have Indian food with Maggs, Lynda, Brian, Juris and I. I can't tell you what everyone ate, I just know we all ate very well and the food was especially delicious, cause of the company we were keeping.

7th day. Well Lynda, Juris and I went to Coshkib Hill Farm at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra, a recreation of how life was in Ireland 100 years ago. Lots of thatched roofs, teeny tiny mud floor houses, stores, court house, police museum, school house, farm houses Ducks, sheep (yes we even saw Wooly's relatives) goats were abundant and they seem to take a liking to our Lynda. (she's terrified of them ). We also walked so much that we sent Juris to pick up the Jeep, and he had to drive on the "other " side of the road and didn't cause any accidents!!

JustDar