UK Adventure Part 1: Traveling Alone

Some people like traveling alone.

Not me.

The reality of traveling alone is that you have no one to watch your bags for you when you go to the bathroom and you have to awkwardly maneuver them into a tiny stall with you. You can listen to music, watch a movie, or read a book, but you have no one to talk to for hours, either in the airport and on the plane. You have to ask a complete stranger or strangers to move so you can get past them and go to the airplane restroom (yes, I know that’s the second time I’ve mentioned the restroom in one paragraph). You also have no one to commiserate with about how the plane is too hot or too cold or delayed, and when you get wherever you’re going, you have no one to accompany you as you stash your bags at the hostel and sally forth to explore Dublin.

(I get that I could talk to other people around me, and sometimes I do. But it’s never the same as actually traveling with someone. The story where strangers meet at an airplane terminal and fall in love would never have worked out for me.)

So, I have a story about traveling alone. This was September 2019, and I was flying to Ireland to meet my boyfriend, Bobby, after he attended a conference in Spain. However, with the way our flights worked out, I had a night and the better part of a day in Dublin by myself before Bobby showed up.

The flight went smoothly enough, minus the way that the two backpacks I was carrying (curse you, tiny Irish planes and your luggage size limits) failed to balance each other out. One on the front and one on the back sounds like a better idea than it is.

But finally I’m there in Ireland, stumping up to my little Irish hostel across a bridge from downtown Dublin (The Times Hostel—College Street, if you’re curious). My roommates and I silently nodded at each other and then proceeded to ignore each other’s existence as I padlocked my things in a cage under the bed. But it was okay that I had no one to talk to because I was PREPARED and I had something FUN to do that evening: see a legendary Riverdance performance.

And let me tell you, Riverdance was great. We were in this cramped little theatre that was so non-COVID friendly that it makes me woozy thinking about now, and I was on the balcony aisle seat (so I wouldn’t have to crawl over anyone to get to the restroom—yes, yes, I know) with a nice family on my other side. There wasn’t a story to the Riverdance that I could follow, exactly, but the music was gorgeous and the dancing was wonderful and the whole performance had this mystical, ethereal feel. The only bad part was that I was so jetlagged that I dozed off a few times. (Now see, if you travel with someone, they can poke you when that happens. The nice family just wasn’t going to do that.) And then I walked home from Riverdance to my hostel by myself, speed-walking and vaguely scowling at everyone because it was Dublin and I was 5’3”, a woman, and alone, so giving an F-off vibe seemed like a good defensive move. In retrospective, maybe I should have brought pepper spray, but my quart bag of liquids had already been bursting at its plastic seam, so whatever.

The next morning, when I woke up, I got out the little pad of sticky notes that Bobby had given me before he left for Spain (a whole six days before!). He had written me a note for every day that we would be apart, and the today’s said, in capital letters, “SEE YOU TODAY!”

I spent the morning rediscovering Dublin (I had been there before). I went on a free city tour, which I highly recommend if you’re ever there. The tour guides are excellent, and by the end, even though you don’t have to, you’ll want to tip them. You also get a different kind of tour based on the tour guide you get. That was my second time going on the city tour, and our group had a great discussion about past and current Irish politics that day. Sadly, I had to peel off before it was over to grab a gyro, pick my bags, and then go stand on a pre-appointed corner to wait for Bobby to pick me up.

Neither Bobby nor I had international phone plans, so we relied on having internet at various locations, mainly hotels and airports, for communication. As my hostel was not a road you could really drive on, we had previously decided on a nearby corner for me to wait for Bobby to pick me up. The only issue was that once there, I had no internet and no way to be alerted if all didn’t go according to plan. I’m sure you see where this is going.

So I was standing there, on the corner next to this building’s sketchy little back parking lot, plenty early in case Bobby was too. It was drizzling—not enough to be miserable, but enough that everything is wet. There was nowhere to sit down, so I alternated between a tree that provided a little shelter and the corner proper where I could see cars better. I had my headphones in, listening to Being Sloane Jacobs on audiobook, and though I kept checking the time and every car that drove past, it got to the appointed pickup time and—no Bobby.

I waited. And waited. And waited. Wondered if I should go back to the hostel and text Bobby, but then I might miss him, and then we’d have no way of connecting. And unless he was currently still at the airport, he wouldn’t have any internet to text me back anyway. I leaned against the small wall that ran even with the sidewalk—under the tree, where it wasn’t too wet. I let my audiobook play, hands in my pockets and headphones snaking up under the hood of my rain jacket. I knew everything was likely just fine, but what if there had been a car accident? Or if Bobby couldn’t get the car? He could be hours behind schedule and have no way to tell me. Since I was alone (see! This is why traveling alone sucks!), I had nothing to do except pray, stay put, and wait.

Finally, over an hour past when he was due, a pint-sized car drove up, a man with facial hair and sunglasses behind the wheel. When you’ve been alone in a foreign country and then your boyfriend shows up, everything changes. Suddenly, you’re in this together and it’s an adventure of epic proportions instead of an exercise in keeping yourself alive, entertained, and not lost. Also, it was the longest I’d gone without seeing Bobby since I met him, and okay, it’s cheesy, but all I wanted to do was throw myself at him and hug him for a long time—especially since I’d been sincerely worried for his welfare.

Unfortunately, Irish roads weren’t built with romantic reunions in mind, so I had to settle for throwing my bags in the back and diving into the front seat so we could merge back into traffic (turns out, a delayed flight and driving issues were what had held him up). I couldn’t give him a hug, but there would be time for hugs later. I wasn’t alone anymore, and we had an entire week in the UK ahead of us.

Spoiler alert: it was awesome.

Check back next week for a continuation of our UK journey—next stop, Doolin!

We found a random abandoned castle and graveyard on our way west