I arrived at Newark airport filled with nerves and Ruby Tuesday's (a sort of 'last supper' with my parents before they sent me off). I had gotten there hours in advance due to my obsessive nature and my father's neurotic driving and now all there was to do was wait. Luckily, my friend Erin was there to accompany me in what was to be the longest 24 hours of our lives. Our flight arrived 20 minutes late, a detail we did not think much of until we landed in Scotland 6 hours later with only 15 minutes left to catch our connecting flight. We later learned that the gates to our connecting flight had closed before our plane had even landed but before that useful fact was known, we sprinted through the airport desperate to try and catch our flight. Our demise came when a cheerful Scottish Customs worker told us our flight had already left. He said this in such a cheery tone that it sounded as if he was going to part the Red Sea of people in front of us and get us an express pass to get on our flight. Once his words truly dawned on us, we were filled with dread. How on earth were we going to get to Ireland now?
We went to the customer service desk to find that the airline only makes that flight once a day from Scotland and that we were going to have to get a flight to Cork instead, four hours later. So we spent most of the day in an airport in Scotland waiting for what seemed like an eternity. After we landed in Cork we took a 4 hour bus to Galway and arrived around 10pm, a full 10 hours later than we were supposed to arrive. Despite all our misfortune and sleep deprivation, we made it out okay. Ireland seemed to be testing us in ways we could not have imagined and it was only day one. I am happy to say that I have yet to have a day worse than my arrival date. Having that experience showed me that not everything about studying abroad was going to be sunshine and butterflies but it most definitely will be a journey.
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AuthorI'm Angelisa. I am studying at NUI Galway for the semester and writing about my experience. Archives
June 2017
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