MUSINGS Gullible’s Travels

Gullible’s Travels


Ciara Galvin

When it comes to venturing beyond the shores of Ireland, whether for an exotic holiday or an extended stay in a far-flung destination, I am sure of one thing: My family will be anxious.
‘Will she be able to make that connecting flight?’, ‘Does she know what terminal to go to?’ and ‘Has she her passport?’ These are just some of the questions I will undoubtedly expect to hear whispered around the homestead before a possible departure.
Take my trip back in 2007 for instance. Planning a journey to my sister in Australia, the roomies were getting nervous at the slightest mention of skippy or Summer Bay. The day to depart arrived and I had a queasy feeling in my stomach, but I couldn’t tell whether it was nerves or the aftermath of the leaving drinks the night before. In true male roomie fashion, Pops needed me to help him, ‘for just two minutes’. Mmmm, nothing like holding a ladder for 20 minutes in the heat before embarking on a 26 hour, 12,000 mile journey!
That said, after leaving a teary Mom, and shedding one or two myself (bearing in mind I was going for three weeks), we were off. At the airport the male roomie nearly asked the airline to designate a flight attendant to me, as they do when children are flying by themselves. I was 19.
On landing in Abu Dhabi, I had to show my initiative, so of course, I followed the people I recognised from my flight, assuming they were getting the exact connecting flight I was. Yes, I could have ended up in the queue for Kuwait, but I took my chances and a nice Irish couple led me to the correct gate. With my sister’s warnings ringing in my ear, ‘Don’t leave your bag down, and don’t talk to strangers’ (she was afraid her baby sis would unknowingly get duped into being a drugs mule), I sat beside my gate armed with a Harry Potter book looking like a lost seven year-old.
But wait, it gets better. On the return trip, in some sort of James Bond-esque move in a severely hungover state, I sashayed through passport control, into departures and up to my gate … without an actual ticket. Reflecting back, if indeed I had been turned into a drug mule, I would have made a pretty exceptional one.
Tweaking something wasn’t right, I approached a help desk to explain my situation. In complete disbelief, the lady said this was impossible and that there was no way I could have got past passport control into departures. In one ‘ta-da’ type movement I managed to prove her claims null and void, and she kindly arranged for the ticket to be brought to my gate. Turns out that when passing passport control, the young man behind the counter mistook my old ticket for a current one.
But don’t we all have some of these blonde moments? For instance, a friend, who will remain nameless, was convinced the currency in Turkey was called ‘the potato’. And a number of years ago a man who had just moved to the Big Apple, replied to a New York deli worker’s inquiry as to what type of spread he wanted on his sandwich with, ‘‘Ya, Ballinrobe, how’d ya know?’ He was dumbfounded that she knew he was from ‘Mayo’.
Some mother’s do ’ave em, eh?

In her fortnightly Diary of a Home Bird column, Ciara Galvin reveals the trials and tribulations of a twenty-something year old still living with her parents.