Flying out – 9 Days to Start Line

Well that was terrible. Just stepped into a hostel in Dublin after an awful 24 hours or 26 or something, I don’t even know how long it’s been – the math gets weird once you start going back and forth across time zones. After the stress of last-minute (literally) packing and moving, we thought we were running late for the flight. We were to fly out of Oakland airport, about 2 hours away with traffic. Luckily, the plane was also running late. Unluckily, that meant we would run into problems with our transfer flights. Luckily, our transfer flight from Barcelona to London was to be late, too. Unluckily, since our flight from London to Dublin was a self transfer, if we were to miss it, we’d be kinda screwed on the rest of our plans. Somehow it all worked out. Leaving Oakland, the plane banked North, climbing out of the California Central Valley. Bright flashes were going off below us, municipal firework displays over the bright lights of the city, and smaller illegal fireworks over the dimmer suburbs, and the occasional roman candle out in the darker rural areas. It was as if all those below us were sending us off.