Yesterday was my second Dublin disaster.
The first time my trip to Dublin with Intercomm fell through, it wasn’t so much of a disaster as a fortunate change of plans, as that was the day that I got to meet the Secretary of State.
Wednesday, though, was actually a bit of a disaster. My Intercomm co-worker Sean and I had planned to catch the 8 AM train to Dublin, which would put us in to the downtown at around 10 AM, in time for the two meetings he had scheduled with some of Intercomm’s partners. I was happy to tag along for the day, since I had been wanting to see Dublin for awhile and trips into the Republic on DukeEngage Belfast are best organized through work opportunities. We planned to meet up outside of Farset around 7:15 AM, so when the clock hit 7:30 I thought it was probably time to give him a call. He answered in a panic, having slept through all three of the alarms he set for the occasion! ”I even went to bed extra early”, he told me as he picked me up in the Farset parking lot around 8:30. ”I guess I just went into a deep sleep…” In any case, we decided, driving would probably work out better since we could see more of the sites of the city that way and return whenver we wanted instead of being bound to the rigid train schedule.
All was well for a time, and I closed my eyes for a few minutes as we rolled along the green countryside of Northern Ireland. Suddenly, the dashboard of the car emitted a loud beeping noise and Sean let out a cry of alarm!! The oil light had gone on and apparently the engine was overheating as well. We pulled over to the side of the road and opened the hood to let everything cool down for a bit. Sean discovered a dead bird from inside of the engine which was probably part of the problem, we reflected later. Still, the oil light remained on… Ultimately we decided that the trek into the Republic wasn’t worth the risk and so we turned around back to Belfast.
As we approached the city and the huge yellow cranes came into view, I felt a strange sense of relief. I would love to see Dublin at some point, but I was far from disappointed about spending another day in Belfast. After 6 weeks, I’m becoming comfortable here and as we drove up to Farset, I was even beginning to look forward to the restful day ahead and the chance to recover from the morning’s surprises! That afternoon, I had the chance to attend Akshatha’s going away lunch at WAVE Trauma Center as well. Although (sort of) disastrous, the day was far from a loss!
A starling, one of my favorite kinds of birds, and also the unfortunate victim of Sean's engine!