Not all who wander...

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be the blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
~ J. R. R. Tolkien

I have to say that I didn't start off Friday morning with the greatest of moods. But having to go to work early for a meeting will rarely put you in a happy frame of mind. But after the meeting, the MDM, chats with my besties, 3-monthly intern assessment meeting, and dispersion of cookies, I was heading outta hospital for a week of holidays. Ah freedom! Freedom, by the way, tastes shockingly like more Christmas cookies. I really ought to apologise to my roomie (and her waistline) for the continuous onslaught of holiday foods... But they taste SO good!

I spent the better part of the afternoon baking, cleaning, doing laundry, packing... Maybe now is a good time to shamefully admit that I forgot to pack any socks; Target here I come. Then I sat with my finger poised over the start button of the microwave as my concert-companion was stuck in the horrendous Dublin traffic. But he got in with plenty of time to spare, and plenty of time to eat (I really need to keep on experimenting with my cooking, it's working out pretty well, I think).

Now, if it's possible for all my bad luck for the year to be compressed into 48 hours, I think it was. In a day or two, I'll be laughing about it, but I'm not quite there yet. So we headed out for the Coronas concert at the Olympia. I have to say, the two openers were really good. If you like the slightly off beat bands, check out Miracle Bell (they've a free single at the moment). I was pleased enough with the two openers that I didn't freak out completely at what followed... The Coronas came out and started their set. Perhaps 5 songs in, the power failed. The whole theater lost power. Not just the Olympia, but the 2 block radius surrounding on Dame Street was without power. They gave it about 10 minutes... no power. So the lads came out with acoustic guitars, a tambourine, 3 violins, and a cello and performed another 3 songs by flashlight. It must have been hell on their voices to be heard without so much as an amp.

With still now power, management kindly told us that they would be rescheduling the concert or we could return our tickets to point of sale for a refund. Bummer. Concert was promptly rescheduled for Tuesday night, when I'd be out of the country... More Bummer. And let's be honest, what are the chances that I could make it to a TicketMaster box office before the concert to try to get my money back? (Please let us remember that I had an early flight the next morning). Mega Bummer. I think I would have been really ticked off had my partner in crime not spent the majority of the walk home singing :) Totally kept a smile on my face. It was actually a ridiculous night. But a good one. And one I won't soon forget. Plus, now Sinead can go see the Coronas play too!

Back to the flat, tidied up, went to bed for an early trans-atlantic flight... Woke up, went to shower, and subjected myself to about 30 seconds of ice-cold water before giving up on there being any hot water. PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Dear people of Dublin - 1) running your taps is not going to keep the water mains from freezing. 2) running your taps involves letting the faucet drip about once every minute, you only need one tap in the whole house to do this... would you please, for the love, stop running your faucets like river?! We are back in drought conditions... And I get up for work around 5am. This whole no-hot-water before 7am is not going to fly.

This is about where things turned... the cold non-shower. Foreshadowing the cold to follow. Flew from Dublin to Atlanta, which is an extremely long flight for those of you who've never taken it. Landed in Atlanta, checked the screens, ATL-MSP on time. Sweet. Walked over to my gate. Screen says "Dear Liz, sorry, but you're screwed." In other words, no delay, just straight up canceled. Boo. I ring Delta. Never fear, you've been re-booked for tomorrow from ATL to Dayton to MSP. o_O Dayton? Really? Isn't there a massive storm passing through the midwest? And wouldn't it be prudent not to be STUCK IN DAYTON TOMORROW?! Ah, yes, good point, we've re-booked you on a flight to Memphis that leaves in an hour, and then you go from Memphis to MSP tonight at 7pm.

Small flight to Memphis later and the MSP airport is closed. First time in 19 years... 17 inches fell with 30+ mph winds, and they could only maintain one runway. Disaster. Also, please feel free to check out the video of the Metrodome caving in!



Insane! So Delta will get me a bit of a discount at a dodgy Memphis motel just around the corner from the airport. Great. That's what I've always wanted to do. Sandwiched between a vacant lot, a semi-tractor-trailer loading warehouse, a flight path overhead, and with a liquor store across the street, I felt warm and fuzzy all over. On the bright side, I can now cross "Stay in a shady Graceland motel" off the bucket list. Ok, it's not on my bucket list, but I may just add it in so I get the satisfaction of crossing it off. Boom.

Jet-lag had me awake around 2am, so I made my way back to the airport at 5. I was hoping to make it on the 6am straight to MSP, but no such luck. Instead, at 9:35am I took a school bus with wings to Tulsa, OK. Then 20 minutes later was headed Tulsa to MN.

I think we landed in another zipcode, because it was a 15 minute taxi followed by a 15 minute wait for the jetbridge before we could get off the plane. And just a small heads up to those of you without the diesel blood of those raised in a town that has proper cold winters: gate checking a bag means you wait IN THE JET BRIDGE for the bag to come up. If you've packed your coat, it's going to be cold. Suck it up or huddle together for warmth, but if you think the jet bridge is cold, wait till you get outside!

Nearly home, I was less than surprised to find that my bag had not made the various transfers with me. Great. Even though I'd forgotten my socks, now I had no clothes. *sigh* Thankfully, I keep a stash of emergency clothes at home. They don't really fit me any more, but in a bind, they'll do! So my mom and I went off to see the new Narnia movie in 3D before dinner.

Now I'm home. There's about 5 ft of snow on the ground. It's -10* (-25 with windchill)... and that's in Fahrenheit. Brr! And I'm happy. There will be celebration of my dad's birthday (he's an old dude now!), there will be a ton of baking, there will be family, and friends, and an early Christmas... and there will be a lot of sleeping and sitting by the fire doing very little. I'm excited. I'm really really excited.

So I'm done wandering for the moment. Now I'm going to hunker down and enjoy the weather. And I'm going to cross my fingers that there's not enough snow in Dublin to delay my return. Because, and I mean this with the utmost respect. I HATE the Atlanta airport.

More pictures to follow!