Month: December 2013

So, remember that phone tree I told you about in an earlier installment? Well, when we got set up in that first hotel outside of Shannon I took a minute to call my wife who was the first branch of the tree, and she sent it on to the next person, and so forth and so on. However, unbeknownst to me there was a breakdown in the process after the fourth person was called. Of course what that meant was that all of the parents on the bottom part of the tree didn’t get the word that we were there safely. And they were incensed, but I knew nothing about it until that next day while we were on the bus heading to Limerick and Killarney. One of the students had gotten in contact with her mother who was lower on the phone tree, and she had gotten an earful about not letting anyone know she was safely there; then I got on the phone with her and received another earful.

And I could understand what she was saying. I too was frustrated by what happened on the tree, and I promised her something like that wouldn’t happen again. The only way I thought I could do it was to call her as the start of a second tree, effectively ending the first tree with the person who hadn’t called along. It was a pain, but I knew the most important thing was to make sure parents were informed or I would get another earful. It was the burden of being a leader. Like Spider-Man said, “With great power comes great responsibility,” or something like that. I was learning as I went. As our bus pulled away from Killarney in the wee hours of the morning on the third day, headed to Dublin, I was deep into planning our “free day” in the capital city, a place that had been one of my favorites during my honeymoon.

We were also starting to gel as a group, forming some inside jokes and being more relaxed with each other. Intermittently our tour guide would give us some information on some obscure facts and historical notes. He would also lead us in some rounds of songs. About halfway to Dublin we stopped at some ruins that were beyond amazing. It was a series of buildings in massive disrepair, but they were obviously old, and we took a bunch of pictures there. And get this: it hadn’t rained at all during the first three days of our Irish journey. It made me think of the old Enya album, A Day Without Rain, which was ironic because it rains nearly every day in Ireland, so yes, it was strange, but we were enjoying it immensely, being able to sightsee without that over our heads. Our tour guide told us we had only an hour in the ruins, so we took off in separate groups to explore. I went with one of my other chaperones and eight students to the ruins farther off and we took some amazing photos there. It was easily one of the highlights. Continue reading “You Call This a Shower?: Part 5”