Expired Travels

I'll be the first to admit that I am horribly inept when it comes to public transport. Trains enjoy altering their schedules when they see me coming, buses LOVE to drive off without me, routes spontaneously change at the mention of my name and I even manage to mess up when it comes to taking a taxi (I once spent twenty minutes showing a taxi driver how to work his speedometer-price thingy, just so I could exit his car and get on with my life). Since getting into college, I seem to have mastered SOME bus routes but my subconscious is still waiting patiently for the time when I will end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with no logical explanation as to how I got there.
So long story short? Public transport is most definitely not my closest friend.
And here's the story of the biggest fight we ever had...

I was in my last year of school and in the process of checking out different colleges to see where I should apply to for the next year. My heart was pretty much set on UCD but one place that also really captured my interest was the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT) on Kill Avenue in Dun Laoghaire. The open day was taking place on a Saturday and I was eager to go and see what the campus was like. Now, for most people, getting there would be no big deal. Well-serviced by several different buses and only twenty minutes away from the city centre of Dublin if you were to take the train, IADT should have been pretty easy to find. The helpful directions on the college's website also contributed to making it almost impossible NOT to locate. In other words, it would take a pretty exceptional type of nutjob to get lost on the way there...

Well, that's me alright...

The problems started when a friend and I made plans to go to the IADT open day together. Well...that's what I THOUGHT was happening but we experienced a breakdown in communication somewhere along the way. Turns out that the IADT open day and the NUI Maynooth open day were both on the same Saturday so that's how the confusion took place. The chaos then took place the next morning.

I had explained to my friend that I had a huge incompetence problem when it came to modes of transportation that were not being driven by my parents so he assured me that he'd look after everything to do with us getting there. We met at the train station at some horribly early hour (I think it was around 8:00am) and when he got there, I asked him where I was buying a ticket to.
"Maynooth," he replied.
Due to my geographical stupidity, I saw nothing wrong with purchasing a ticket to the OTHER side of where I needed to go.
"Maynooth?" I remember saying. "That's a weird place to buy a ticket to, isn't it?"
He gave me a strange look (I don't blame him) and then we proceeded to walk into the station and buy our tickets. The ticket barrier thing was broken so we just strolled right onto the platform and onto the train.
Just so you get an idea of how disastrous the decision to buy a ticket to Maynooth was, here is a map of my incompetence...
          

My friend looked up from his iPod and smiled at me.
"What course do you want to look into in Maynooth?"
A question of doom.
"Maynooth? Don't you mean IADT?"
An answer of idiocy.

"No...I'm going to Maynooth."
"......what?"
"Aimee, why do you think we bought tickets to Maynooth?"
"I have no idea, I was trusting your judgement!!!!"
"Uh, I think you should get off this train..."
"OK but where do I even go?"
"Dunno. Hey, where is Dun Laoghaire anyway?"
"Are you kidding me??? I'm Aimee!!!! I don't know where stuff is!!!!"
I was beginning to feel pretty nervous but we were coming close to Connolly Station (the biggest station in Dublin) and I knew that if I got out there, I'd be able to find someone who could help me. Or at least I THOUGHT so...

I bid my friend goodbye, thanked him for getting me this far and got off the train...where I was met with the very embodiment of confusion.

Connolly Station is a big place. And like most big things (e.g. grizzly bears), they are scary when you don't know anything about them. So while most people would have just sat down for a few minutes to compose their thoughts, I stood frozen to the spot for several long moments, doing nothing but feeling the waves of fear and perplexity that were being projected from the metaphorical Connolly Grizzly Bear. I then tried to read the electronic timetable board but it too just produced waves of mystification. 

Eventually, I decided that the best thing to do would be to locate an information desk. I ambled around until I found one but then realized that it was facing out to the public which means that I would have had to exit through the barriers to talk to whoever was in there. That would have meant swiping my ticket and I wasn't sure if I should do that...just in case the machines in the barrier recognised my ticket to Maynooth as being void or something like that. Then the machine would beep and I'd have to explain to Connolly Grizzly Bear officials that I was an incompetent fool with the tendencies of a clueless idiot. So I think I kind of just stood there for a little while, waiting for something to happen. And then, a miracle...

A man had jammed his bike into one of the barriers while trying to exit the platform and it was now stuck. A Connolly worker was helping him to get it out and I just sidled nonchalantly over, leaned carefully on the barrier and casually asked "sorry chap but what train to I take to get to Dun Laoghaire?" I would like to take this opportunity to point out that I had never used the word "chap" in a sentence before and probably never will again. Why did I do it then? I can honestly say that I don't have a clue. But it wouldn't be the only time my voice would do odd things on that day...
Anyway, the worker (who was preoccupied by the whole bicycle situation) distractedly told me to get on a train to Greystones and so off I went. Bye Connolly Grizzly Bear!

I was feeling pretty proud of myself as the train rumbled down the tracks towards Dun Laoghaire. I had actually managed to combat my own silliness by navigating my way to where I needed to go...all by myself! But then the train pulled into Blackrock and I saw the poster of disastrous calamity. Basically, it said that if you didn't have a valid ticket you'd be subject to serious fines, severe action and probably someone calling your mom. I honestly don't know what I had been planning to do when I got to Dun Laoghaire Station but once I actually DID arrive, a devious plan immediately sprang to mind when I saw a station worker standing on MY side of the barriers with a master card.
I was going to do what nearly everybody has done at one point in their lives when they think they can get away with it.
I was going to cry.

I barely remember what I even said to him but it was something along the lines of being a poor, delicate creature who had purchased the wrong ticket and was very sorry. I think he assumed that I was menstrual and/or a raving lunatic because all he did was give me a look of sheer panic before swiping his master card to let me out.

I had another brief misadventure getting to the actual college via a bus. Having never been in Dun Laoghaire town before, I had no idea where I was going but I remember that a nice girl with a pink mohawk helped me out when I told her that I was pretty sure I had missed my stop (I had...severely). But I EVENTUALLY got to the campus, had a mosey around, went to a few introductory talks, gathered some brochures, talked to a few module coordinators and left again. The bus trip back to the train station was fairly uneventful but while on the bus, I worried about what I was going to do. Obviously, the barrier machines would recognise my ticket as being invalid and I'd be in trouble...even though the purchase of my ticket had been an honest mistake. I decided to leave it all up to fate and so when I got to the station, I just walked straight up to the ticket desk and opened my mouth.

That was when I started speaking in an English accent.

"Excuse me? 'ello there, I was wonderin' if you could help me out."
The man behind the desk looked up and smiled politely at the young "English" woman standing before him.
"Yes? How can I help you?"
Why are you talking in an English accent? my sanity curiously asked me.
"I'm afraid I've gotten myself into a bit of bother."
Did you just say what I think you just said?
"Oh, really? What's happened?" the man inquired sympathetically.
Please go back to an Irish accent now...PLEASE. He might think you're crazy and let you through out of fear...like the last man.
"Well, my family and I are staying in north Dublin and I came here to visit my cousin Julie."

Who the fuck is Julie? And WHY does your imaginary cousin need a name???
"But I've just realized now that I bought a ticket to the wrong place this mornin'...I bought one to Maynooth like a bloody idiot!"
You are going back and forth between a London accent and a Mary Poppins accent...you do realize that, right?
"Alright...well, where are you trying to go now?" the man asked me.
"I'm just tryin' to get back to where me family are."
This is waaaaaay worse than you saying "chap" earlier on...
"OK, well I'll open the barriers for you now," he said, pressing a button behind the desk. "And if you run into an inspector on the trains, just get them to ring Dun Laoghaire train station and we'll tell them we're aware of the situation."
I would just like to stop here and say that it was extremely kind-hearted and nice of this man to do such a thing for me.
Especially since I was obviously a complete weirdo with an accent disorder.
"Thank you so much love!"
And off I trotted through the barriers.

I took that train as far as Connolly, switched to one back to my hometown and arrived there shortly after 1:00pm. The barriers were still broken there as they had been in the morning which means that I didn't swipe my ticket A SINGLE TIME that day.

And so ends the story of how I negotiated my way around Dublin with nothing but an invalid ticket and an English accent.