It’s a long way from Canberra to most places. Dublin is no exception. In fact I think it’s the second furthest I’ve traveled in a single block, the longest being Melbourne to Iceland.

Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, London, a brisk walk in shorts and a t-shirt between terminals, Dublin.

When I first booked tickets over 12 months ago it was the usual Canberra to Sydney to Singapore to London. Over the course of the next 12 months Qantas made something like 8 changes to my tickets – usually just a change in flight number at the same time between Sydney and Canberra on the return leg, then at some point they changed it completely from via Singapore to ‘direct’ via Perth.

There are a few different types of people milling around most gate lounges. Those who wander into the gate lounge with nothing except their passport in their pocket and a bag of duty free. Those with all their luggage stuffed into carry-on while wearing 2 jumpers and a coat, walking around with a neck pillow around their neck.

Then, there are those, like me, a backpack full of tech with enough TV shows, movies, music, and podcasts to last at least a 3 and a half week voyage, not just a 17 hour flight from Perth to London.

• Canberra to Melbourne – barely time to get through a single podcast.
• Melbourne to Perth – a couple of TV episodes, a quick meal, some of a podcast episode.
• Perth to London – Half a season of TV, a few meals, several podcasts episodes, some sleep.

Checking in for my flight to Dublin they managed to get me on a slightly earlier flight, but I still had enough time to find a lounge and take a shower and change my clothes, something I was very happy about, but I am sure anyone sitting next to me on the short flight to Dublin would have also appreciated.

I got to Dublin around 10AM. It was the morning after the night before, St Patrick’s Day, and as the taxi drove me from the airport to my hotel I think I saw at least 3 people taking their dogs out in their pyjamas. The whole city seemed a little tired.

When I got the hotel my room was not available, which was fine, I was about 5 hours ahead of check-in time. I put most of my luggage in the luggage room and paid for breakfast from the breakfast buffet thingy. They had most of the food groups covered, pastries, pork, beans, eggs. The coffee was from an automated machine, but not pod coffee.

As it was still a while before I could get into my room I decided to go for a walk near by. I was still sleepy and had no idea what timezone I was in. At the end of the street I managed to find an Australia pedestrian crossing button that had migrated here.

I walked around the outside of Trinity College. At this point of the day there were quite a few more people around. A high school student who was clearly on a class trip tried to stop and ask me some questions (quite a few were doing the same thing) but despite breakfast and coffee I wasn’t in the mood and made my excuses and kept walking. I did a loop up around St Andrew’s Church and Molly Malone.

On the way back down I wondered through Trinity and made a note of where the Book of Kells exhibit and the Old Library was.

Back at the hotel it was still before check-in time, so I got one of my bags out of storage with my laptop in it and found a comfy seat to wait in before they let me in my room (still before check-in, and the day after St Patrick’s day). I spent most of the evening plotting out places to go tomorrow in Dublin, all within walking distance, and booking tickets for the Book of Kells.

In the evening I walked the opposite way from the hotel, towards the River Liffey looking for food. In front of The Custom House fair ground rides were still setup from the night before, they were all gone the next day.

Outside my room at the hotel was an on-street charging point, something that is much more common in Europe than in Australia, as so many people don’t have off street parking at home, or anywhere to charge at home.

While it hadn’t been that long since I left home, I was very happy to make use of the washing machines in the hotel.