I figured I would give a rundown of my travel history – given in 3 parts. The first part is going to talk about my early family influence on my travel excluding our trips to Canada (I spoke of those last post).
My mother and father were not huge travelers. That being said, under their care, I did manage to see a lot of interesting places in America. Some of my favorite memories of my childhood involve my father’s mystery rides around the Upstate NY countryside. He would take us to see a ghost town in Pennsylvania or to an antique air show on the Hudson. We also would visit family in Michigan or Ohio. We did the obligatory family trip to Disney World. Once Molly went to Michigan State, we visited East Lansing; same with Sammy and West Point. The main factor in our travelling had to do with our travel swim team and a program called Destination Imagination.
Mom, Molly and I at the Beat Navy Tunnel in West Point
My sister and I started swimming competitively around the age of 7. We often would qualify for meets out of town. Some were as close as Rochester and Syracuse and others were as far away as Cleveland and Indianapolis. Typically, my mother would spring and get a hotel for us as swim meets always started VERY early in the morning and if we qualified for finals, we would stay until 9 or 10 at night. Although I really hated swimming and I rarely saw any significant part of the city we were in, this was my first taste of travel. We would stay in a motel and eat out every night. My mom would let us break our bedtime to swim and play in the hotel pool. The television was an adventure in its own – the channels never matched our channels at home. My favorite part of the trip was usually the drive. I found peace in the driving time. We might sing along to old show tunes or make up new songs or I might read or color or write. Sometimes I just stared out the window and invented stories in my imagination.
If swimming was my first taste of travel – destination imagination was the main course. DI was a creative problem-solving program that involved progressing to different levels of competition. If you came in first at the regional tournament you progressed to state tournament. If you won at states – you progressed to the global final tournament. I qualified 10 years in a row (it was the one club I was really good at). We would all pile into a van or a bus to Knoxville, Tennessee or Ames, Iowa for a week. Once we got there, we would be among teams from all 50 states and tons of other countries.
Team Jane enjoying downtime at Global Finals
The travelling experience was awesome but really it was meeting people from different cultures that fascinated me. I met people from Texas and Turkey and Brazil and Guatemala and Poland and China and South Dakota and South Korea. In Buffalo, NY – the most exotic people you come across are Canadians. At Globals, we got to learn about all of these cultures by first hand exposure. We would trade pins and tee-shirts with each other and take pictures of each other. Once I got home, I would find out more about where my new friends were from. My eyes were opened to all these different ways of life. I think that’s really when I knew I wanted to see more of the world.
Opening Ceremonies at Globals 2007
When I was 19, I got my very first chance to leave North American soil. My very-deserving mother won a trip to Mexico at a breast cancer benefit. However, this was right around the time of the swine-flu outbreak and my mother’s relatively fragile health prevented her from accepting the trip to Mexico. The amazing organizers of the benefit (Viva Salon in Orchard Park) told her – forget Mexico! Pick anywhere you want to go and we’ll send you. My mom picked Ireland.
My mom’s side of the family is very Irish (her maiden name is O’Shea). It was her dream to go to Ireland and explore her heritage. My cousin Michael and his husband Michael asked to come along. My sister Molly and Greg were in for the ride. The tough one was my father. Once my mother told him that we would be renting two cars and driving from place to place, my father was in for the adventure. He was pumped to drive on the wrong side of the road and to be there for this really important family vacation. The only regret we all have is that my other sister couldn’t get time out from her job in the military to come.
The Gang in St. Patrick’s Cathedral
We started in Dublin and enjoyed a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the city. We went to Trinity College, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Guinness Storehouse – I enjoyed my first legal pint and lots of fish and chips. We then had our first driving experience in Ireland. It seemed like a good idea at the time but in actuality – the driving was pretty terrifying. The roads were tiny and tensions were high. Thank goodness the town of Kilkenny took our breaths away with an absolutely amazing castle a stone’s throw away from our hotel. Our next stop (after we shuffled who was in which car) was Cork so we could kiss the Blarney Stone. This is where the single most hilarious family story I have took place.
Typical two way road in Ireland
The Blarney Stone is located at the top of a castle in County Cork. To kiss the Blarney stone, you must bend over backwards (literally) over a grate in the floor. When you get to the roof of the castle (around 7 floors up) the workers start to give you instructions: “take off your glasses, take off your hats!” We all scrambled to prepare for the most treacherous kiss of my entire life. My brother in law Greg went first because he was scared of heights. I went next. Then my mom went. There was a little bit of a commotion and my mother sat up from kissing the stone without her wig on. Yes – my mother lost her hair at the Blarney Stone.
Mom and Michael in Blarney Castle before the infamous kiss
My sister, always calm in a crisis, shouted to my unsuspecting father on the ground: “DAD! GET MOM’S HAIR! THE WIG! GET THE HAIR!” And there was the wig gently floating to the ground. My mother stood up and, as the saint that she was, she laughed. My cousin Michael popped a hat on her wigless head. We bought the picture at the bottom of the castle. My dad gave my mom her hair back. I will never forget that magical moment.
We stopped into the Dingle Peninsula and Limerick before we came home to the US but honestly the Blarney Stone was the climax of the trip. I remember thinking on the plane ride home: Will I ever go on a trip like this again? The answer turns out to be no. Even though every trip has it’s hilarious moment, the Blarney kiss goes down in my memory as my favorite travel moment so far.
One Day Away 