This week's Road to Steemfest subject is the physical road we'll all be making before we attend Steemfest.
Some of us will have a longer physical road ahead of them than others, traveling from far away places like the US, Asia or Australia. I am one of the fortunate ones that only travels from another country in Europe. Even that can be challenging, however, I do not admire those from the above mentioned places.
My physical road to Steemfest starts when I drop our dogs to the boarding kennel
This will be on the 5th of November. Our plane to Poland is not leaving until the 6th, however, it is early in the morning, so I have to plan everything else around it.
Since the kennel where the dogs will be on their luxury holiday (those people are amazing!), is about 15 miles from our house, I decided to bring them there early in the morning. My dogs are huge and very hairy, so it will give me some time to vacuum the car after I drop them off, so our stuff won't be covered in unwanted hair. (If you see me at Steemfest: I'll be the one with white dog hair stuck to my hoodie).
As always, my road to anywhere can't just be straightforward. When I was supposed to have the money for the plane tickets (from Dublin to Krakow), the flights were ridiculously cheap. Perfect for my budget.
However, I didn't have the money at that time. Long story...Maybe one for the Mental road to Steemfest?
Anyway, when I finally did have the money, it was 1.5 weeks later, and now the price had more than doubled.
Sigh. Story of my life. The cheapest flight available was 17 Euro more than what I had in my account! So after some panicking, trouble breathing, and quite some curse words that left my mouth, I started talking to a friend online.
She asked me if there was nothing with Ryanair or Easy Jet. Well, Ryanair were those scoundrels that decided to raise their prices by 100+% and Easy Jet only flies from Dublin to the UK.
And then I had it! I am lucky to live on an island that also has a northern part. That part we don't speak of LOL. Just kiddin' I love the north 'hey'. Turns out, this northern part of Ireland, is actually part of the UK. BINGO!
So I check the Easy Jet website for flights to Krakow, and YUP: one flight coming up on the 6th of November, 12 hours earlier than the flight with Ryanair would be, and just within my budget! I even had money left to pre-book the long term car park, and a one way ticket for my friend from Holland who will tag along to mind my kids.
Perfect! One other thing: we'll have to stay in Krakow one day longer, since there are no Easy Jet flights on the 12th. Oh the horror! What will I do in the city of coffee?
So, after I vacuum the car, I pack our things and OFF we go, to a county about 1.5 hours from us, to do another drop-off.
This time it's my eldest daughter, who won't be joining us on our trip. She'll be staying at a friend's house. It's a little longer route this way, but we'll have the time. Then, my plan is to leave our friend's house around 11 p.m., since we need to be at the airport at 4 a.m. It's only 2 hours from her house, but I just don't want to take any chances. This way, we can take our time.
At 6.30 our plane takes off, and at 10.30 a.m. on the 6th, we'll be arriving in Krakow! Then, we have to wait for my friend, who will be arriving 3 hours later. This is perfectly fine, because it gives me the chance to get my proper coffee routine going, because something tells me that Easy Jet coffee isn't my thing.
At 2.30 p.m., we can finally enter our apartment, have a quick look around. Maybe see if some Steemians are up for a short pre-Steemfest meetup, and then we'll be ready for the real event.