Have Back Back Backup Plan(s)

Since this is my first post, and since I am still in the US, and since I haven't done anything which fits the general topic of this post (which is quite a feat, really, since a general topic hasn't been established) in the recent past I am going to rewind about two years to a series of unfortunate events which happened in Ireland.

It starts with me being in Dublin. My traveling partner leaving to go see friends in Cork or some such place far, far away leaving me with a prepaid room in the hostel and roughly 36 hours to peruse the greater Dublin area. Now if you read the title of you post you'll notice it hints having a multiplicity of backup plans. The reason I can't stress this enough is because my credit card stopped working. Ah I had travelers checks but who wants to carry around a wad of travelers checks which you could put a down payment on a small motorcycle with? Which is why I left most of them at my brothers flat in London.
So the 300 dollars in checks got diluted into 250 something Euros which got spent on the hostel room (€120), a Genuine Guinness Messenger bag (€40) and various food and stuff (€75) around Dublin. I'm guessing in hindsight that Visa didn't think anyone would want to go to Dublin since Everywhere you want to be doesn't include Ireland because my credit card which had served me so well everywhere else stopped working. Now luckily I still had €15 cash with which to eat and move myself around. However €15 is not much money. Sadly 15 becomes 10 when you account for exchange rates and tube fare to get from the London airport to London flat. Which leaves 5 for the Dublin end.
I caved after a while and bought a few burgers off the Euro Menu which is really not a deal. For instance in the Americas you get a Double Cheeseburger for $1. Being valued higher you'd think a Euro would buy more than a dollar but sadly this is not the case. So 2 singe patty hamburgers and 1 minute serving of French fries for about $8. Now this was towards the near side of the 36 hours before my flight back to London.
So after a while I couldn't stand it anymore and left to go scrounge the city for free food. After many hours of walking I found a knockoff Wal-Mart outside the city limits that had free samples of frozen food. Now normally you only get to eat one or two before the clerk says something to the effect of "Buy it if you like it so much." I was very grateful that the middle aged women serving me frozen, thawed, refrozen, rethawed and microwaved bacon strips had an Aunt in the nether reaches of Minnesota. I can't remember the particular name of the town but the woman was so intent on trying to communicate where her Aunt lived that she spent quite some time naming places she had driven past when she visited the States including Lake Erie and Yosemite National Park. After subsisting on this for several hours I went back to the hostel and spent the night dreaming of Meatloaf and Wings with Blue cheese dressing.
The next morning I headed to one of the more expensive hotels in Dublin. One of the flaws with many of these types of hotels is they are to damn polite for their own good. For instance if some honest person in duress walks in the back entrance with all of his bags, walks up the stairs to the 8th floor, rides the elevator down to the lobby and asks the valet for a ride to the airport, this valet will probably not inquire if you were staying at that particular establishment since he did just witnessed you getting off the elevator with all of your bags. So after a very posh 20 minute (and free) ride to the airport, several hours waiting in the terminal and customs I was London bound.