Dublin, Day 1

So today we finally made it to Dublin. It only took a 3 Hour drive to Chicago, a 3 hour wait for the plane, a 6.5 hour flight, a 30 minute "overlay", and another 30 minute flight (overlay in quotes as we never actually got off the plane). So roughly it took a total of 13 and a half hours, which isn't all bad honestly. The flight wasn't too bad although i didn't get any sleep due to a inability to find a comfortable spot.

Once the flight arrived in Ireland we got to see some really cool sights. Ireland is basically all flatland until the mountains. Its cool to see the huge green quilt that is Ireland.




Ironically, even though i was very uncomfortable and anxious the thing i was most worried about was my mom making it home from the airport ok.

When we got here, we spent a little while in the airport, changing clothes and exchanging a little commerce and whatnot. The airport kind of sucked as it was really old and incapable of handling the amount of people that was moving through it.

We found our hostel pretty quick after the bus trip from the airport, which was kind of strange because it was a harry potter bus driving on the wrong side of the road. The hostel is very impressive, it exceeds any and all expectations i had about hostels. It's similar to a hotel, but you share a room with other people. The people we share a room with have been very respectful and go out of their way to stay quiet and not interrupt anyone. I still have not had any anxiety about having stuff stolen, including the pickpocket thing.

The city is pretty cool, its old and seems to have its own look and feel. Not like any other i've ever been to. Jessica will disagree with me, but one of the most exciting parts of the trip has been getting lost in the city, walking all over trying to gain our bearings. It gives a more intimate feel to the city. You cant get that by taking tours.



The night was similar to the day, we basically ran around and got lost in the city. We came across some very cool things completely by accident. One thing was the Porterhouse, a bar located in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The porterhouse offered all kinds of beer, from all over the world. I'm not a big beer drinker, but I figured its possibly a once in a lifetime thing, so why not try new things. We tried some local beer and this weird fruity thing that was pretty good. We had "Fish n Chips", which was breaded Cod with French fries. They also had a live Irish band, which was amazing (most of the other bars had live music but unfortunately they were playing American music). All these things at the Porterhouse made it pretty much the funnest thing we did all night.

I'm looking forward to the next day, where we'll get to see the other side of Ireland, the rural communities that define the country.