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Ireland, Part One: Dublin No pictures yet - they're not scanned. I'll go back and add later. For now, you'll have to try to envision it yourselves. It's impossible to understand just how beautiful it is, anyway, if you're not actually there - the pictures don't do it the remotest bit of justice. I haven't told you about graduation yet, and I have to write that entry too. I'll go back and do that when I've got my pictures scanned in. The short version: it rained, it was delayed, we made it to the airport (thanks to Corina) with three and a half hours to spare before our flight. Even with the amazingly long line at the international counters (and the fact that you can't do self-check-in if you're flying internationally) we had plenty of time to spare. Time to eat, time to drink smoothies, time to buy my traditionally trashy magazines for in-flight (People, I think, and Jane - I also had Budget Living and Real Simple, but those are subscription magazines), time to admire the new international terminal at the Philly airport. When we finally did board, we were thrilled to see that the plane was set up with three rows - two seats, three in the middle, and then two on the other side. We had a set of two and therefore only had to be cramped in with each other. I did not sleep on the flight, despite Simply Sleep and earplugs and an eye mask. I did not sleep despite the movie being Two Weeks Notice. I did not sleep despite the best efforts of Middlemarch, which is one of the books I brought to read. Okay, maybe I slept forty minutes - but this was an overnight flight of nearly seven hours. I read, I read, I ate, I watched the crappy movie, I read, I ate, I read, Greg and I played Scrabble, I read. It was a long flight. Greg slept a little - maybe an hour and a half, maybe two hours - and we landed in Dublin at 9 AM. Our luggage appeared after a long wait by the carousel. The carousel area featured the worst air circulation I've experienced since the karaoke bar at JournalCon Chicago. Thankfully no one was allowed to smoke in the airport or it truly would have been horrible. We grabbed our bags, grabbed a cab, and in about a half hour were deposited at our B&B. Our room wasn't ready yet so we left our bags and ventured sleepily into the city. The B&B was considerably farther from the city centre than I had been led to believe, but it was big and beautiful and we are sloths who need the exercise. It was also a good value - B&Bs and hotels in Dublin are expensive, and this was a good deal. It was about a twenty minute walk to anything - we were in the Ballsbridge part of the city. That first morning we wandered down to Grafton Street and did a little shopping. I think we had lunch - if we did, it wasn't very memorable. I probably had grilled cheese. Finally around noon I was about to either drop from exhaustion or burst into tears from exhaustion or maybe both so we went back to the B&B and lo! our room was ready. We had a looooong nap. When we woke up about four hours later, we were much, much better. We were almost energetic! Woo! We set off for dinner at Wagamama. I highly recommend Wagamama when you're jetlagged. What is better with jet lag than a humungo bowl of delicious, fragrant, made to order Japanese soup? The next day was our "major" sightseeing-in-Dublin day. It was raining, of course - it rained on a large portion of our trip. We walked and walked and walked. We walked back to Grafton Street where I bought a shirt (which I hated as soon as I got it home...was I on drugs that day?) and an extra umbrella at Dunnes Stores and Greg bought the first part of the shitload of CDs he would bring home. We went to Waterstone's and bought books and drooled all over the Marks & Spencer Food Hall and then we walked to Trinity College and we saw the Book of Kells. It's a neat exhibit and it was pretty cool to see a 1200 year old book, but I was perplexed by the people who stood by the temperature/light controlled display case and stared at it (open to one set of pages) for over fifteen minutes. I mean, it's on vellum and it's pretty and stuff, but it's in Latin. I don't think the family of five was really standing there reading it. Anyway. We also went to the Dublin Writers' Museum, which was lovely and interesting and had an excellent audio tour. Then more shopping - Lush, of course, and more books and more CDs. Then we headed for Temple Bar and wandered around there for awhile, going into shops when it was raining and having a little pastie snack. Then eventually it was time to meet some of the Irish Suspects for some fun and frolic at Luigi Malone's. We had a really great time, and it was so good to finally meet Annie and Angelika and to also meet Nick and Radegund but most especially to meet Neil and Maria, as we would be spending the night with them later in the trip and it's always good to assure yourself that yes, these are people you will get on with and no, none of you are serial killers or Scientologists (before anyone sends me hate mail, of course I wasn't implying that those things are in the same category). After dinner we moved on to the bar at The Clarence, which is owned by members of U2. Much drinking ensued. I'd forgotten about the concept of the "round," in which everyone, well, buys a round. So when we left, we'd gone through five rounds. That's four glasses of wine and a cosmo for me, plus I had a glass of wine at dinner. I can't remember the last time I had that much to drink. Luckily I'd eaten half of Dublin that day so while I was certainly verrrrry tipsy, I neither did anything stupid nor got sick. In fact, I only had a teeeeeeny headache the next day. Greg got to talk to people about Irish politics and music and I got to gossip with Angelika and Annie about journals and other Suspects and I know we talked about a crapload of other stuff, but all I can really remember is learning Annie's real name and laughing a lot. Good times. The next day we were off on a bus trip to Glendalough and Powerscourt Gardens, but both of those things really need pictures. I'll post about them in a few days. Overall impression of Dublin: quite nice, but two and a half days were plenty. We saw a great deal of the city. When you compare it to cities here, it's not very exciting. It is, however, lovely and friendly and walkable and filled with good shopping. We were anxious to get out into the countryside, though - that's really why we went to Ireland. We wanted to drive around and really get a feel for the place. After our long weekend in Dublin we were antsy to get out and about, so on Monday morning we checked out of our B&B and headed back to the airport to pick up our rental car. To be continued in future entries!
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