My six hour international flight from Dulles to Dublin was official with cramped seating, crying baby, and cabin lights that don't turn off. Before we got on the flight, we were treated with Irish accents as we listened to conversations in the terminal. At that point it still felt like a domestic trip. The flight itself was long and uncomfortable ("thats what she said"). I watched some episodes of The Office and Into The Wild during the flight.
As we landed it finally hit me: how big of a change this is going to be. Cars drive on the left side of the road, drivers sit on the right side of the car, you need to look the opposite direction before crossing the road, car makes and models that I've never even heard of are all over the place, and measurements such as km, euro, and Celsius all become common place.
The first thing I noticed about Ireland is that it is very green. Anything that is not man-made is a shade of green, and the trees have yet to bud. The weather here is considered mild, from what we were told. Today it ranged from drizzles, cloudy, sunny, and windy. The weather changed often and quickly. Today we hung out around the Trinity College area.
We talked to some Trinity College students when we found out that the Trinity tour was not going on today. A Trinity college student said "I'm so f*ckng sick of this, this Museum costs 8 Euros for non-students and I just think its ridiculous and a ripoff" so he took us in and was able to put as down as guests to let us into the museum in for free. Props to that guy! They were displaying the Book of Kells which was really interesting. There was no photography allowed so we were unable to get some pictures.
We walked around for what seemed like an eternity. This is the most walking I've done in a while. All the sidewalks are more detailed. They were either cobble stone or tiles and it is always uneven. There's no such thing as flat boring poured concrete. Another thing I noticed is that the cross walk areas have sound triggers for when it is safe to cross. There a continuous beep beep beep that I can only describe as a metal detector beep for when you shouldn't cross. Then there's a laser sound it is safe to cross. Almost sounds like a video game at every intersection.
Our host took us in, we talked and ate lunch there. After a short nap we went out for our first Guiness. I am exhausted, but it was a good day. Tomorrow we will wait for Gene to come in.
