Dublin, Ireland - October 7th, 2011 - Day 1

I'm going to start out with our first day in Dublin, Oct. 7th. Oct. 6th was spent traveling so not a lot to tell about that day.

We had a pretty long flight to get to Ireland. Two, actually. Ten and a half hours in all, I think. The overnight flight was so dreadfully long. I could barely sleep, I think I got about two hours and the rest of the time I watched movies. Thankfully no one sat next to me on one side (our row was three seats across) so I was able to curl up and at least try to sleep.

I did have to sit next to four entirely different people on three of the flights.

On flight number one I was sandwiched between a man in his late forties/early fifties and a guy in his late teens/early twenties. That was a tense flight. No sleeping on that one. Or picking your nose. Toward the end of the flight I struck up a small-talk conversation with the young guy next to me. It was better than utter silence. He had a southern accent which made it worth it. The older guy didn't talk to me at all. I guess I didn't look that interesting. Plus he slept most of the way. (and HE got the window seat!)

Flight number two I sat next to Robert's mom and no one else claimed the seat next to me. That was a great flight except for the barely sleeping part.

Flight  number three (on the way home) Robert's mom was on my one side and there was a girl about my age on my other side. Again, toward the end of the flight we started talking to her. I don't know why but I just assume people don't want to talk on planes. *shrugs* She was really nice and told us all about her trip to Ireland (apparently her dad lives there and she visits frequently). I kind of got the impression that she had a wild streak in her after she showed me her matching shamrock tattoos and told me she had gone on a spontaneous motorcycle ride with a boy she didn't know. I just thought it was funny how she was sharing all this with me, a complete stranger, as if she and I had known each other forever! People tend to bare their souls around me, for some reason.

Flight number four I sat next to this big, gruff-looking, motorcycle-riding dude in maybe his fifties. He turned out to be the nicest person of all the strangers I sat next to on the trip! We spent the whole flight talking about insanely random subjects like King Henry VIII and what kind of pets we had. He was awesome :)

It just amazes me. You never know who your going to meet, when, where, how and most of the time your first impression will always be wrong.

 

The first thing we had to drink in Ireland. Sparking water. It was my first time having it, too. We actually meant to get regular water but Robert's mom accidentally got this instead.

I missed this face!

This was taken in the our hotel's restaurant/bar.



I love chalkboard menus! Robert and his mom got the Thai Style Chicken Curry. I was actually not feeling very well (I think I got food poisoning from the plane food that was cooked in plastic) so I didn't get anything.

This was in the courtyard of Trinity College. I think it was a bell tower.

"And on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of spinning wheel, and DIE!"

 

We were told to kiss. I bet that guy was embarrassed. I know we were!

Oh look, Careers Week!

I was not feeling good at all at this point. I was plagued with stomach cramps. We had to cut our evening short :P

I'm not sure what this statue was supposed to be....

So yeah, we got to see the Book of Kells in the College museum and some other cool stuff that we couldn't take pictures of, but we had to cut it short because I really needed to go lay down. We went to bed early that night and tried to recover from jet lag.

And that was Day 1!