Oh joy! I can officially say, "Howdy from Ireland" now! We arrived at the hotel at about 9:30 and of course our rooms won't be ready until noon, so we were treated to a nice Full Hot Irish Breakfast. So far the concern of the cuisine over here not being terribly tasty hasn't held up. Then again, I was pretty hungry so just about anything was fine by me. We're in Bewley's Hotel Ballsbridge while we're in Dublin (we head out to Galway on the 6th); it's a neat 19th century building. So now that everyone can breathe a sigh of relief that I am landed and alive here's a brief account of my trip thus far:
The Airport - not really noteworthy; there for five hours, met other folks on our trip, did the whole "what's your name? Where are you from? Where do you go to school?" questioning twenty times (of course we all had to repeat this every time a newcomer joined). Flight was delayed an hour taking off. Brief tangent: the group that came to Cork two days ago had to circle around Dublin for an hour because the runways were frozen, then started running low on fuel so flew up to Belfast where they had to wait another four hours before heading back down. So an hour on the runway? Not bad.
The Flight - props to Continental Airlines. Better than average airline food, a choice of forty movies on demand, and plugs under the seat should you need to use your computer. I was sitting next to a little girl and her mom that were on their way home from Disneyland. She was thrilled because she still had Santa Clause to look forward to because they'd been in Florida for three weeks. After a bit I was able to fall into a fitful sleep (surprising amount of turbulence). I woke up abruptly when a head fell onto my forearm. The girl, I suppose, had rolled over in her sleep and it seemed I made a very comfortable pillow. I didn't really mind and drifted off to sleep again. An hour or so later I woke up with a startlingly cool sensation on a particular spot on my arm. I couldn't see over her head, but it appeared near where her mouth was. Great. The kid was drooling on me. I didn't really want to wake her though; she was such a peaceful sleeper. Before I could make up my mind how to resolve this situation she readjusted, settling against my upper arm instead. I chanced a look down to see how disgusting it was going to be (she had, after all, been sucking on a huge green lollipop after dinner). Oh. Oops. Well... turns out the cabin had gotten a bit chilly during the flight and in turn my bracelet cuff must have gotten colder and... point being, no drool. That improved the rest of my flight, though I never could fall back asleep.
Once in Dublin - Everyone got their bags. Hooray! We found the Butler representatives easily enough. Grand. We're off to a good start. We head upstairs to find our bus. No, it's actually downstairs. We go back downstairs. Well really it's another floor below. Ok. We wander outside in the direction of a large bus lot. FYI, I'd categorize the weather as "crisp". Not bitter cold, but enough to wake you up certainly. We couldn't fit all of our bags on the bus. So six of us were shepherded off to a random bus. Both of the leaders got on the first bus, gave our driver, Mark (Marc?), the name of the hotel, and hoped they would see us there. Being as we were all pretty tired at this point and none of us actually knew anyone, we opted to just look out the window. After a while Mark/c finally spoke up.
"Are you all staying in Dublin or moving on?"
(me) "We're only here a few days, then off to Galway to go to university."
"Shame."
"...Er, why's that?"
"Galway's nice. In the summer."
Thanks for that happy thought. But at least we made it to the hotel.
A few other fun facts I've come across:
- it almost never snows in Dublin. And NEVER during December/January. If it's going to snow, it's usually March or April. Those are supposed to be the coldest months of the year. Guess I was a little off on my weather perception here.
- Dublin is divided into postal codes and referred to as such. So we're in D 4 right now. Odd numbers are for the northern half, even for the southern. There are maybe 24 areas? The mother next to me wasn't quite sure.
- our hotel is a converted school for girls.
...and our rooms are ready...
Cheers!
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