The first leg

I've been meaning to start this thing for several days now, and at almost 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning (Dublin time), I am finally doing so.

I shall start at the most appropriate spot: the beginning.

Joe and I flew out of O'hare on Tuesday afternoon. Our flight to Philadelphia (with a later connection to Dublin) was scheduled at 4:10 in the afternoon, but when we got there at a couple minutes past 1:00, the nice lady behind the check-in counter informed us that there was an earlier flight leaving for Philly at 1:45. She put us on standby, and we got right through security, and as we were coming up to the gate, they paged our names over the intercom. We were the last two people on the plane, in the last two available seats. It made for a long layover in Philadelphia, but it was either wait there, or wait in Chicago, and waiting there meant that there was no possible way our plane could get delayed (as there were potential thunderstorms in our windy city that evening), and it also meant plenty of time to grab dinner and relax before our longer, international flight.

We got into Dublin on Wednesday morning at 9:00 (still about two or three in the morning at home), but I wasn't too jetlagged since I got a little nap on the plane. We took a bus from the airport into the city, and checked into the first hostel that we found. Normally, I would say that was a bad move, but they gave us a deal to spend three nights here for 55 euros, and that includes breakfast every morning.

We spent our first day here wandering around the city until we got lost, and then we finally asked directions to the Guinness brewery at St. James Gate. We went on the self-guided tour, which I must say is quite touristy (such things that we had hoped to avoid), but it truly was wonderful. It's very informational about the history of the beer, and how it is brewed, and the bar at the top of the place provides the best view of the city.

We went out to the pubs that evening, but returned early with the intention to make it an early night. It didn't quite work out that way though, when we came back into the hostel and headed straight for the lounge instead of our room. We ended up meeting a few other Americans who were traveling here, and we returned back out to Dublin's nightlife with a small group. There was Hilla and Daniella, two youngin's from L.A. who are here for a couple months on a work program for the summer (they're 19! how jealous am I that I didn't go a couple of years ago when I originally wanted to?), and then there was Chrissy, the twenty-three year old law student hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee via New Orleans.

We had a great time, and we ended up meeting everyone for breakfast, and then spending the day hanging out with Chrissy and another new friend named Rebecca, who is from North Carolina, and about to enter medical school in the fall. It was her last day in town, as she was catching a plane to Scotland in the evening, so the four of us shopped in the morning and early afternoon, before returning to the hostel since Joe and Chrissy were still a bit tired and had things to do. Rebecca and I returned out though, since we all wanted to watch the USA/Ghana World Cup game, and none of the bars seemed to have it on. It's very strange, since they love soccer here, but they don't seem to care about any match that doesn't have a European team in it. Rebecca and I walked all the way up the temple bar area in Dublin, going into every pub and asking if they would have the game on. After many rejections, and enduring a bit of hasseling for being from the USA, we finally found the one pub in Dublin (I swear!) that felt the need to cater to Americans. We ran back to the hostel to grab Joe and Chrissy, and got back just in time to see the game start, and watch our beloved USA team lose to a third world country. It was still fun though, because there were a lot of other Americans watching the game with us, as well as some Irish guys who were rooting for Ghana (no joke, they had a flag and everything).

After our country's defeat, the four of us went out to dinner, and then sent Rebecca off to Scotland. The same group went out again the second night, but with the addition of Katie and Megan, two sisters from Reno, and Martin, an incredibly nice twenty-four year old guy from Germany.

We all had breakfast together again on the third day (friday), except for Chrissy who slept right through it. We thought she might've left, since she was planning to head to London, but she showed up right as we were finishing to let us know that she had just been tired, and that she would be leaving for the ferry to Holyhead in a little while. Everyone else was sort of disbersing for the day, so Joe and I offered to walk with her. Bad idea. We learned once we were way too far along that no one walks to the ferry in Dublin. It is definately very far, and practically deserted. It took us over an hour, and the only people we saw were a few guys who were working on the roads. We made it there just in time for her to buy her ticket and say goodbye, and then we luckily caught a bus back into city centre.

After that fiasco, we began another one of figuring out how we were going to get out of Ireland the next day (now today). We were originally hoping to fly to London, but we couldn't get a cheap enough flight, so we then decided we would take a train down to the southern part of Ireland, and take a ferry to France. After getting directions to the wrong train station, and then finding the right one, we found out that our Eurail passes don't work for the ferries (as the lady who sold them to us lead us to belive, although we don't think intentionally). After that, we found out that the ferry is kind of pricey. We were quite upset, so we started looking into getting a cheap flight to ANYWHERE in the mainland, so that we can just start using our rail passes. After spending much time on the internet, and actually going back to the airport to see if they could help us out in person, we ended up returning to the hostel and booking the ferry. It's more money than we wanted to spend, but no worries, the places we are moving on to next are more affordable than Ireland.

So now I am off to France. It's a couple minutes before six in the morning now, and I actually have to go make sure Joe is awake. Our train leaves Dublin for Rosslare at 7:26, and takes about three hours. It should be a nice way to see the countryside, and then we have until five o'clock this evening before our ferry leaves for Roscoff, France. It's an overnight boat ride, and gets in at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning. After that, we plan to hop on another train, and hopefully be in Paris by Sunday evening.

Dublin was wonderful, but I am very excited and incredibly anxious to move onto somewhere new. I hope everything is well with everyone, I love you all, and I will keep you posted.

Jason

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