We made it!!!! Our flight landed at 8:40 this morning at the Dublin International Airport, about six hours after our flight took off from the Philadelphia Airport at 9:05 pm. So far the time change hasn’t gotten to me since I managed to pass out for 4 hours on flight over the ocean, but Dad is more than a little loopy. The flights over weren’t too bad. During the first flight from Denver to Philly, I sat next to a tattoo-covered machinist and his 10-year-old daughter from Loveland. They were really friendly and sweet and told me about their trip to Marseilles to visit family. The girl got bored on doing homework after about 10 minutes on the plane, so she started making a bunch of paper airplanes for a “project.” On the long flight, I sat next to a couple girls who were almost 30. I found out a couple hours into the flight that one of the women is just about 12 weeks pregnant, ‘cause she whipped out some ultrasound pictures. The baby’s current name is “the beast” since it’s growing fast…fast enough to make her need to get up to go to the bathroom every hour since the “beast” was sitting squarely on her bladder.
Irish people rightly deserve the international reputation that they have for being beyond friendly. After getting off the plane, we had a minor adventure to find our way to where our rental car was waiting. Person after person in the airport terminal at the rental agencies went out of their way to help us until we finally got our car. The cars here are tiny…our Ford Fiesta seems massive in comparison to some of the cars on the road. We took to the streets, on the tiniest roads I’ve ever been on in my life…driving with the “passenger in the ditch.” Dad’s still trying to get the hang of it, making me question the survival of the mirrors every once in a while. We made it to my college to take a look around with Dad only stalling the car twice in the ridiculous bumper-to-bumper traffic that seems to be a trademark of Dublin’s city centre. I can’t move into my dorms for about 3 more weeks, but I wanted to see what Moville looked like. It basically looks just about like any other dorm…except that it’s across the ocean from Cowtown, USA. We tracked down the international coordinator at the school and she dropped whatever she had been working on to talk to us. She didn’t seem bothered at all and just sat and talked with us for hours, gave us directions to various places, gave us hints on where to get phones, offered storage for some of the extra stuff I packed, and the list goes on.
Now we’re just chilling out in the lobby of the hotel, waiting for our room to be ready so we can shower and try to clear the fog fuzzing up our minds from being in airports for almost an entire day. Maybe I can start practicing my accent…but I guess it’s me that has one now. :P
I'll try to get pictures up as soon as I take some good ones & get them onto my computer...
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