While Zack says “Greetings from the eternal Ireland”, I say “Greetings from the eternal day.” Yes, it is now officially 9:40pm and the sun is still kicking, and we have not seen nighttime in what feels like two days. Zack told many of the exciting details from the day so far in the post below — Aer Lingus not being at all shocked or apologetic that his baggage didn’t arrive, “Granny’s” and all it’s charming amenities, and the excursions from the airport to the City Centre.
What he didn’t stress was that all of this was happening between 5am-9am Dublin time. And for the large part without a map. For those who know Zack and I well, mornings are definitely not a strong suit: but since it was still technically around 1AM EST when we arrived in Dublin City Centre, our bodies were tricked and we were raring to go. I also have to say, the rumors of Zack having amazingly accurate sense of direction in cities he’s never been to before is true. All of those travels, from the airport to O’Connell Street to the “mowbile” phone company to St. Stephen’s Green and Trinity College were done seamlessly without a map, and none of it is my credit.
Dublin is charming and delightful: we walked through Grafton Street at 8:30am before the shops were open and sat on St. Stephen’s Green reading a free Irish newspaper until O2, the mobile phone company, opened for business. A kind friend named Aoife (pronounced “ee-fah”) met us at the front of Trinity College gates and gave us the key’s to the cottage and helped us to the best bus stop.
Many exciting appliance adventures in the cottage. For one, you have to turn on switches and pull cords to get hot water in the kitchen sink or shower. The stove and oven is also gas, which was a bit terrifying but still produced a very delicious paprika chicken for dinner. We have a working television which gets lots of sports, good for the documentary and the World Cup. Zack is very pleased.
We also went food shopping, one of our favorite things to do in Europe. Why? Because of the packaging, the prices, the products, and the fact that you have to bring your own bag. What we discovered: sugar comes in pills, not packets. Eggs are not in the refridgerated section. Claritin can kill pregnant women (well, we were told.) Cookies are called “digestives” and liquor stores are called “off-license”.Which brings us to here, sitting in an Internet cafe in Rathmines (pronounced Rat-mines), with a bag full of charmingly packaged products.
Hope all is well state-side, and we will update more soon! We just linked the mobile phone to the Twitter feed to make us more…well, mobile. So check back in soon.
-CB
