Day One: Dublin

First and foremost, I'm sorry I haven't been able to post anything yet. I haven't had internet at any of the hotels/B&B's we've stayed at until this one. In fact, when I asked if there was internet or wifi at the B&B we stayed at last night, I just got a sarcastic, "Sure it's wireless...we don't have any at all. Welcome to the countryside..." but that's another blog post. This post was also longer, but my computer died in the middle of me typing it and I was so mad that I called it a night. Anyways, onto more pressing matters: Dublin.



We departed Orlando, Florida on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 7pm en route to Dublin, Ireland. After a long, eight hour non-stop flight, we arrived in Dublin, the city that I will forever think of as completely maddening (second only to Athens, Greece).



True to our family's style, everything started to go wrong as soon as the plane touched the ground, and it wasn't even Friday the 13th yet...

Dublin itself is a maze. Or at least seems like it. It's almost like a game of Frogger, trying to cross the road and not get squished by the oncoming cars, motorcycles, buses, and taxis. As I said earlier, the only other city I've seen that is as horrible to drive in is Athens. All of the brochures, books, websites, and testimonials we've read and heard about told us not to drive a car in Dublin. We should have listened.

We quickly learned that we had over-packed and that our 8+ bags would not fit in the economy-sized car we had reserved. There was no choice but to upgrade...to a brand new 2011 Audi A6 TDI. Now, in the U.S., Audi's are generally expensive luxury cars, so naturally, I was ecstatic to think that we'd be traveling around the country in style. I was also terrified. The fact that we had such a nice car meant that if we got a scratch on it, we were totally screwed. So to make a long story short, not five minutes after getting in the car, we had run over several curbs and almost had a head-on collision trying to turn right. You have to remember, they drive on the left side of the road here and the steering wheel is on the opposite side as well, so everything is backwards. Well actually, YOU don't have to remember, WE do. It was a nightmare. After finally reaching the hotel (which was a treasure hunt in itself) and finding the parking garage, we realized that we didn't pick up our cell phone that was supposed to have been at the rental car place. We had to go back. After nearly destroying the car in the parking garage on every single curb/wall/post/etc, and nearly side-swiping a parked car on our left because we were sandwiched between them and a double decker bus, we (well, more like my mom and I) decided that my dad was being demoted from driving and that I would be a much better driver of the car. I only hit one curb.

At this point in time we'd all been up for about two days now without any sleep and there is a 5 hour difference between here and the states. My dad decided to take a nap and my mom and I ventured out in Dublin. We checked out the famous Temple Bar area and had our first pints of Guinness while listening to an irishman sing and play the guitar. After such a hectic day, and I'm really understating the craziness of it all, we decided to go back to the hotel for dinner.

The hotel was amazing. It was the Trinity Capital Hotel and I highly recommend it. Its decor was fabulous, complete with bright magenta and purple walls and Alice in Wonderland type chairs that were so huge you felt tiny sitting in them. There were gargoyles and statues at every corner and peacock feathered tables.

It was there that I had my first "Irish Breakfast", poached eggs, ham, sausage, something similar to baked beans, tomatoes, soda bread, yogurt with fruit, and black and white "pudding", which is more like sausage. The white "pudding" is really similar to spam or deviled ham. The black "pudding" consists of coagulated blood and I'm not sure what else...didn't really taste like anything though. We also had lamb shank with potatoes which was amazing. I'm not sure why people say that Irish food is terrible because everything I've had so far has been wonderful (aside from the black pudding and that wasn't even that bad).
I can say that most everything you've read or seen about Ireland is true. Dublin is horrible to drive in, the people are friendly, you truly do experience every kind of weather in a single day, and it is very, very green. The weather is very unpredictable. It was sunny, it rained, it hailed, and was sunny again, all in the span of about twenty minutes. When it's raining, it's not really raining, it's more like a heavy mist that seems like it will hang around all day but goes away quickly with the cloud and before you know it there are bright blue skies again. No rainbows yet, though.

Though we didn't get to see much in that first day, I can't say that I'm not happy to be out of Dublin. We'll be returning to the city for a day before we leave, armed with a much better knowledge of how to drive in it. I'll be visiting the Trinity College, the Guinness Brewery, the Book of Kells, and hopefully much more (time allowing). It stays light out until nearly 10:00 pm, which is nice because it allows us to stay out later and see more things. I'm hoping to do some night photos soon.

Till next wifi, Sláinte!