June 26- IRELAND!!!

on the bus

Stinky feet. And Tahiti scented soap. The last two things I smelled my first night in Ireland before falling asleep nearly perfectly describe my first day abroad. First, the stinky part:

You never know who you are going to be stuck sitting next to on a plane. I don’t remember my row buddies on the flight to Dallas being anything special, and I didn’t much care who was going to sit by me on the long plane ride because I had planned on sleeping the whole time. I ended up in between some Indian guy, who seemed nice enough- always got out of people’s way and told me he could put my bags overhead for me so I would have more footroom- and a blond girl who never spoke. But upon arriving at my seat, I realized sleep would not immediately be in order.

Tralee City Council

When I saw the blanket and headphones on my seat, my first reaction was: Is this a trap? I mean, even if I had spent wondrous amounts of money on my plane ticket, they wouldn’t possibly give me things for FREE, would they? But I guess they aren’t for free when you paid wondrous amounts of money for them. I reminded myself that a few times and decided it was better to get the most out of my money than to get as much sleep as possible. So I didn’t hesitate to accept the pasta dinner and polish it all off, even the cheesecake. And then watch a movie (Jack the Giant Slayer- which has the zombie from Warm Bodies in it, which weirded me out). And eat all of my breakfast when that came out, too. I would have used the blanket had not the few hours I slept been hot and sweaty.

Yes, I only slept for about two and a half hours. Quite possibly three if you include the winking in and out. I don’t. The nice Indian man turned out to be loud when he wasn’t sleeping and a space hog when he was. His Bollywood movie must have been really hilarious. And I have never been so uncomfortable trying to sleep while travelling. So, I was relieved when I landed in London.

a church in Tralee

Until I found out what time it was. I had already been nervous knowing I was going to be wondering around the airport without a boarding pass. But then I remembered that they had only scheduled an hour and a half layover. And I had to face the scariest monster of them all: Customs. So, only slightly aware of the terror that lay ahead, I hurried past all the signs to the shuttle from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1, filled out a stupid Landing Card, got my picture taken and hurried to the counter as quickly as I could. I still had thirty minutes until the plane was supposed to take off. But…

Unfortunately, the ticket counter was harder to find than I thought. About seven minutes later, I was finally at the counter speaking to the Indian lady. Who proceeded to make me feel like an idiot for trying to come to the counter for that particular flight cuz didn’t I know, I’d already missed the plane? But we still have over twenty minutes! It takes twenty minutes to get there, you would have missed it anyway. Then her little friend next to her started telling stories of other idiot travelers who missed their flights. For being so laid back as far as I’d seen Europeans, they could also be awfully rude. She gave me the later flight and I walked away with tears streaming down my face. I’m sure more than one person felt bad for me but didn’t say anything. I sat down and switched between sleeping with my mouth open, walking around the stores (which made me depressed because everything here is so expensive. Hard as I may try, I don’t like spending money), and people watching, wondering if I should try to talk to someone for my homework. I did nothing productive.

fingers rubbed raw

Until I decided I shouldn’t wait any longer to follow the contingency plan and call my professors. I got to the payphone and after five tries to get my card to work, I attempted to call Dr. Elzinga. And then tried again. I tried so many times with so many different combinations. I even went into one of the stores and asked a lady if she had any tips for using the payphone here. Nothing worked. I called my mom in tears and, I’m sorry to say, got a little frustrated and might have raised my voice a little. But at $7 a minute, it’s hard not to yell.

Now for the Tahiti soap (aka the stuff that probably is good in essence, but got all over my suitcase and so even though it made stuff smell good didn’t mean everything wasn’t a disaster.)

the group in Dingle

Eventually I got into Shannon. It was dark and cloudy and I was not looking to finding the stupid train station to find the stupid town to get to the stupid hostel. I was more than pleasantly surprised when I went through the doors after the baggage claim and my professors were standing there to greet me. They helped me to exchange my money and led me to the bus where the other students greeted me with a thunderous applause. For a few glorious moments, I was the center of attention and people told me how much they cared and were worried for me. And for the rest of the night we talked like we were actually friends.

cows

Then we went to Supermac’s. And they had no dollar menu. I was hungry but I didn’t want to spend my hard earned money on a ten dollar combo meal, so I bought a 3 dollar cheeseburger! 3 FLIPPIN’ DOLLARS! And I decided right then and there that I am only buying one meal a day, and I will just snack for the other meals if I have to. But I am also going to spread my snacks throughout the whole trip, so yeah.

Oh and to make things that much better I missed the castle. Everyone assured me that it wasn’t that great, but I know they were just trying to make me feel better. And after I found out my soap had gotten all over my socks and underwear, I rubbed and rubbed them until all the soap came off- but so did some of the skin on the top of my fingers. So that was delightful. But we did walk around the block and that actually was pretty great. It’s gorgeous here.

Muckross House

Ross Castle- my first!

I couldn’t sleep well last night- I woke up at 2:30 and couldn’t fall asleep again until about 5:30.  It’s like it doesn’t get dark. I think it finally does around 10:30 and then starts getting light again around 2:30. It’s weird. Then I woke up at 6:45 to go running with two other girls. We only went for about a mile, but it was pretty and it was good to stretch my legs. I was starving during the night and when I woke up and went running I was so thirsty I thought I was going to die. When it was time for breakfast, I chugged an entire glass of orange juice before my toast was done cooking. (I got my water bottle filled pretty soon after that, no worries.) I had two toasts- one with jam and one with marmalade. It was good but not filling. The bus drive afterward was really bumpy and made me feel carsick, but we played Spot It and President. We stopped a lot along the way to take pictures. Sometimes we had our arms around each other like we were all best buds, sometimes we didn’t. It was a little awkward. Then we stopped in Dingle to eat and I ate at a pub for the first time. It was just a tuna sandwich, the cheapest thing. Only slightly weird, because they mix corn into it. Then we visited the Muckross House, where Queen Victoria once visited. Then I got to see my first real castle! The Ross Castle. It wasn’t as impressive as I would have thought originally, but it was pretty great. We got to the new hostel in Trellany and went to a pub that I didn’t eat at. Then we went to a ruined abbey and that was pretty neat. And now it’s time for bed. Goodnight!

Yay, Ireland!