Day one in Dublin

The first day in Dublin was loooooong, but very fun.  I'll start from the beginning with our flight over.  It was probably the best flight I've ever taken!  We flew Aer Lingus - they had a great selection of movies and tv shows on the plane, and they gave us all our own pillows, blankets and headsets.  Other airlines make you buy those things.  The bathrooms were big enough that you didn't risk landing in the toilet if you move an inch to the left or right. The plan was to sleep the whole way since we'd be landing at 5:15 am and would have to get through the whole day till they let us check into the hostel.  So I popped a dramamine...but then got sucked into the movies!  I was so tired and drugged up, but had to watch Hanna - the movie about the teenaged assasin :)

We landed in Dublin and got some info from the desk.  First off, the American dollar sucks right now, so exchanging our money was not a cool thing.  Then the chick at the desk told us that beer is really expensive here!  WTF??  Isn't Ireland known for drinking?  How can it be when it's sooo expensive to drink?  Cost me 4.80 euro for a Smithwicks, which is $6.90 for us.  That's like drinking in NYC. grrrr.  We found our hostel and stowed our luggage, but then had to go wander around like zombies for the next 7.5 hours before our room would be ready.  We got a map and just walked around the city checking things out and taking pictures.  I'm looking at this computer and it does look like I'll be able to add pictures later on.  There are some pretty sections in Dublin, but I'm actually surprised about how much like NYC it is...minus the tall buildings.  It's really dirty.  Tons of trash just everywhere, and a lot of homeless people. 

There is a section of the city called Temple Bar -about a 3 block section - that is the place to go out if you're young and cool.  So of course that was on our list for later.  We looked like true American tourists with our backpacks and cameras hanging from our necks, but whatever.  Nobody here was awake yet anyway.  We eventually got tired of walking and ended up at a pub across from our hostel to chill till we could go in.  Got into the hostel and took a much needed nap and a shower.  We are in a dorm with 8 beds, and someone is always sleeping, so it's not a 'let's hang out and talk' kind of place.  There are 3 empty beds in it though, so it's not overcrowded. I can't help but feel like I'm in some kind of orphanage though :)

We got up around 5:30 (12:30 your time) and went to the pub across the street for some fish and chips and live Irish music, it was really cool.  Then we walked through the closed up shopping district to Temple Bar, and picked our poison there.  We ordered at the bar and the bartenders didn't know what a half and half was.  How can they not know that here?  It is half Guinness and half Smithwicks.  We had to explain it to them.  Oh well, you don't have to tip bartenders here anyway.  We ended up meeting this girl Pamela who was sitting next to us.  She was from the west coast of Ireland and works at her boyfriend's hotel:  http://www.zetland.com/  She was super cool and invited us to take a bus out there this week and stay there a night in the staff quarters for free!  So we might just take her up on it since we wanted to see something outside of the city anyway. 

We wandered home around 11:30 and crashed hard even though it was like going to bed at 7 pm.  Breakfast this morning (free at the hostel) consisted of eggs, toast, hash browns, ham and beans.  Good stuff.  We might just drift into a food coma and go back to sleep!  I think the plan today is to wander around another part of the city and then possibly take a free walking tour....and maybe the ghost bus tour tonight :) 

I'll write more tomorrow!!