4,694 Miles Later

I'm about to finish my first day in Dublin. I think I feel right now how Sammy must feel most of the time. I've had approximately 2 bad hours of sleep the past two days. Woke up at 7am Wed to finish packing and get to the airport. Had a 5 hour layover in Newark. The layover wasn't bad, since my dad hooked me up with a Continental Presidents Club card and I had the free drink hookup. The flight for Dublin left at 10pm EST, landed at Dublin airport at 10am local time. It was impossible to get comfortable enough to sleep for long on the plane.

In this sleep deprived state, we now get to drive from the airport to the hotel. I'm really glad Tim was driving. But it was pretty funny when he got in to back up the car and was sitting on the wrong side. I must admit that riding on the other side of the road is pretty intense.

I notice that I bump into people while walking here all the time. You know how when people are walking in opposite directions back home how everyone gravitates to the right side of the sidewalk or door? Well here it's the opposite, just like the driving. It's really hard to rewire myself to dodge by going to the left.

All I wanted to do was sleep when I got to the hotel this morning, but every jet lag suggestions site says to force yourself to stay up and go to sleep at the regular local time. So we ended up taking a train into downtown Dublin and took a site seeing tour bus around the city. Which would have seemed lame to me two days ago, but it was about all I could handle in my sleep deprived state. Now I'm thinking it was a good idea, because we know were everything is and got more ideas on what to go see and do tomorrow.

My Aunt Patty can't stop mentioning how Irish everyone looks. It is kinda weird, in that everyone has similar features to me, my dad and my aunt, which is different from about every place I've been outside of upstate New York. Another thing that's cool is most of the people here are paler than I am. I don't know that I've ever experienced this. Except for the time I delivered pizza to 3 african-american albinos who shared and apartment in Denton. But that was freaky, this is cool.