Huh, you travel light!

Hello everyone!

We're writing to you from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 8:30pm here, and we are enjoying a beer in the hostel lounge in Dublin. Living the good life!

The first few days here have been a whirlwind! The flight went smoothly enough. Erica, of course, slept the whole time, while me and Sarah suffered for the entire 7 hour flight trying to sleep and failing. We both hate her, consequently. But seriously, the flight was uneventful, and we made it to the airport early (a surprise, considering all of the recent troubles with flights in the US). Customs was fine, and we found our bags easily. That was about the only easy part of our baggage situation. The girls and I each came to Ireland with a huge backpacker's backpack, second bag and carry on. It was a ton of stuff! We looked like ridiculous pack mules in the airport. I think that some of the baggage workers in the airport were laughing at us. Actually, when Sarah and I went to the bathroom and Erica was guarding the baggage, a woman walked by her and commented, "huh, you travel light." Haha! She gets ridiculed because she had the good fortune of sleeping on the flight over :)

Getting to the city center from the airport via bus was simple enough, but getting from the bus to the hostel was a bit more difficult. With all of our baggage, and no map or idea where to go, we wandered around like lost leprechauns until someone on the street was nice enough to point us in the right direction. Did we mention that there are no street signs on some of the blocks, and that the streets that do have signs are posted inconveniently on buildings? But needless to say, we struggled the few blocks to our hostel, Abraham House, and checked in.

Free of our bags, we set out to explore the city that will be our home for the next 4 months. We started out strong, hitting St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College, Grafton Street, Temple Bar, St. Patrick's and Christ Church Cathedral, and meandering in between. But by about 2pm, running on no sleep, we were all falling asleep in our lunches. We forced ourselves to stay awake, though, and made it until 7pm before crashing. We managed to enjoy our first delicious pint of the black stuff before giving into oblivion, served to us by our now-favorite bartender, a man called Michael.

The weather, bizarrely, was quite sunny on arrival, a deceptive introduction to our life here in Ireland....

Erin, Erica and Sarah