I know I like Budweiser, but these people are borderline religious fanatics about Guiness...

Over the past two days I have entertained several instances of extreme confusion, two instances of jogging through airports, and three instances of inputting inexcusably unhealthy airport food into my poor, possibly depraved body.

I find that when you wake up hung over, you, on very rare occasions, find yourself in a state of clarity that transcends the discomfort alcohol has wreaked on your body. This allows you to get some real work done and I find usually occurs when you wake up knowing you have a final project left to finish, or a five hour drive to complete, or maybe a long day of work coming up. Two days ago was not one of those days.

I woke up sluggish as hell with a throbbing headache and about as much motivation as a rock. I threw the rest of my belongings in my truck, running back and forth between the shop and my vehicle, wearing the same clothes from the night before and generally feeling that I was forgetting something very important (As of yet I haven't realized what that "something" is, but I'm sure it's waiting for the right moment to jump out for an exciting surprise). Driving to the airport was a testament to the alleviating formula that is wide open windows, public radio classical music, and traffic jams. I arrived at Charlotte International, my parents met me to drive the truck back home and stared with equal measures of doubt and horror as I decided I had packed too much and rampantly threw clothes and accouterments across the backseat, occasionally realizing I had thrown something out a bit too enthusiastically (like my camera charger) only to be forced to rummage through a rapidly rising mountain of clothes. Hurried hugs and stiff handshakes from my parents turned into speed walking through the terminal. Finally, after little sleep in several days, a lack of any substantial food since breakfast the previous morning, and pouring copious amounts of alcohol down my throat the night before with no sustenance since, well, I hit a wall. I was in line at a fast food Italian restaurant next to my gate thinking "Standing is getting a lot harder. And my hands are shaking, that's nice. Think I might projectile vomit onto this pile of bread if I have to see the guy in front of me's fat roll peek out from under his t-shirt again.".

Needless to say, I survived, and as fate would have it I somehow ended up in first class for the flight to New York! I found myself next to an insistently quite Indian woman and waited out the rest of my hangover in the midst of endless cranberry juice and miniature bags of pretzels. Five hours pass surprisingly fast as I wait for my flight to London, and within an hour of leaving I start to wonder if maybe I'm at the wrong gate. Everyone is speaking Spanish. I'm going to London, this is just, wrong. I keep checking my gate number on my tickets and, yea, 47, I'm right. Finally I'm talking to a guy charging his phone next to mine and I find out he's flying out of 47 too. To Rio. Yea, thought my flight was supposed to have started boarding five minutes ago. I walk over to the middle eastern looking attendant at the desk who proceeds to look at my boarding pass with this vacant expression, she thumbs over a large black women helping the guy next to me, "That's just wrong" she says. No? Now which direction do I need to sweat my ass off running in so I can get to London! Gate 3, opposite side of the terminal.

150 Metric Ton Rock Used as a tomb, dating back to 3000 BC

Make it just in time, slide into a seemingly empty row with the exception of one girl on the far side (four seats between us), perfect, fold up these arm rests, shut off these pesky little TVs on the back of the seats (that appear specially designed to flicker just enough to not cause seizures), this could almost be half a bed. So we take off, I flip through the channels available, aimlessly watching a movie between dozing off. The lights dim, I slip a little further into unconsciousness, then suddenly I'm violently startled awake (you know when you're half asleep and jump like a little girl? that was me) by someone trying to squeeze between my knees and the seat in front of me (all of 1/8"). "Do you mind if I sit in the middle there? My seat is soooo crowded?" I guess not? I am way too nice to people sometimes. Next thing I know I'm pulling off that awkward sleep sitting up with your head nodding forward when I wake up to this big black man slowly pushing his head onto my knee. Nope, not o-k with that. I extricate myself, lower my armrest, and proceed to lean as far into the aisle as possible.

Made it into London only to have to scramble through security and customs to my gate, making the last boarding call for flight 8175 to Dublin. Getting through customs I was asked how much money I had with me, "I don't know, $70-80 US.". "You realize this is the exit to the airport?", "I mean, I've got a debit card", "Does it work here.", "The bank said it would", "Don't run out of money!". Get to a bus and 6 euros later make it to a row of hostel's in downtown Dublin. The first two were booked solid. Lodging looking promising! Good thing I planned ahead and booked a room! Well, the next place was called the Paddy Palace, and I won't lie, the name gave me second thoughts, then there was the logo, a pixelated, stereo-typical laughing leprechaun  but what the hell, I'll check it out. Of course we have a bed, 15 euros a night, excellent! And it's actually a nice place, at least I don't think I'll have to enter into treatments for hepatitis A after my stay here!

Amy

I've met some interesting people since being here. Everyone seems dead set on these bus tours around the country, which seems so...typically tourist. I'm in Dublin till the 24th when I fly to Edinburgh. So the first day I was sitting on my bunk, contemplating jet lag and cleaning off the SD card from my camera when in pops Amy from New Zealand. She had just gotten to Dublin too and we decided to walk around the city together, it seemed better to have some company rather than give in to the sleep my body was begging for. We toured the Guiness storehouse and got to pour our own glass of beer before heading to try an Irish dinner. Guiness again and a huge plate of "fried bacon" (thick slices of ham), steamed cabbage and mashed potatoes, with some sort of cream sauce over it all. Excellent meal, way too much to eat, but I made it through, this doesn't seem like the time to be wasting calories because of something as trivial as a full stomach.



It felt like 10:30 or 11:00, but the hour hand on my watch was just crossing seven. We stumble back to the hostel (at least a mile or two) and Amy mentions a free bus tour if you book two nights here. Whatever, free tour, sure I'll come. I expected something just around Dublin, maybe a few hours at most. Next thing I know five hours have passed and we're getting on the motorway for a neighboring city, Kilkenny. Immediately upon getting on the bus you get the feeling that our bus driver might be a little prejudiced against the British. Somewhere between, "hundreds of years of oppression"  and "then they killed our rebellion leaders in 1916 so we revolted as a people!" and "they took everything they could from us, even our metals from the ground!", yea, no surprise when he asked any British on the bus to raise their hands that no one did.

We traveled past a bridge where, apparently, PS: I love you began filming, and up into some mountains where parts of Braveheart were filmed. We got to hike around several "lochs" (lakes) and saw a large lake that is shaped roughly like a glass of Guiness (the Guiness family even bought the lake and imported white sand from Florida to give it a bit of head at the top, though they have since sold it). Tiny streets and stone buildings slowly turn into a slightly more industrial style with Kilkenny, another brewing center. We stroll through the cobblestone streets and find a large castle with little old churches every few blocks and pubs everywhere. Stopped for a beer and some chowder before heading back to the bus and subsequently back to Dublin.


So here I am, drinking a beer, sitting in this hostel, feeling pretty happy about the fact that I've seen a few hundred motorcycles in the past two days and not a single one was a Harley. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get a little better feel for Dublin and figure out a small day trip for the 22nd-23rd before flying to Edinburgh.


Zack