Dublin Day 1

Ireland Day 1

I’d been pretty apprehensive about the trip in general; I’m the youngest one on the trip… Fred drove me to the airport and as soon as I got there, Ray, one of the bassists, brought me a plastic baggie of green goo – turns out it was lime jello shots with peppermint schnapps…. And there began the adventure. The plane ride, absolutely awful. I think the worst part is not being able to sleep. Well, or sleeping for 1-2 hours and then waking up, thinking that we only have one or two hours to go, just kidding, 5 hours! But they served us dinner, which was a piece of potroast with mashed potatoes and gravy, and a roll.

I met a new friend on the trip, Lauren, who’s the violinist accompanist. She’s a 25 year old USC graduate who won the Young Artists Competition with La Jolla Symphony. We sat on the plane together and played the movie game until we fell asleep. Well, she did. When we got off it was cloudy and rainy, but I was SO freaking happy to be getting off the plane. My sinuses were hurting really bad, even though I took like 8 sudafed. The terminal was long and had the moving walkway-escalator types. It’s pretty modern and clean. Then was the wait for customs…. Long snaking line. The customs agent I got was a gorgeous blonde girl, with these crazy blue eyes. My stay in Ireland is starting off well. She asked if I was there for business or pleasure, I, in my best james bond voice replied, “Both.” She laughed and asked if I was with the singing group. I was, and she requested that I prove it to her, and I sang her a little tune!

Got out of the terminal and the first thing I did was change out some dollars for some Euros. The excahange rate is about 1.35 at the moment. After that I went to buy a simcard for my iPhone. I bought a 10E simcard for O2 and made my first calls. Outside the weather was quite dreary, but I welcomed the wonderful fresh cold water splashing on my face after being cooped up in a plane for so many hours. We hopped on the tour bus, we had 2 drivers/guides, TJ and Sean. I was surprised that I had data serveice on my phone and promptly updated my facebook status. (Surprise im a facebook whore).

After getting into the hotel, which, admittedly was quite beautiful and modern, the rooms have a built in energy saving decive in where it forces you to put in your key to work the lights, we rested a few hours before having some breakfast downstairs. The irish eat a very hearty breakfast. Mine consisted of white and black pudding (or also known as blood pudding), sausage, a fried egg, and of course, potatoes. I would soon learn that this was a pretty common breakfast and we continted to have it every morning.

After breakfast we went and saw the Book of Kells, a manuscript of the 4 holy gospels, with very elaborate scripting and images, imagine the huge ornate first letters of pages. I tried to take pictures of it, and I got in trouble.. Boo.  It was after this we had our first late-comer…. Nathan was 15 min late, and some people went back into the museum to find him. Upon walking back to the bus we realized that my roommate Mark was nowhere to be found. Another search party failed, but as we were about to pull away we see him running frantically towards the bus! 😛

Sorry for the rare updates. More to come! Wi-fi is kind of hit and miss in the countryside…

Pictures are up on facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2540139&id=3303735&l=e2074b30a6