23 June 2005----Crossing the 'Pond'
Topic: 23 June 2005
I finally arrived in Dublin after crossing the 'pond' and transferring in Amsterdam, which was a trip in of itself. The flight from Minneapolis was thankfully uneventful, if one didn't mind being squashed against strangers like sardines in a can. Sleep and food deprivation tends to made one either a little cranky or loopy, and I choose loopy.

After landing at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, I had about 45 minutes to find the transfer ticket station, get my transfer ticket and then race down to my departure gate. Being the lucky bunny that I am, my arrival and departure gates were on opposite sides of the airport. Needless to say, the sweat was dripping. I didn't even have time to exchange dollars for Euros which would have been helpful on the flight to Dublin as I was starving!!!

Landing in Dublin was quite interesting. Luckily getting through customs wasn't a big deal, however finding transport from the airport to Trinity proved to be a bit of a chore. Fortunately I was able to find two other students going to Trinity as well, and between the three of us, we managed to get there in one piece.

The traffic here is insane! It's utterly chaotic. The traffic is surely on par with that of New York City. . .with the added bonus of the cars being on the other side of the road. I wonder how long it will take to get used to that....

That apartments they have us set up in aren't too bad at all and we even have our own rooms. The bathroom is a bit of a disappointment however, the showers in particular. For a small person with short limbs they might be okay, but with my long monkey arms I have turn turn round very carefully else end of bruised all over. At least the shower head is high up, otherwise I'd be lost.

After showering almost thirty hours of sweat off and a lovely two hours nap I met one of the other girls on my floor, Jean. She and another girl in our building, Diana, and I went down to the Temple Bar area so I could feed my noisy belly.

That proved more difficult than anticipated....

The first place we tried basically kicked us out because we hadn't ordered a main course and because they were so busy. U2 was in town, and something like 80,000 fans descended upon Dublin for the blessed event.

It still didn't seem to make a whole lot of business sense to me. I mean, we were still going to buy some food and drink. Money's money, right? Weird.

I ended up getting a fantastic goat cheese and tomato crepe just across the way and then we hit up Baskin Robbins for a scoop of ice cream. A brilliant idea we all owe to Jean. Smart girl. Ice cream can truly solve all your ills, especially chocolate ice cream!

Toodles until next time!