I've found my people, and they've embraced me.

Part One - Getting There

I realize I have a problem. I will never again be able to enjoy travelling as I used to. Why? Simple; for the last 5 years of my life, I have not had to pay for airfare. Because of this, I was never stressed out, angry, or upset when something went wrong while travelling. If the plane was delayed, oh well. If I was bumped from a flight, oh well. If they ran out of peanuts - oh well. I hadn't paid for anything, so I couldn't expect anything. Now that I am paying for my flights, I do expect things. Things like good service, timely push-offs, and free peanuts. And when I don't get these things - these things I paid for - I get stressed out, angry, and very upset. It's not really being spoiled, because when I was spoiled with free airfare I was always polite. It's simply that I expect to get what I paid for. Perhaps I am too demanding (or, perhaps, I fly on shitty airlines where "what I pay for" is shitty service).

This weekend was one of the worst travelling experiences of my life; definitely in the top three. Ryanair is atrocious. I have heard them called "the Southwest of Europe". This is not only a disgrace to the good name of Southwest Airlines, it also offends me on a deep, personal level. I won't bore you with the details of the seven hours I spent in airports this weekend, but I will say one thing. After a 20 minute argument with a customer service representative, I was told that I was "bitchy, even for an American" (not to my face, but to a co-worker as I walked away). I would have said something in response if I wasn't somewhat proud of this statement. My return trip found me wasting an equal amount of time in an airport, but it was much more enjoyable as I was much more drunk. I can now check "drinking alone in an airport bar" off my list of things to do. In the end, I am thoroughly unimpressed with Ryanair. Sure, I would probably fly them again, but only if their price was significantly (£60 or more) cheaper than competing airlines. Otherwise, I just don't think it's worth it.

Part Two - Being There

My jaunt to Dublin was spectacular. Saturday, I explored the city via a hop-on-hop-off tour bus service. The drivers were stereotypically Irish and, when they weren't talking, they played stereotypical Irish music. It was cliché-tacular and I loved it. I saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College (an ornately illustrated book of gospels from AD 800), Dublin Castle, The Doors of Dublin (all the old Georgian squares have these really ornate and colourful doors), St. Stephen's Green, Christ's Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, The place where Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, all sorts of random political and historical buildings, and (most importantly) the Guinness Storehouse. Is it sad that my favourite thing was the brewery? You didn't get to tour the actual brewery itself, but they had this awesome eight-storey interactive museum kind of thing with all the technical information, history, and advertisements you would ever want. There was a whole floor dedicated to the history of Guinness advertising. I don't think I need to tell you how much I enjoyed this. I am a nerd. Saturday night I wandered around the Temple Bar (a sort of 6th street style) area of the city with some friends I made at the Storehouse. Throughout the day, I kept being stopped by lost tourist looking for directions. They were fairly shocked to find I was American and, often, just as lost as they were. It wasn't just the tourists either. I fooled many an Irishman, who was equally shocked to find I was American. Apparently, it's not just the freckles and red hair (I didn't have the heart to tell them it was fake) I have going but it's "my face and my charm". It turns out Irish people like me a lot because 1. I look Irish and 2. am from Texas. The combination of the two is, to them anyway, hysterical. I may be living in the wrong country.

Sunday, I went with ten other people on a Celtic Tour of the countryside. Since it was such a small group, everyone got fairly chummy. I particularly got on well with these two girls from Newcastle and the driver, Paul. He called me Texas all day and, I'm not going to lie, it fulfilled a life long dream of mine. Who from Texas doesn't want to be nicknamed Texas when in a foreign country?!? Unless of course if you are in a war movie, because then you would have to die first. We travelled about an hour outside the city and visited Fourknocks' Tomb (built over 5000 years ago and home of the oldest carving of a face - though, 5000 years later it's not so impressive), Mellifont Abbey (where there are these really neat Celtic Crosses), Monasterboice Abbey, the Hill of Slane, and the Hill of Tara. It was really rather interesting and it was nice to see the famous Irish Countryside. You know that whole "Ireland is green" thing? Honestly, I have never seen such a vivid shade of green in nature before. It was gorgeous.

I learned something about my family while I was over there. We're Irish. Yeah, yeah, I know my Grandparents were Irish, but since my mom grew up in England, I always thought of us as British. Nope. All the quirkiness I used to attribute to being English is really not English at all. Our personalities, our sense of humour, our looks, our attitudes - it's all Irish. I never really thought about the fact that my mom and her siblings were first generation Brits. They grew up more Irish than they did British and that's what's been passed on to me. I really liked Dublin and the people I met there. They got me. I felt very comfortable there; very much at home. Part one aside, it was a very nice weekend. I've got a ridiculous amount of photographs, some of which I'll get posted to facebook in the next few days. (I would have posted them in here but in order to write a photograph based post I would have to write it at home and then what would I do at work?)