Planning a trip, as someone who loves planning, can sometimes be almost as fun as the trip itself. And I had sooo much fun for the last several months getting ready for this adventure. From Irish power adapters to compression socks for the plane, I have been slowly hacking away at a wonderfully thorough list of things, having great conversations with people who have been to Ireland before, researching “do’s and don’ts” and “What to brings” and “Where to gos”, and so when we arrived yesterday morning, our confidence in acclimating as quickly as possible was, at the very least, ambitious.
The flight was long and our layover in Dallas was cut short on account of our plane leaving almost an hour late from San Diego…but we still made it to the gate with a few minutes to spare and our luggage came out in Dublin no problem.
We sat by a chick who was on her way to Dublin to see another band we love, Hozier, at Malahide Castle on Friday. She said she tried to get Florence tickets months ago but they were sold out. She offered us gum before takeoff and asked my sweetie to take some pictures out the window so she could send them to her mom as we made our descent onto the Emerald Isle.
It’s so interesting to me how plane rides can offer up these cool opportunities for human connection…one lady stopped me mid aisle while I was finding my seat because she has the same carry-on as me. The flight attendant had a moment of smirking acknowledgement when my sweetie handed her an almost full cup of coffee back for the garbage…as if to say she knew damn well the coffee on that flight wasn’t worth the consolation it would’ve taken to drink it.
We went through customs and that’s always an interesting process…where you wait in a really long line to have a deceptively friendly conversation with a guy who wants to know what the hell you think you’re doing in his country. These questions I’ve answered dozens of times to friends and family, “What will you be doing while you’re here?” “How long are you staying?”, but they hit a little different when the guy asking them is skeptically checking to see if my passport looks like my real face while wondering if I’m someone he’s gonna have to send to prison.
I was ready to explain that I’ve chopped my hair since I took my photo, I took off my glasses to maximize emphasis on familiar features from my passport. And every single time I get the nod of acceptance, okay you may enter, I feel relief and validation like I’ve passed a really important test…which is always so interesting to me because my only job ever at customs is to look like myself and tell the truth about my travel intentions.
Our cab driver knew a lot about Dublin and had some cool stories. He recommended some places to visit and eat…told us the best pubs “have a Guinness sign on the window”, which made us wonder if that’s code for “where tourists go”. He drove a lady the other day who asked him where “the best Irish pubs” are in Dublin…and he thought that was a funny way to ask an Irishman where to drink in Ireland…aren’t all the pubs Irish?
Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived at our hotel, so we headed up the street for an Irish breakfast…which is basically a big plate full of protein: Irish sausage, bacon, black and white pudding, egg, tomato, hash brown, baked beans, mushrooms, and toast.
And then we walked around to take it all in…Christchurch Cathedral, the river walk, Ha’penny bridge, the streets of Temple Bar. We stopped for our first pint and listened to a guy sing pub songs for awhile. But we were sooo tired. We took jet lag relief pills all through the journey, melatonin to sleep a few hours on the plane, and we rallied as hard as we could.
We kept on and headed to Dublin Castle…and realized we may end up sleeping like nomads on the empty bench we found to sit on in the castle garden if we didn’t stand up and get movin’ immediately …jet lag is no joke, even with all the planning to prevent as much of it as we could.
We checked into our hotel room, a shower helped us find a second wind, dinner at a great pub that used to be a brothel. Fish and chips, Guinness stew, a sampling of whiskies (Powers is the clear favorite so far).
And I’m writing this now after a solid 10 hours of sleep and it’s technically 4am here, but who even knows what time zone I’m on. We’ve got a full day ahead and a concert tonight…and all I can say is Ireland so far is so much cooler than I could’ve ever planned for. People are friendly, the vibe is chill, pubs and pizza joints sit facing centuries-old castles and cathedrals and relics…and electric cars and scooters and duck tour buses full of international travelers wearing Viking hats zipping through the cobblestone streets. Its almost surreal at times, it feels sacred here.
