June 27 - The Green of Ireland!

My first day in Ireland was surprisingly a lot of fun. It didn't start out so hot, with me arriving in the airport and not finding either of the two people I thought would be waiting. And continuing with me waiting for the next girl to get in, her flight getting delayed, and me still not finding our meeting up with her. I found out later that the first two had left the airport way before I got in, and that somehow I just crossed wires with the girl getting in later, so it ended up she also got to the hostel before me. But whatever. Finally I just took a cab to the hostel (which was minorly expensive) but I got there nice and easy and didn't have to drag my two suitcases two blocks.

But you know what did bother me? When I checked in with Aer Lingus in Berlin I found out that my bags were overweight. That's right. Even though I had to pay 5 Euros a piece for my checked luggage, combined their weight still had to be 20 kg or less. And mine were 27.6. Furthermore, when your bag is overweight they charge you 8 EUROS per kg you're over. But even worse than that? They charged me for being 10kg over! I was only 7.6! 8, if they were being real bastards and decided to round up. But they charged me for 10 kg, meaning I coughed up 80 Euros before I even left Germany.

I'm trying not to be bitter.

Anyway, after checking into the hostel things got better really quickly. Jennifer, the girl I was going to meet coming off the plane, came by and said hi and introduced me some of the other people that had also arrived early. She then let me in on the plan to meet up for dinner later. So a quick hour to refresh later, a group of 6 went off to explore Dublin. Or at least Dublin 1 anyway. We spent some time walking around the Temple Bar area before finally settling in a cheaper part of town to have dinner. But of course the evening wasn't over yet. Being in Dublin we just HAD to check out a pub before we went to bed. After a quick check at the map, we decided to head to the Brazen Head, a pub rumored to be the oldest in Ireland. It was so much fun! We had a few pints (I shared one with Jennifer - no more beer for me thank you) and generally had a wonderful time getting to know each other and soaking up Irish culture. It makes me really excited about the rest of the 6 weeks - if the first night is this fun, maybe more won't be worse?