Éire go Brách - Part I

There's really not a whole lot to report on my first day in Ireland. It was sunny when I got here and gloomy when I left the airport. For shits and giggles I looked at the 7-day forecast for home, which stated a week of sunshine, and compared it to the week of rain for Ireland. Don't get me wrong...this is what I was expecting. The sun beaming in my face as I came down the escalator for the bus rank at the airport was like a nice little welcome, but I knew it wasn't what was in the cards for me the rest of the trip. I like the rain...I'm good. I was sleep deprived but managed to get a few good pints and some stew in before I called it a night. If you're interested in the minutia, keep reading.

I had tried a little experiment the two days before I left where I tried to go ahead and get myself on Irish time in hopes that I would be able to hit the ground running when I arrived. I knew the likelihood was that I would never get to sleep on the airplane and end up ruining that experiment, but I tried anyways. I was right about not sleeping - it didn't happen. The flight was pretty close to 7 hours, about an hour short of what it was scheduled for, getting us there a little bit before 8am local. I had pre-booked a ticket for the Aircoach bus from the airport to the city center where my hotel, the Charles Stewart Guesthouse, was located. It was a simple 20-ish minute trip, dropping me off about 2 short blocks from the hotel. The driver checked with me before I boarded to make sure I was on the right bus, loaded and unloaded my luggage, and quickly pointed me in the right direction once I was street-side...not bad for a little more than €5 (pre-booked, roundtrip price is €11 at the moment).

I knew I was showing up at the guesthouse early, but I was hoping to have the same kind of luck when I showed up early at my room in Reykjavik. The guesthouse isn't really a hotel, but not quite a hostel, but also not a private bed and breakfast. It's all private rooms with the option of a full Irish breakfast in the mornings (I'll let you know how that is) spanning two addresses in a block of older, Georgian-style buildings. The building could use some love, inside and out, and the rooms are small and sparse by American standards, but for a clean place to rest my head and for about €45 (with breakfast) in the center of the city I'm not going to complain. Considering I've paid more for shittier places with fewer amenities back home, it really isn't anything to complain about. That said, I couldn't get an early room and ended up crashing for a few hours in the common room until they could fit me in a little earlier than check-in. I slept for several hours, woke up confused and disoriented (it's a really small bed and it was dark), and contemplated taking some Benadryl and rolling back over. However, it felt like a waste of a few good hours sleep to just keep sleeping my first day away. I mustered the energy and went out to a large pub, The Parnell, just down the road where I had a couple pints of Smithwicks, a pint of a regional pale ale called Galway Hooker, and a big, hearty bowl of lamb stew. It wasn't an old castle or a huge library, but it's still half the reason I came to Ireland. Even if the rest of my two weeks here are as "uneventful" as today, I will consider it mission accomplished. Now it's time for a little TV and some shut eye.