My flight and getting to the Halls

Ay yi yi

this is gonna be a long one......

I'll start where I left off with the journey overseas. I first flew from lax at 7am to nyc. I slept through most of that flight, despite the bickering young couple next to me. "Stop trying to control where I look."

not kidding. BREAK UP ALREADY GEEZ.

then I had a two hour layover at jfk, which, after switching terminals and going through international security, only left me with about 40 minutes of sitting around, waiting to board.

My flight to Ireland was interesting to say the least. I flew Aer Lingus (hahaha) and I sat next to this really friendly older man from new york. He was on his way to Amsterdam and was bragging about how many youtube hits he's gotten (I believe he said his username was rononeb). Well he was friendly but spoke quite candidly. "I've only been to Ireland once, had a layover there for a night, and I remember thinking 'Geez I see why my grandparents left this place.' That was the 80's surely it's changed since then."

Thanks rononeb.

Then I got my first taste of the Irish character via my flight attendant. Very rude and yet friendly at the same time. How do they do it? I'm not sure, but I've seen it a lot since I've been here, but more on that later.

At one point, my flight attendant came by with the drink cart and asked me, "what would you like to drink?"

To which I replied, "What are my options?"

Then, with a smile on his face and a bit of a laugh he replied, exasperated, "Just tell me what you want."

He definitely didn't get any more polite as the flight went on. I asked him at one point if he would exchange currency and he just looked at me, laughed, and while walking away answered with a very short "no".

but the in flight entertainment was very nice. I mean that sincerely. A lot of good, recent movies. Most of them were high brow and a bit cerebral, but I managed to find the shitty, feel-good, turn off your brain movie that I needed at this nerve racking time. And after I watched Larry Crowne I slept a tad then listened to my iPod.

Here's the first really hilarious Irish eccentricity I observed. When we landed, half the plane clapped. and there was even one apathetic "yay" from a few rows up. It was obvious that the half who were clapping were Irish, and the other half were not and were very confused. I've never been in a flight before where the landing was met with cheering passengers. Does that mean it doesn't usually work out? Scary thought.

Anyhow, Trinity has this great free service called "meet and greet" where a Trinity student will pick you up at the airport, give you a sim card and help you get to your residence. I was greeted by Marc, who, by the way, was a stone cold fox.

Marc was very sweet and friendly and we had a good long talk about movies, Trinity and Ireland vs America. He's actually the one who pointed out the Irish's amazing ability to balance being friendly and rude all at once. He also told me that in America the service is phenomenal, and people are very friendly and kind.

Being an American who never noticed this, or thought that American service was above and beyond but rather just average, you can imagine how unnerving this was to hear. I just kept wondering if everyone was going to be rude like my flight attendant or if he was considered polite by Irish standards.

Marc got me to Trinity via an air coach bus which cost 7€. Then I asked how I was supposed to get to my dorm, the Halls. He informed me that my Trinity dorm housing was actually about a 30 minute walk from campus and that the busses don't run between 11:30pm-7am. So after giving me his number in case I had any questions, he put me in a taxi and told the driver where I was going. That fare was 10€ plus the 1€ I tipped (I later found out that I was swindled due to my American accent and that it shouldn't have been more than 6€, but, whatever, it happens right?).

Now it was about 7am and I had just arrived at Halls. There's plenty more to recount but I'm tired of blogging so this is where I'm going to leave off. I'll continue this story later, with pictures.

Love you all
Chelsea