- Irish drivers are magic - Seriously, before you earn a driver's license in Ireland, I'm pretty sure you have set fire to a wardrobe or pull a rabbit out a hat. The drivers here have seemingly inhuman reflexes and senses of three-dimensional space. Our first day here we hired a cabbie to drive our luggage (and ourselves) to Trinity Hall. Other than the slightly jarring feeling of driving on the wrong side of the road, things seemed fairly normal on the highways leading away from the airport. And then we got into the city... No joke, the roads here are narrow. We zipped past halted lanes of traffic at speeds in excess of 40 mph and the cab's side mirror was perhaps four inches from other vehicles. I could have rolled down my window and easily touched other cars without leaning forward or really stretching. I was blown away at how calm the driver seemed. He didn't seem to be concentrating on this breathtaking derby of death at all. He seemed bored. And that's how everyone drives here. Yup, magical powers.
- The first time I embarrassed myself in another country - Let's back up a bit. So just before we climbed into the aforementioned cab at the airport, the cab driver asked me to put a suitcase in the front passenger seat. I jumped to it, grabbing the suitcase and walked around to the front right door. He said, "Oy! Odder soyd." I looked down... yeah, I was about to put my suitcase behind the steering wheel. I'm in the country twenty minutes and I already broadcasting to the world that I'm a very touristy tourist. That's probably why he gave us an unasked-for scenic tour of the city on the way to our apartment. Lesson learned. Oh, and I'm still not used to people driving on the right side of the car. I'll see a car pass and look in the front left seat to get a look at the driver, only to see a kid peering out the window. Oh look, I wet myself again.
- Good Irish water is good - I was wondering how the water here would taste. Don't ask me why, but as I was lying in bed the night before we left, going over luggage weights and passport details in my head, I suddenly thought, "And what if the water tastes horrible?! All I drink is water! I'd shrivel up like a prune!" I had no reason to be frightened whatsoever. The water tastes great.
- Irish food is scrumptious - I had heard that European food is horrible. That it's remarkably akin to bland, dry sawdust. I was interested to see what the vittles would be like, and once again, I was pleasantly surprised. The food here is really, really good. The Irish don't seem to be huge fans of preservatives or artificial flavorings. The nutrition information (and list of ingredients) on products is visibly displayed, and I usually recognize every ingredient as something natural. Lauren and I walked by a convenience store one morning on the way to City Centre (that's how they spell "center" here... aren't I just so cultured?) and decided to grab some cheap breakfast. We bought two fresh muffins and a bottle of apple juice that was a strange opaque color. The muffins were incredible, with bits of fruit scattered throughout and a moist center. I took a swig of apple juice to wash it all down and immediately stopped walking. I looked at the label--"Not from concentrate" it said. Why did I stop? Only because it was the best apple juice I've ever tasted. Ever. If you took an apple and introduced it to a sledgehammer, the resultant juice would taste like the contents of that bottle. Oh, and the meat here is a bit more expensive, but it's because the animals are grain-fed and live within miles of the city. After eating the food for a few weeks, I can honestly say that I will miss it when we go home.
- Adventure ain't cheap - Ireland is expensive. No, scratch that. Dublin is expensive. How expensive? Well, a six-pack of Heineken in the States is $8.50 or so. Over here (bear in mind that Germany is much closer to Dublin than Arkansas), the same six-pack is 11 Euro. The exchange rate of the Euro right now is around 1.3 USD to 1 Euro. What does that mean? A six-pack of Heineken in Dublin costs the equivalent of $14. That's just one example. I assumed that we would find that everything seemed cheap to us, but once we figured in the exchange rate, it would even out. Nope. Stuff is expensive, and that's without figuring in the exchange rate. We cashed out $500 at the airport and got around 350 Euros for it. Fortunately, minimum wage here is more than 8.5 Euros, which is almost $11 per hour. While Dublin is one of the most expensive cities in the world, it also has one of the highest minimum wages.
- Dublin is a lot like America...kinda - This one of the biggest impressions I've had, and it's taken me the longest to really understand. You see, I've never left the country before. My ideas of Ireland, and really any other country, came from books, the news, movies and folk music. Ireland seemed so exotic, so different, so fantastical. For all I knew, it didn't really exist and was only the creation of the assorted media I mentioned. And then we arrived, and all of my preconceptions were tested. Strangely, Dublin isn't much different. The people don't dress much different, checkout ladies at the grocery store are still friendly, clouds look the same, rain smells the same, the moon looks the same... Even so, there are moments when I am undeniably and certifiably NOT in America anymore. Like when I hear anyone talk. Or when I watch television and hear Irish people providing voice-overs for American programming (Mike Rowe does a much better job at narrating "Deadliest Catch"). Or when I walk past folk performers on Grafton Street. Or when I open my wallet. I go back and forth between walking around almost forgetting that I'm in a totally new place, and walking around in wide-eyed wonder at the newness of it all. The first few weeks, I was looking at the different types of architecture, all of the tweed jackets, the strange advertisements I didn't recognize... and then Lauren and I walked past a Subway restaurant. I said, "Hey! It's Subway! It has the same body-odor smell here!!!" This intrusion on my sense of "otherness" is often jarring, but also comforting. For some reason, its reassuring to know that no matter where you go, Subway always smells like armpits. Gradually, I've learned to assign Dublin its own identity apart from my preconceptions (as much as that is possible). It's almost like the city is a Plinko chip in my mind that is slowly studied and catagorized, bouncing from pin to pin, preconception to preconception, inevitably settling into its own identity within my brain.
- Dublin isn't really Ireland - Lauren told me this before we arrived, and now I know it to be true. Let's do a little word exercise. What adjectives do you think of when you read the word "Ireland?" How about the word "Celtic?" "Emerald Isle?" Probably things like green, verdant, lush, foggy, natural, rustic and fresh. Dublin isn't really any of those things. Like any city, Dublin is made up of lots of buildings with the typical city traffic, smells, and personality. Dublin is pretty Western, and is easily the most industrialized region of the country. But it's not the "Ireland" you and I think of when we first hear the word. It's a city. Just like Little Rock certainly doesn't represent all of Arkansas (think of the rivers, forests, bluffs, hollows, fields, fresh air and quiet that you don't experience on at the base of the TCBY building), Dublin doesn't represent all that is Ireland. Fortunately, Lauren and I wake up every morning and roll up the blinds to look to the South. Resting quietly beyond the edges of the city are massive rolling hills covered in innumerable trees and the greenest fields we've ever seen. These silent sentinels remind us that there's more to the Emerald Isle than Grafton Street and graffiti. They call to me louder than any car horn or late-night reveler. They draw my restless, adventurous spirit like murky Guinness into a chilled glass. When we get a chance, we're going to leave the city and head South along the coast, and finally flesh out our perception of this new place.
I hope you enjoyed my first batch of impressions. I'm sure I'll have more for you all as we settle into our new home. Speaking of which... Last night we ate roasted broccoli with garlic and this morning Lauren watched "Project Runway." I wrote articles for DS and glazed my eyes over in front of the Discovery Channel. Just like old times back in our first apartment on Caldwell Street. We miss it, and the feeling settles like a dull ache in our hearts. But, 4 Dartry Road is finally starting to feel like home.
We miss you all and look forward to reading your comments. Feel free to ask questions about our adventure on here, or download Skype and talk to us face-to-face. Our Skype user name is "TheTravelingKopfs," so hop on and we'll give you a personal tour of our apartment with our webcam. We'll even show you the mountains.
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