In Dublin

Day: 2
Location: Dublin
Distance Walked (so far): 2.9 Miles

Well, so far so good. I'm tired and scattered, so this will probably read the same way. I probably only managed 2 or 3 hours of sleep on the plane, so I'm a bit out of it. It's 2:30pm here, or 9:30am EST.

My plane leaving JFK was late... really late. We didn't take off till after 1am, over 2 hours after our original take off time.

I don't yet have any pictures, cause my sole focus was finding the hostel I had arranged to stay at:

Dublin City Bunkhouse

So far, it's nice. It's very cozy. It's amazing how big the hostel is. You couldn't tell it from the road, but once you get in, everything twists around an makes for a very efficient use of space. Of course since this is my first hostel, I don't really have much to compare it to.

I decided to bring a pedometer with me. I'm sure the bus bouncing as it took me to the city from the airport is probably responsible for some of that distance, but I actually got off the bus early and had to walk probably an extra mile before I found the hostel.

But I thought I'd throw out there some first impressions in the scant hours I've spent in this country.

- While everyone is very anglo-looking, there is no lack of languages being spoken. I'm in an English speaking country, but most of the conversations I hear are in another language.
- There's this peculiar social dynamic I've noticed. Since you never really can tell what language people speak, it makes greeting them a little awkward. Most people here default to the very basic “hi”.
- Cars are secondary here. The bus system is really sophisticated, and there are a TON of people walking around the city.
- Most of the signs seem to be designed to be slightly more language neutral than what we have in America.
- What I presume to be Gaelic is on every sign here in Dublin. I'll make sure I get a picture or two of that.

From what I've seen, Dublin isn't too different from larger American cities, but with much sexier accents. :)