(Crider) Arriving in Dublin

   On June 30th, 2012, I flew into Dublin from La Rochelle, France, more tired than apprehensive concerning my first visit to Ireland.  I slept through most of the flight, even though it held more crying babies than I had ever seen on a plane.  Five minutes before landing I awoke and was greeted by dark clouds parted just along the Irish coast, where a strip of sunlight highlighted the low tide and illuminated the windows of three fishing boats a little ways off in Dublin Bay. 

  The excitement of first arriving in a foreign country began to dawn on me more as the altitude decreased.  The plane landed with a jolt and it hit me:  I was in Dublin, and I’d be staying for a month.  Before I graduated from high school I didn't own a passport.  Within the past two years I’ve had the opportunity to visit Peru, France (just in the last few weeks), and now Ireland.  The idea of travelling overseas still splays an involuntary smile across my face.  Though the open green fields I’d observed from the plane window resembled landscapes one would encounter flying into New Orleans, I was well aware that I’d probably find as great of a culture shock as I did in France, regardless of what proportions of English and Gaelic I would hear in the local dialects. 

   My assumption was verified when I walked off the airport bus in front of Trinity.  I timidly crossed my first major Irish street, looking both ways just in case, to see a man with a tattooed neck dressed in a full superman costume, tights and all, eating a sandwich on the base of a statue with his legs crossed.  Further walking towards my hotel for the night wove me though hoards of folks gathering for the night’s pub crawl or partnered up in celebration of Ireland’s Gay Pride Month.  Lingering excitement from the Irish Pride Festival radiated from several pedestrians.  An Italian tour group consisting of at least fifty persons created an urban obstacle.  The sun hadn’t set.

   After settling in my hotel, slurping up a bowl of beef and Guinness stew naturally accompanied by my first true pint of Guinness at Bad Ass Cafe in Temple Bar, and searching for a 24 hour cyber cafe along the River Liffey, I shivered through the frigid Dublin streets around 12 a.m. in the midst of all that come out at night.  I have only gone to school in New Orleans a couple of years now, experienced Mardi Gras once, but the crowded streets of the French Quarter hardly amount to the exuberant chaos that teems through Dublin during a Saturday night on the town.  Costumes, cackles, and battle cries of drunkenness—it would have been a great excitement to jump into had I not been begging for a bed.