Being delirious in Ireland is quite a way to spend the day.

Now I can't speak for all of the Irish, but Dubliners have to be some of the fastest moving people I have ever seen. Hopping off the airport shuttle before sunrise I noticed there was already a great flow of people on the streets. Pulling my suitcase along I was unable to keep up with the sheer velocity of these folks. It didn't help either that I had no idea where I was going, and that, running on six hours of sleep in two days, my jet-lagged brain was still thinking it was midnight. What a start to a day and a half in Dublin, no?

Having been out of Europe for over a month, one forgets about the little differences across the pond. Cobblestones everywhere, huge Gothic cathedrals, trams, zebra-crossings that click and beep at you. But what immediately struck me was how close I kept coming to being hit by cars going the opposite way then I instinctively expect. Luckily before crossing they often had these handy signs.


Despite fairly cold and rainy weather, I was able to take an interesting tour of the town with a native Dubliner, named Christopher even. In his company I heard quite a few stories about the city, here's one of the funny ones. In Dublin there's a large bridge, the O'Connell (pictured), over the river that separates the Northside from the Southside. To commemorate the new Millennium the city commissioned a large clock that would countdown to 2001. For what ever reason, they decided it would be awesome if they placed this clock at the bottom of the river, so you could look over the bridge and see it. You could turn it on by putting a coin in a slot on the railing and pressing a button. Here's the problem: the river is colour of Guinness, and the light of the clock was far too weak for you to see anything. So not getting discouraged by this they dumped more money into the Millennium Spire which now stands 390ft high in the Dublin skyline. It's pretty cool I guess, aside from that fact that the Millennium Spire wasn't ready until well into 2003. But it's the thought that counts after all.