Dún Laoghaire Harbor Road

   
   

Photos taken with a 50mm 1.4

Taking It All In

I didn’t really take that many photos on our “first day” because we’d just been in airports or flying for the last eight hours and since they’re five hours ahead of us, even though we arrived at 8 am, I was pooped! From the Dublin Airport, we took the AirCoach to a place near Tom’s great aunt Valerie, who graciously took us in for our first few days visiting. She showed us around Dublin and Blackrock and we were able to meet a great deal of Tom’s family, all were just as friendly and welcoming as he said they would be. We had dinners with different family members almost each night, and every time there was a vegetarian dish (or two!) made just for me. (Several of Tom’s relatives were vegetarian WHICH WAS AWESOME.) AND, they are the hugging type of family. You know? They hug, and I mean really hug you, and it was wonderful. Though I took a gazillion photos of those wonderful events, I won’t be sharing those because I’m not sure his family would appreciate their faces (or houses) being plastered on the internet, as I forgot to ask. And, you know, I want to make a good impression.

   

PS: This is Enya’s house. I think by now you guys already know I am easily excited and a complete dork. I grew up listening to her, I love her, and I totally took a creepy photo of her house.

On Route & In Flight

Boy do they keep you busy when you fly first class! We had barely taken off when they dropped off our menus, gave us a drink (champagne or orange juice), and loaded us up with our own personal movie/tv/music device. I squealed a little when I saw the menu was in both English and Irish. (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet or not, but before you correct me, (ahem Riley) the locals do actually call it “Irish” and not “Gaelic”.) After eating Tom and I laid back in our beds, I mean, seats, and watched UP together. We put our personal players together like goofballs and hit “play” and “pause” a few times until they were in time. WE’RE DORKS. We also watched Date Night and A-Team. (It was a looong flight.)

   
   


Look at this thing. My head almost exploded when I saw how many buttons there were. Seriously.

US Airways First Class Lounge

There was quite the difference between the Air Canada lounge and the US Airways International lounge. (On the way back we stayed in the US Airways Domestic lounge and while it wasn’t as spiffy as the International, it was still pretty awesome.) Notice the BMW has been replaced with Porsche? Mayday, mayday! I think we’ve breeched the higher class. I say that because while I was excited and on a super high about going to Ireland and photo-documenting every second, the friendly people interested in what I was doing were gone. People didn’t really notice me here, except for one, and that my friends, was a maid. A maid who approached me while I was photographing food and very rudely asked me “what I thought” I was doing. Normally I would be okay to respond, but she was so rude and abrupt and she said it while in the middle of answering a question of a man who looked remarkably like Bruce Willis (whom I met in person once so I knew it wasn’t him) and so he was staring at me waiting for my response, could barely choke out, “I’m a passenger.” (Holy run on sentence!) I think she thought I was from the press or a journalist or something, but either way, I returned to my seat after that and died of embarrassment. I was done taking photos anyway otherwise I would have shown her who was boss! (Okay, maybe not, but I really was done.) And now I’m sharing the story with you. Because it’s humorous. At least I thought so.