Day 2 - Dublin

Slainte!

Thus commences my online travel journal. I bet your first thought is… ok, Steph, so what’s this “sidhe” thing which you are presumably in search of, given the title of your journal? Sidhe is both the name of the faery folk that used to be the old Irish gods, the Tuatha de Danann and are supposed, even nowadays, to live underground in hills also called sidhe.

If I am reading your thoughts correctly, I bet you’re thinking: so what? Faeries? What does this have to do with anything you’re studying? To that question I’d answer: I’m not really looking for faeries, but I am really interested in a culture that even partially believes that faeries still exist, and I’m also struck by the idea of a quest for something more, an outward and inward journey.

And that’s as philosophical as I’m getting this evening, because I am exhausted. The plane ride out was pretty innocuous. The weather held out and we even flew into Dublin airport early. Before the flight, my friends and I were chatting with a journalist from Dublin who was in Chicago to attend a friend’s wedding. He was very nice, and when we asked him if he knew of any good pubs to hear traditional fiddling, he gave me his card and told us to text him while we were in town because his parents used to run cultural tours of the city, and music was his father’s favorite. The rest of the plane ride was delightfully uneventful (thank goodness Aer Lingus didn’t strike), and horribly long. Soooooo long. Being cramped up in those little seats overnight was pretty much the anti-dancing. But Ann, my roomie here, and I made the best of it and really enjoyed watching the plane float through the clouds, like they were the sea instead of the air.

When we finally broke through the cloud cover, we saw green, green, and more green. Even from the air, and even in Dublin, the landscape is like none I’ve ever seen. Most of the borders seem organic, like they’ve grown out of the land into a patchwork quilt of different greens. As we pulled into the terminal, we saw the sun rise over the Wicklow Hills, a sight that I feel privilaged to have seen.

Meanwhile, I still failed to realize I was actually in Ireland. I made it through customs with no problems, but it didn’t hit me then. We took a taxi-van to the Mespil Hotel where we are staying and the driver took us round and around Dublin’s city centre, driving on what seems to me to be the “wrong side” of the road. Still nothing… Ann and I moved into our cozy, trendy hotel room with a beautiful view of the Grand Canal (funny story: the grand canal is deep enough in some parts to navigate a small barge, but the part that we see looks about the size of a small little creek. Not so grand.) but I still didn’t realize we were actually here. It wasn’t until Ann and I ventured out to do some money changing and provision shopping in the rain that I finally realized: I’M IN IRELAND!! And it was cool.

Then the jet lag hit, and that’s where I leave you now. Dinner was so fancy… It’s a good thing I’m not doing too much lunch eating because otherwise I would become really really rotund. But alas, I am just exhausted and it is time for bed. It’s funny to think that it’s 3 in the afternoon at home and 9 PM here. The plane ride was like a time warp, and it’s hard to think that it will be Saturday tomorrow, it felt like Friday never happened. I’m heading to bed. Goodnight all!