Emerald Isle Days 1&2

I'm in Ireland. That is a real thing. It is 523 AM here and my body clock has declared war on my sleepiness. That's to be expected, I suppose since I have slept about 13 hours since arriving at my hotel yesterday around 11 AM. To be fair, I have travelled through 8 time zones in considerably short time on relatively limited sleep and significantly heightened emotions. That sentence is adverb heaven.

So now I lay awake waiting for the sun to rise or the fog to lift or for whatever has to happen in the sky to make it lighter out so I can act on my current focus: soaking up the awesome. We are in a town called Drogheda (that's a silent "g" and accententuate on the "da") which is medieval and adorable with narrow cobblestone streets, Gothic cathedrals, ruins of abbeys and structures that look like a movie set from Braveheart (yes I know that's Scotland) a barbican from the 13th century that used to be the only way in or out of this walled city. Oh, my bad, did I forget to mention there is a small beautiful river that runs through, traversed by a pedestrian bridge and a 154 year-old viaduct? Wat.

Yesterday Mom and I were exhausted, so the focus was on getting rather acquainted with a right -sided driver's seat and going through round abouts clockwise on the left side of the road. It went something like this:

Me "Hullo, opposite land! Please let me not vehicular manslaughter us today!"

Irish roadways: "Good luck." (Insert Nelson's point and "Ha ha" here)

Mom: "You are doing just fi- (insert scaredy gasp here) Watch out!"

Me: "I got this. I totally have this."

In conclusion, no car accidents or vehicular manslaughter yesterday! Huzzah! Then we napped. Then we had our first Irish meal, which for me was a stuffed baked "podaydo" with a salad and for mom was some sort of grilled sammich and tea and a scone. Then I watched Gaelic TV for an hour and went to bed. Now it is 623 and the plan today is to walk about Drogheda before breakkie, take some photos and then be off to a Neolothic (read: 5000 YEAR OLD aka older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids) monument called Newgrange which promises to be epic and fill me with a sense of wonder, connectedness and personal insignificance all at once, like thinking about outer space. Then on to Northern Ireland and to spend the night in Belfast.

I wish I had a way of uploading photos but alas it is not to be. Hopefully my description will do for now. Or you can google it. Time for the three S's: Shower, shave and slan ((that means goodbye). Oh? That phrase usually means something else? I am a lady, you know. Also, I am sure you will all be happy to know that my Irish lilt is coming along quite nicely. Stay tuned for more!