Chilling at Bono's

Brian and I made it to Dublin this morning with little hassle. We did sit on the tarmac in Chicago for about an hour because of some computer snafu. After sitting behind two people who insisted on having their seats recline all the way (this is mean to do in coach), we are happy for the flights hone in business and first-class. Thank you, Frequent Flier Miles. As usual, I did not sleep a single minute on the flight. I, along with a few other passengers, was chewed out for waiting in the lavatory line when the seatbelt sign was on. On the plane, Brian and I were outnumbered by retired people doing on group tours. We sat by one group of women who hadn't done much traveling. One elderly woman had on matching orange pants and jacket. I swear those pants had a two foot zipper--come on, Brian even noticed. I wore my new hot pink running compression socks with my fluorescent green shoes, so I got some stares too. My outfit was trying to ward off blood clots and hand swelling (I also wear a compression sleeve). Dublin airport is nice, but I did not like the escalator, especially while carrying all of my luggage. I would prefer any theme park ride over that contraption. We took a taxi to our hotel (The Clarence, which is right on the Liffey River and is in the middle of the Temple Bar district). The location and hotel are nice, but I really booked us here because the hotel is owned by U2's Bono and The Edge. We haven't seen them here though. Our taxi driver's name was Peter McCarthy, which is also the name of the Irish author I just read two books by. This Peter informed me that the author died. He was a nice man, and he did well with my anxious tired ramblings. My mission is to meet as many interesting people I can on a trip (like the People to People Delegation Leader that I talked to in Chicago), but Brian's goal is to not have to talk to anybody. I guess new people scare him? He has enough friends? Even though we arrived extremely early, our hotel room was ready after a 30-minute wait. To kill time, we wandered through The Temple Bar area and bought some bottles of Coke. We went for lunch at Avoca, which is a cafe on the third floor of a store that sells homemade woolens. The fare was not very Brian friendly. He did have an organic burger, and I had deep fried sea bass and some sort of Asian salad. It took us forever to find the restaurant. I am not very smart after no sleep. We came back to the room to take a nap. As I write this, Brian is snoring with the remote ready in his hand. For dinner, I wanted to go to the restaurant/bar called The Bank on College Green. I should have let us wait. Instead we were caught in a major downpour. We tucked under an awning and waited it out. For dinner, we ended up at a quiet restaurant close to our hotel (the pubs with live music were packed). I had a good Irish stew, and Brian had the fish and chips. We stopped at a convenience store to get water and a Mars bar. It was a pretty relaxing day. Brian is a little nervous about taking on the driving responsibility on Friday. Hopefully, once we get out the city, the drives won't be too difficult. Thank goodness for GPS! I think it's time for bed, and then we're off to breakfast at a restaurant called "The Queen of Tarts," which is a lovely parody of "Queen of Hearts" song. I was worried about drunk kids waking us up; I should have been more concerned about the man snoring in my room. There are a lot of 20-somethings hanging out in The Temple Bar area. We're not sure where the elderly people went on their tours.