Greetings from Dublin

Yay!  We made it!  To Dublin!  And our hotel with free wireless internet access!

(Much joy for the latter.  Actually, joy for all of it, really.)

Trip so far has been insanely uneventful.  I wasn't able to sleep much on the plane, but I wasn't awake enough to watch any of the movies either (although the in-flight entertainment had about 60 movies DVR-style, so you could watch whatever you want whenever you want) -- besides, the damn airplane headphones kept shorting out.  (Airplane headphone always short out on me.  I don't know if it's me, or if they're just crap.  Rather, I know they're just crap, but I don't know if I have something to do with it, too.)  My friend and travelling companion, Kathy, got more sleep than I did.  But I'm all excited and pumped and stuff (and gonna stay up to a reasonable hour to defeat jet lag) and she's ready for bed.

But, basically, we flew to Heathrow; picked up my second suitcase and hauled it over to left luggage (the Immigration guy asked how long we'd be in the UK; I replied, "About two hours"); checked-in for the Dublin flight; flew here; got cab; came to hotel; bought some supplies at a nearby convenience store; and got dinner at the restaurant in the hotel.  Lacks excitement, I know, but what can you do?

So far, the highlight of the trip was our cab driver, who was listening to a soccer match on the radio, and muttered expletives under his breath when the other team scored.  We over-tipped him a bit out of sympathy.