50 Shades of Green: Day 1 and 2

Flight left at 3:50pm, but our group got into the check-in line for luggage at 11:30am. We waited in line for so long because there were no employees at the check-in kiosks and then, because there were quite a few of us dispersed throughout a long long line of people traveling to Dublin on the same plane as us, waiting for everyone to finish checking in took some time.

All 8 of the female winds were assigned Mrs. D as a chaperone and as we slowly made our way through security (where there were also several police dogs pacing and sniffing around), we finally get to our terminal and are given some reign to wander before boarding began.

A guy going in another group tour (hence his shirt) who is reading a book titled The Story of Ireland.
After seeing him and his group all sporting their matching green Ireland shirts, I didn't feel so bad about our MYA matching green backpacks...in fact, I quite like them because they help me find where I'm supposed to go.

The bassoons

On the plane, despite all of us realizing that our seats are basically scattered randomly throughout the plane, I end up sitting next to Ethan, so at least I don't feel awkward if I were to sit next to someone I don't know.

Per usual, I don't sleep on the plane ride and end up watching movies and reading Sense and Sensibility to pass the 7 hours. I intersperse those hours with gazing out the window (I was not only lucky enough to land a window seat, but also a window seat really close to the wing...which leads to the following few of the many "wing" photos I took). When it was nighttime, I peered out the window and I was amazed that stars were still visible: tiny pinpricks in the sea of black. Sadly, only a few are visible on the photo I took (along with the moon that is that ugly blob of light in the top right).

Landing seemed to be really bad on my pressure-sensitive ears, but from comparing notes to other people, it appears that pressure perception is subjective, because Eric vehemently argued that take off was far worse. We landed around 5:55am Ireland time.

Customs was super fast (I ended up forgetting to fill out and hand in my landing pass...whoops...but I still got through customs just fine...) and baggage claim wasn't too chaotic either.

Afterwards, we head out to our coach bus and drive for 40 or so minutes to a service station where we got breakfast and then hit the road for Glendalough.

To get there, we traveled through lots of small towns. Due to a combination of everyone being very exhausted and cranky, I think we all irritated each other. I was taking pictures of many things (sometimes I get camera-happy and just take lots and lots of photos), and the running joke is that I'm taking all the photos (too many sometimes) but at the end of the trip, everyone will be asking for them. Also I was (and still am) fascinated by how GREEN everything in Ireland is. Oh and later on in the day, I was amazed at how big the vegatation is here...so I was somewhat of a broken record today, gasping at how big and green everything was...but that also does lead to the title of this "adventure" and the title of the facebook album I've created to go along with them (the facebook album essentially contains all the photos on this blog, plus some perhaps, but larger and more easily accessible to those on the MYA tour).

Taking photos on the bus is hard, and not only because the bus is moving. Often, the reflection of my bright blue phone case or of people sitting behind or in front of me would show up in the photos. Here are some of the less awful photo failures.

We finally reach Glendalough, where we see several churches and priest homes, as well as the towers. (More info will come later in edits...it's getting late).

[photos are up on facebook, they will be up on this post later!]

Afterwards, we head to Dublin City University. It was raining and for the 2 hours, all of us dozed on and off because we were just so exhausted.

Upon arriving, we go to our dorms, rehearse with the Irish tenor Paul Byrom for tomorrow's concert, and then go back to get dinner and wander at our own leisure until 9pm curfew.