**UPDATED** Pretend Like It's January 13, 2011

We're finally on the plane. Our flight was originally scheduled for January 11, at a comfortable 12 p.m. A short stop in Atlanta before leaving for the Dublin airport was also on the itinerary. Now, our flight departs at 8 a.m., which necessitated a 4 a.m. alarm. I ordered my mom to have breakfast (bacon, eggs, and biscuits with yum blueberry jam) ready at 4:45 a.m. We left the house at around 5:20 a.m., with Dad driving and mom and I cuddling in the back, and arrived at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport at 5:45 a.m. On the way over, I questioned the name of the airport. First of all, Shuttlesworth sounds goofy, although I was informed that it refers to a Mr. Shuttlesworth of the Civil Rights Movement. Second, Birmingham is not an international airport...so I just thought it was weird. As I hugged Mom goodbye, I almost started to cry. Even though I'm excited to go to Ireland, I didn't want to go without her. After all, this is the first airplane ride I've ever been on without a family member present.

Taxiing on the runway, we see ice on the pavement. It's been pushed off to the sides, causing it to form weird boulder-like clumps of snow (or what passes for snow in Alabama).

I'm in seat 11A, a window seat. The aisle seat, 11C is occupied by a woman who has been trying to fly out of Birmingham for four days. On monday, her plane couldn't take off because one of the flighrt attendants hadn't shown up. On her arrival, the flight (which had been delayed two hours already) was cancelled altogether. Her flight Tuesday was cancelled as well. On Wednesday, her flight boarded, but as they prepared for takeoff, they discovered that one of the engines wasn't working properly. After some debate they decided that it was alright...they could fly with one engine. This lady wisely decided to disembark the aircraft and wait until the next day when she could ride a plane with two working engines. I hate to even think it but...I'm afraid she may be bad luck.

At this moment, we have yet to take off. After we taxied from the terminal to the runway, the pilot turned off the engines and told us we had to wait twenty minutes before take off for an unknown reason. Please see above reference to luck...

I'm excited about this trip. And that Kelly and Erin are coming. Good team.

Hopefully I can sleep on the flight from Atlanta to Dublin. I will really need the rest once we land in Ireland. I've got a neck pillow, eye mask, ear plugs, and Tylenol PM...I should be good to go.

Yay! We are about to take off: the engine is quite loud in my seat, and I'm feeling slightly nervous about this flight, although I generally love flying. As always, we shall persever.

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I LOVE FLYING!

I love flying in the way that I love rollercoasters: there is an everpresent, terrifyingly rational fear of death in both pursuits. It's wonderful. Below us lies a sea of clouds. Hills are strange from the sky; they look like ripples in water. This plane is so small you can feel everything: ascent, descent, clouds, eddies...it's horrifying in a wonderful way. Turning is fun.

"'Thank you for flying Delta?' If it were $3 cheaper, I woulda flown on a kite!" -Mike Birbiglia

Twenty minutes til land and a seven hour layover in Atlanta...

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The layover in Atlanta passed fairly quickly. Erin, Kelly, and I ate lunch at Atlanta Bread Company, sat around, played Uno and ERS (finally learned!), and got ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. The flight was pretty bumpy and long. I took two Tylenol PMs and tried to pass out, but it was much more difficult than I had anticipated. I got the trick of using my tray table as a place to put my pillow and then lay my head on my arms around the pillow...This technique allowed for the longest uninterrupted sleep. Unfortunately, it lasted about forty-five minutes. One half of the gay couple seated in front of me decided that he needed to lay his head in my lap so when he put his chair back, it catapulted the tray table back into my chest. I had to carefully disengage my head from my chestplate at a dreadfully odd angle...I tried to sleep with my pillow against the window, but it kept sliding around and the window was cold. My neck pillow was absolutely worthless. Unless you are accustomed to sleeping on your back (which I definitely am not) then neck pillows are of little use. So i ended up fighting the last dregs of the Tylenol PM and watching some of The Pursuit of Happyness. Talk about depressing...(They played three movies and one episode of "Two and a Half Men"--The Social Network, Eat. Pray. Love., and Pursuit.) Dinner was penne pasta, adequately mediocre, and breakfast was a banana and egg-english muffin. I guess I slept about two to three hours but my naps were in about five hour intervals--talk about exhausting. We got off the plane at 6:10 a.m., and it was still pitch black outside. So that makes two days now that I've gotten up before the sun...at least technically. Time zones are tricky buggers. We went through a very lax customs and exchanged money at the ATM. I then phoned father (and he answered promptly and sounded very alert at 1:30 a.m.) and was discouraged to see that my phone card doesn't really work. Ah well, my phone bill will just have to be astronomical. I think the text messages I received against my will were $20!! Egad!

We met our tour guide, Joyce, at the entrance to the terminal. She's a real talker, and wanted to tell us the origin of each of our names. When she asks you a question, don't fool yourself into thinking she wants to hear the answer.

We ate breakfast at the Dublin Hilton which is weird since it isn't our hotel. We're now on the bus again, waiting to set off for New Grange, a passage tomb.

Current physiological conditions: uncomfortable, upset stomach, and weary with tremendously puffy under-eye bags.

Current meteorological conditions: mostly sunny, about 10℃, 50℉ a.k.a. too warm for all my snow Sherpa gear.

Current attitude and location: moderately whiney but nonetheless optimistic outside the Dublin Hilton Hotel near the Dublin airport in Dublin, Ireland, Earth.

After breakfast, we got back on the bus to ride to New Grange, the passage tomb built 6000 years ago by Neolithic Irish farmers in the Boyne Valley. The Valley itself, dissected by the Boyne River, is spectacularly green.

As ever, I was fascinated by the stone fences, and wooden fences, and the tree fences.

Inside New Grange we were prohibited from taking pictures. Our guide at New Grange, Sinead, took us inside, down a narrow path lined with standing stones and quite low in some places.

New Grange.

All twenty-three of us got cozy in the inner chamber. The tomb is built in a cruciform shape with the passage, chamber, and three smaller antechambers with large stone basins in them for placing cremated remains and jewelry.

The entrance is divided so that there is a top portion that is approximately 8 cm tall and 30 cm wide. In the winter, at the solstice and shortest day o the year, the ancient people would anticipate the coming solar changes in accordance with the sun striking the inner chamber.

New Grange and the sun.

To the Neolithic Irish, this symbolized that hope was coming to free them from winter. The temple and standing stones are decorated with spirals and chevrons:

It really was a magical place. Sinead turned off the lights, leaving the chamber in total darkness. Then, as she spoke of how the ancient Irish viewed this ritual, a light bulb, symbolizing the solstice sun, shown down the crooked passageway and directly into the center of the inner chamber. It was very cool. I stole a small piece of gravel, and I hope that no angry gods seek vengeance. 

After we visited the tomb, we ate lunch at a café at New Grange that was really neat and served sandwiches, quiches, soups, and paninis. I ate soda bread (!!! yum) and cauliflower and cheddar soup which was kind of strange but good. 

After New Grange, we rode the bus to the Buswells Hotel on Molesworth Street for a nap. Dinner at Bleu, which was yum. 

Time to sleep now. I can't believe this has all been one day. How can this still be the same day?! (Technically, the reason this day has felt long is because it has really been two days but somehow with all the plane rides and time changes and the fact that the itinerary lists all of this as day one, it is still day one! Confusion.)