Leaving and Day 1 (9/1-9/2)

Hello and welcome to my account of my trip to Dublin! I hope you enjoy!

I started my journey on September 1st, 2015.  I spent a lot of time sitting around during the day since my flight wasn't until 9:10 pm.  Before leaving for the airport, I went to Chickie's and Pete's with my dad for one last Philadelphian meal. We got to the airport at around 6:45.  It was a bit of an emotional departure because it had only just hit me that I was leaving for 3 and a half months, but I was still very excited to start my adventure in Dublin!

After saying goodbye, I checked my bag, went through security, and found my gate.  I was at gate A21, flying with US Airways on flight #722.  There were two other girls waiting at the gate when I got there: a girl from New Jersey and a girl form California.  She had been staying with the girl from New Jersey for a few days prior to the flight.  The Californian girl was eating crab fries for the first time there and said they were delicious, haha!  After a little while, the boy in our group arrived and sat with us.  He had been travelling the whole day, starting with a drive from Connecticut to the Newark airport, then a relatively short flight from Newark to Philadelphia.  While we were sitting, a woman from US Airways asked us to fill out a very long survey with a lot of detailed questions about our trip.

After waiting for a about an hour, it was time to board the plane.  I was able to board in zone 1 instead of my originally assigned zone 5 thanks to my mom, who had purchased the "Priority Access" package from the US Airways website.  I was one of the first to board, which allowed me to put my suitcase in the overhead bin and get situated in my seat without holding anyone up.  

Thankfully, we had an on-time departure and didn't get held up by the mess of a runway system at PHL.  Once we got in the air, I looked at the in-flight entertainment options, and was surprised to see some of the options there.  For music, the Sleeping Beauty and Lion King soundtracks were available, and the Disneynature film Monkey Kingdom was available to watch already (its DVD release date isn’t until September 15^th). 

At about 10 pm, the flight crew started to serve dinner.  I got chicken with rice.

Unfortunately this wasn’t my choice as meals were just being passed across the row from the other aisle for some reason, but it was still pretty good.  The meal also included a salad with ranch dressing, a roll with butter, crackers with spreadable Swiss cheese, a caramel brownie, and a small bottle of water.  I also chose to get ginger ale as my drink.  Overall, the food was pretty good.

(Unfortunately I'd already eaten the salad when I remembered to take a picture, oops)

After several hours of trying and failing to fall asleep, I decided to watch Cinderella (the original animated version, although the new version was also available).  As I was watching, breakfast was served.  It included raspberry yogurt with granola, a cranberry orange muffin top, and some dried cranberries and blueberries.  There was also a choice of orange juice, coffee, or tea for a drink.  I chose orange juice.  Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy breakfast as much as dinner, but I think that was mainly because I was very tired and uncomfortable from being cramped in the plane for so long.

After about 6 and a half hours, we landed in Dublin.  We went through customs which was quick and easy, then got on a bus to go to the residence hall where we live.  We saw people driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time, which was strange at first, though I quickly got used to it.

After arriving at the residence halls, we were given time to unpack and find some food before our orientation in the afternoon.  I went to the Spar across the street and got a chicken wrap.  I was very happy to see that there was a lot of Kinder candy very easily available!

A few hours later, we were given a tour of our residence and shown where our school was.  It was about a 25-30 minute walk, which was a lot more than the 15-20 minute walk we were told it would be originally.  After being given some time to shop on Grafton Street, a major shopping street in Dublin, we were led back home to relax for the night.