First taste of Europe!

Let me preface this with a single, solitary, simple but yet concrete
statement: I'm tired. Really tired. For you in the states, it's early
afternoon on a Friday, but for me, at 12 minutes to midnight, I'm
bushed.

It's not that it's past my bedtime or that midnight stretches my body
to it's max, this isn't the case at all, but that little rumor about
jet lag, as it turns out, isn't so much a rumor as it is a reality. I
arrived in Dublin, Ireland, at about 11:30 this morning, but here's
where it gets tricky, keep up if you can. I left Waco around 12:15 AM
Thursday morning, arriving at DFW airport a good 3 hours before my
scheduled 5:40 AM flight, and, about an hour and a half before any
airline personnel showed up to start checking people in and filtering
us through security. We did leave right around 5:30 and arrived in
Detroit around 9:30 (lost an hour to time zone change). From there, a
lovely 6 hour layover before boarding an 8-hour flight to Amsterdam. I
was initially excited to see that I had a window seat, but at 38,000
feet above the ground, zooming along at 580 mph, there wasn't much to
see, and, as it turns out, I did not get to so much as stand up and
unfurl my legs for the entirety of the flight. By the time we landed
in Amsterdam, my sleep meter was only at about 3 hours combined
between two flights and a layover, and thanks again to the crazy time
zones, it's 6 AM Friday morning...the concept of jet lag is starting
to sink in...

So upon landing in Amsterdam, as I stagger into a restroom to relieve
15 hours worth of water and soda and even a beer (free beer and wine
crossing the Atlantic!) a fellow my age or slightly younger locks eyes
with me and says, "hey man, you go to Baylor don't you? And you're
friends with Daniel King right? From Orange or Orangefield wasn't it?
You dated Jordan Baldree's sister back in high school didn't you?" I
am momentarily rendered speechless by the stranger in the Dutch
restroom who read the autobiography I never wrote or published, but
finally I stammer out an affirmative note and ask his name. Andrew
Reimers, he offers, and I remain utterly clueless, even now. What are
the odds that the first person I ever speak to in Europe turns out to
be from Orange as well, and can pick me out five years after we
probably met, someone of whom I still have no recollection?

Nearly five hours pass in the Amsterdam airport, 3 and a half for the
layover and another hour and a half thanks to a faulty water valve in
the plane's
lavoratory. After we get airborne and into Dublin, we gain an hour
back, but even with, it's nearly noon, and after a long and confusing
bus ride, I park myself at the hostel around 1 (6 AM Texas time)
making for about 32 hours on the move.

Lunch in Dublin was...well, interesting let's say, I stopped in a deli
thinking I could nonchalantly talk my way into an Irish
sandwhich...not the case. The people working could not understand me,
nor I them (we're all speaking English mind you) and after some
struggle, a guy about my age "rescued" me by spattering out a group of
words that sounded like a throaty growl interspersed with words like
'presentation,' 'baguette,' and 'spicy.'. The result? A chicken
baguette with corn, tomatoes, jalapenos, and a sweet chili sauce.
They each urged me towards the garlic mayo as a second sauce, but
thankfully I caught both words, words which I don't really feel should
combine, especially with 'sauce' and I steered them away from that.
Throw in a pack of 'crisps' and the meal was complete. The taste?
Well, there will be no baguette today, nor tomorrow...

It should also be noted that apparently there are only two types of
deodorant in this country, at least that any store stocks, and they
are simply men's or women's, neither very well marked. Same for
toothbrushes and toothpaste, and while I haven't noticed particularly
bad hygiene here yet, they definitely seem to take a very minimalistic
approach to it.

As odd and confusing as lunch was, dinner was spectacular! I ducked
into my first pub, sat at the bar and enjoyed a couple pints (note:
Kilkenny is extremely delicious and very rich!) and ordered Irish stew
which came out in a dish the size of a small crock pot, filled with
lamb, potatoes, carrots, leeks, thyme and parsley to taste. There were
two musicians playing Irish music in the pub, and on their break, they
sat at the bar and ordered Coors Light bottles and glasses of ice,
which they then poured their beers into as I watched, undoubtedly with
my mouth agape in horror. I talked with them about their American beer
for a bit, and when they got back on to play, they played "whiskey in
the jar" as requested by "our friend from Colorado" (that's me) and
after tipping them, they felt it necessary to play John Denver's
"country roads" as a special tribute to me. Great. When the band was
on break, and I could actually hear the bartender, I noticed she
wasn't as Irish as I first thought. Nope...Polish..only been here a
couple months...and as fate would have it, one of the Irish musicians
was actually Scottish. There were three Irish dancers who put on a
brief show, but I didn't dare ask their nationalities, as they were
probably Russian or Greek.

There will be more, but for now, I'm tired, and I need to find out
what I'm doing today to avoid chicken baguettes and relearn English.

Bryan, aka The Lonely Traveler