Dubliners: The people that will run me over

So they jaywalk here. A lot. Also, I almost got hit by a car (not really) because I didn't realize that our usual American red hand is, in Dublin, a red man, which looks an awful lot like the guy that usually tells me to walk.

Our flight was delayed while we were sitting on it for an hour in Philly. The reason? The toilets wouldn't work. So we took off at 10, EDT and landed at 9 Dublin time (and of course, I only got about 2 hours of sleep again). The shower I just took felt really amazing... like a camping shower.

More from London later.

RDU has free internet... kind of

I'm in the CNBC store, they want me to check my MSN mail (which I don't have, silly bastards. I actually had to do a search for blogger.com since there's no place to type in direct URLs). We are no longer going to Charolotte. The women at the ticket counter were very helpful and got us on a 1:30 flight direct to Philly. This way, we only have two flights today, and we'll have 5 hours of waiting around in Philly to eat, relax, get bored, then fly to Dublin on our original flight.

Kate is happy because she's heard some bad things about US Airways (I never had, but I'm less inclined to do hours of research on things like that) but is thus far pleasantly surprised with their customer service. She hopes it's this great the rest of the trip. I'm sure it will be. Also, one of the women was British, so she said something about our "holiday." Yay for Britishisms.

Hey, can you water the plants in America for me while I'm gone (aka: London Calling)

This will be my final US-based post for a while. Leaving the hotel tomorrow morning for Dublin, but I probably won't see a computer until I'm in London, or even after next weekend. I don't know, we'll see. I really enjoyed my time in Raleigh. The south is cool (well, hot actually) and I may have to visit again some day.

But so begins the foreign adventures. I hope this whole crazy thing works out. I think the over/under for us getting mad at each other is about 6 hours, but I'm sure it will be something stupid like she's walking too fast or I'm being too bossy. It hit me today when I woke up that I'll be NOT in the US tomorrow (or at least, I'll be on my way to not being in the US tomorrow) and I'm getting really excited.

That's it for now, I'll post as soon as possible. Thanks for your interest (if you're interested).
-Zac

Go Bruins

My hotel does have Fox Sports Network so I am watching UCLA at Stanford in the season opener. I'm happy that I can see one game this season.

Oh yeah, I'm in the South

This is out in front of the North Carolina capital building.

This is the North Carolina capital building.



And this is just reassuring to know.

Mishap No 1

The first luggage-related incident has happened. There have been other mishaps of course, but this is the first travel-specific one. My two travel-size bottles of body wash (which we will henceforth refer to as the more masculine "soap") were in my toiletries Ziplock baggy (BAGGY! shout out to Sachin and Jared) along with my toothpaste, laundry soap and whatnots. One of them (the smaller one) busted open and got all-up-in everything. What had happened was, the screw cap and the stump it screws onto were severed off. Luckily, it was mostly contained in the bag, and also luckily, soap washes off pretty easily.

I'd take a picture, but I can't imagine a less interesting image. In more interesting image news, I had an East Coast beer yesterday. America's Oldest Brewery, Yuengling, which the label says has been in service since 1829. It was almost more than this California boy could handle when I saw it in the liquor store (note: this is also one of those states that have special stores for booze. God bless California, which lets you buy vodka when you buy raw meat and fresh produce.)

I'm likely to post a lot today and tomorrow, as Monday, Chris' parents (who are both really cool) will be heading back home with my suit and Kate's laptop, so I'll be out of touch probably until my second day in London, some time on Friday (as I don't want to waste any precious Irish moments writing to you people.

I can only hope that my posts will be more exciting once I hop across the pond — a hop that doesn't seem as imminent as it should at this point. 11 am local, 8 pacific, 4 Irish time.

2 Down, 6 5 to Go

After 2 successful flights, we are now 25% done with our air travel for this trip. There are 3 2 more on Tuesday, one on Thursday, then two on December 12. This blog is coming from the Days Inn in Raleigh (which will always look misspelled), North Carolina.

I was on the plane from 6 am PDT till about 4:30 EDT, which is only really 7 hours, but coupled with the shock of my watch advancing, feels an awful lot more like the 11 hours it is to every timepiece I've seen since landing.

The country, is flat. This is by far the furthest east I've been since I was about 8 years old (since then I guess Vegas would be it) so I was able to see the sprawling smoothness of the heartland. With the obvious exception of the Rockies and Appalachians.

My watch says 9:25 right now. Yours probably reads 6:25.

[note: strikes added 9/4/07 at RDU Internet station]