Amongst the various things on this leg of our journey were a great dinner with a big group on Friday, a trip to the Franklin Institute exploring the technology of weaponry of Genghis Khan (shuddering to think about the swords' pasts) and taking in the Giant Heart exhibit, and dealing with Irene's stalling car. Ultimately we decided her car was not up to the task of taking us to JFK on Tuesday so we signed up for a shuttle.
I can't tell if these are different species or just different moments in a dogwood's life
The shuttle trip was incredibly long as we wound around neighborhoods on the outskirts of Philadelphia picking up its eight passengers. We left at 11:30 AM and got to the airport at 4:50 PM. There was a Turkish man, an African man, an Indian family of three, two Moroccans and one Lebanese traveler amongst us. It truly felt that our travels had begun.
I thought I had booked a British Airways flight to Dublin. It actually was, in a bait and switch maneuver, a jam-packed American Airlines flight. Every inch of cabin space had been used to create seats. We sat like praying mantis—our arms doubled over and mincingly placing food carefully up to our mouths. I commented to Steve and the Irish man next to me that we would be more comfortable feeding each other.
Six and a half hours to Dublin in a race to sunset and sunrise that all eastern trips at night are. The seats were so close that I felt I was spending the night with two men and the best way to handle all of the coziness was just to relax and enjoy that novelty. Suffice to say I didn't really sleep at all.
We descended toward Dublin at about 6AM — a city ringed by odd barren tors or hills that looked like ancient volcanoes. We had seen so many of Ireland's rock-ringed fields from the air. This was a heavily worked-over place, wilderness schmilderness, and already it was clear that my ancestors had to have been hardier than I ever had or could ever be.
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