Happy to be here!

Here we are in all our post flight glory. Aer Lingus did a good job getting us to Ireland. They fed us twice on the plane and the flight attendants were unfailingly polite. As you can see above, everyone has their own screen, with about 75 movies to choose from.

I really like flying: being up in the clouds, looking down at the fields or cities or water, covering a lot of territory quickly. It does amaze me that something so big, which resembles a large tube of toothpaste with wings, can stay in the air. And I don't understand how these jets can carry enough fuel to power a cross Atlantic trip. The whole thing is a scientific miracle to me. Flying has shrunk the world for so many people, though it's still a privileged experience.

I read a great book on the way over, "How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe," by Thomas Cahill. I'll reference it later but the crux of the story is that as the Visigoths and other tribes were sacking the Roman Empire and destroying all the books and libraries, St. Patrick was converting Ireland to Christianity. The new monks with their religious fervor and the typical Irish love of language began copying Scripture. When they finished with that, they went on to copy any book they could get their hands on. They literally saved much of the great Latin and ancient literature that would have been lost to the ages otherwise.

After we landed in Dublin, we completed the first leg of the madcap trip I described a few posts back. We picked up our rental car and drove to Glendalough, a town about one and a half hours south west of Dublin. They probably shouldn't let jet lagged travelers from right-side-of-the road countries drive in the city without a tutorial, especially during rush hour, but we managed to get here in one piece. In fact, look at Luke, thinking about ordering a Guinness in an Irish pub!