At long last, I am “on the ground” in the city of Dublin, Ireland! Getting here, I must confess, was a bit harder than I thought it would be, because it turns out that some of those “airport horror stories” you’ve heard in the news recently are true. After Teresa and Windham dropped me off at the Raleigh airport around 1 o’clock in the afternoon on Thursday, both of my flights got delayed, with the result that I didn’t arrive at the Dublin airport until a little after 1 o’clock in the afternoon on Friday. Still, I did get here without missing any connecting flights, which is more than could be said for some of my fellow passengers. And in the end, by the time I got from the airport into the central part of the city where my hotel is located, I was able to check in immediately and begin some exploration.

I’m staying at a hotel called Zanzibar Locke, which is located on the banks of the River Liffey that runs right through the heart of downtown Dublin. If you cross over the river using the nearby Ha’Penny Bridge (so named because it cost half a penny to cross it when it was first constructed back in 1816), you find yourself in a part of town called “The Temple Bar.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the area is filled with bars, restaurants, and other night spots. However, the name comes not from the current business roster, but from Sir William Temple—a noted scholar of the late 1500 and early 1600’s—who built a home on the site, which at the time was a strip of land reclaimed from the river by the construction of a retaining wall and called a “barr” or “bar” (and hence the name).

In any case, I don’t imagine that I’ll be spending much time in the bars that are located in The Temple Bar (although I am hoping to find a spot somewhere that plays some traditional Irish music). So I decided to spend some time this afternoon walking around the city to see if I could find some of the other attractions that I do hope to visit in the days ahead. These include Trinity College, Dublin Castle, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

After all the airport drama this morning and quite a bit of walking this afternoon, I’m probably going to turn in fairly early tonight. Tomorrow, I hope to visit Trinity College, where there’s a collection of early Celtic copies of the Bible that are known for their intricate illustrations