greetings from the island! i had originally planned to fly over to dublin on friday. but after checking for flights with ryanair, i found that i had already waited for too long, since what i had to read there was everything else but ‘low fares’. i finally chose for aer lingus, the other irish flag-carrier, since they were cheaper than ryanair and even flying from frankfurt/main. should they continue with their 40 euro flights for inner-european destinations, i would defininately prefer their service over ryanair. let’s be honest: we don’t wanna pay for a bad meal, but if plenty of coffee, tea or water, coming with sandwiches of acceptable taste and cookies are included, i DO appreaciate that! anyways, since the plane for friday was full already, i simply booked for thursday and decided not to tell alice about that. i started heavy and serious collaboration with constance, alice’s landlady, who then picked me up at the airport and took me home, where i found alice doing her laundry in the kitchen as i stepped in. well, she has reported that on her website as well, so i leave it to her telling how terribly surprised she was. — we met with ricarda (ex x-change from germany) and her 100% dubliner boyfriend gordon on the weekend as we went for the movies, but ended up behind guinness and cider, since everything of interest was sold out. gordon then took us to a totally amazing bar carrying a gaelic name i cannot reproduce here, but being pronounced “miss you” - but then with dublin accent and spoken fast. make sure you go there once when in dublin! — yesterday we went to a gaelic football match. alice was faster than me presenting her report on her blog already yesterday night, so go there for details on frozen feet, hot tea and new impressions. — we have just received the reservation receipt from budget for our rental car which will take us around the island in the upcoming three days. we will leave for glendalough, kilkenny, the cliffs of moher, and finally galway. we will keep you posted after we are safely back in dublin, since bad weather is being forecasted :(. — have a look at the picture at the beginning of this entry. the people of ireland are currently demonstrating against the us troop movements since the shannon area is heavily involved. it seems like everybody is against bush, but the irish government doesn’t seem to listen to its people or voters i should better be saying. as constance puts it, “the bloody government is simply ass-kissing with these cowboys, obviously because of economic motives. nobody wants this war-thing here - but everybody’s ape-shitting because of this cowboy.” - way too cool to listen to, i tell ye! — till next time folx, take a look at the photos alice has put up in the february album! take care!