What I Learned Today

Today while out and about, I noticed/learned a number of things about the Irish culture and environment.

1.  “What the crack?” is equivalent to our “What’s up?” according to a lady at a gas station that told us something else we did not know…
2. Flake is a kind of well known chocolate candy bar that went into our ice cream. My family and I actually got our toppings for free because we did not know what Flake was.
3. Irish people DO NOT say “top of the morning to ya.” I do not know this from using it, just making that clear. My brother asked someone about stereotypical things people think of them for being Irish and this was said along with not having anything to do with leprechauns. Some people find some of the things insulting after awhile.
4. Hedges are everywhere. They surround everything and they are the border that separates your vision from anything beautiful beyond.
5. Something that is not everywhere is ranch. Some people have never heard of it and it is not sold in stores.
6. Dublin, is a crazy place to drive in. There are a lot of one ways, people on bikes riding everywhere or walking in front of you like they want you to run them over, and to top it off, everything is on the left which makes it hard for us right sided people. The roads are in pretty good condition though which I can not say about a lot of roads in Illinois, which is weird since it seems like all we have going on is road construction. (P.s. Sorry to the people of Ireland for my American family not knowing how to drive. Please stop honking at us. We will get it soon. Thank you)
7. Ice cream cones tastes like Corn Flakes and their Sherbet is colorful sugar they place on ice cream. It is actually pretty good. Speaking of food, the Fish n’ Chips here are super tasty and I do not know why people told me different.
8. To turn on anything in our BNB, there is some kind of switch or button for it. It took me forever to figure out how to work the shower just because I forgot to flip the switch outside the bathroom door for the shower.
9. The cost of things is a lot different here. Necessities seem to cost less than wants. For example, meat is fairly reasonable when it comes to price. Chips and cereal on the other hand or more snacky foods and cost more than they should. A really nice necessity that is cheaper is gas! 🙂
10. And finally, shows are a little strange, at least the ones that come through, and the commercial breaks are shorter. One show my brother and I found was called Tiny Planets and involved two families, one blue and one red, all of them making weird sounds and waving at each other a lot. The families did not talk, the narrator told the story. Then there were a bunch of off brand Teletubbies in the end dancing… Where our shows like this?

I wonder what else this journey has in store for me since this is only the beginning!