My First Steps In Europe

The moment I stepped off the airplane in Manchester, England I was pleasantly greeted with the boisterous and upbeat atmosphere of the U.K. I arrived in Manchester at 6:15 am, which according to my internal clock was still 11:15 pm (boy what a time difference). This was only after being majorly interrogated by the lady at customs -I swear she thought I was a terrorist by all the questions she was asking me :b. She was not impressed with my terrible passport picture and the fact I was living with my sister at the time instead of my parents (?? I still don't know why that was a big deal to her). After giving her the tired puppy dog eyes and throwing in a little joke, I finally got through.

I got to the main area of the airport and was astounded by the number of people drinking at 7:00 in the morning! The entire bar area was packed and there was a long line for every food place that sold beer on tap- one line for the food and one line for the beer. There was even a bachelorette party that seemed to be having quite the good time that early in the morning. It was both awesome and overwhelming hearing everyone's accents. I decided I was famished and chose an Irish place to order my breakfast/midnight snack. I selected a classic sausage-on-bread option, and that became my first European meal. I shared a table with a nice couple since there was no open seating and the craziness of me actually being in Europe hit me like a ton of bricks. I was actually here!

I boarded my final plane and arrived in Belfast, Northern Ireland at 10:00 am (3:00 am my time). After traveling since 11:00 am the previous day, you can imagine how tired I was. I found a taxi, looked in my little handy-dandy notebook (cue Blues Clues music) where I kept all my important information, found Brayton's address, and gave it to the taxi driver-who found it quite humorous I had to look in my notebook for the address. The driver was very nice and kept trying to make chit-chat with me, but honest to goodness even though he was speaking English, his accent was so heavy I could hardly understand him. Out of everyone I met across Europe, Irishmen were legitimately the most difficult to understand. I had just exchanged a little money at the airport specifically for the taxi ride and was apparently too tired to consider what pounds to the dollar was actually worth. I just handed the driver a handful of change for a tip which turned out to be quite a generous amount as Brayton later informed me. She also told me people don't tip taxi drivers in Northern Ireland so whoops! But hey he was a nice guy and got me where I needed to go :).