I got a million emails and messages asking, “did you have fun?”, “did you take lots of pictures”, “did you get lost?”, “did you meet lots of locals?”, “did you drink a Guinness for me?”…..and the answer to ALL of those questions is a big fat Y.E.S.!!! I’m so overwhelmed with everything I saw, experienced, and the opportunities while I was in Ireland that I have NO IDEA where to even start! I brought SOO many awesome memories back with me that there is NO WAY to share everything. I’m going to be breaking the trip up into separate blog posts so keep checking back if you want to see lots of pretty pictures.
I learned a lot about myself while traveling-I think WAY to much about little things and I analyze things that probably don’t need analyzed, it’s just how I think! Long (and what seems like endless) flights will do that to you. For me, it gave me time to reflect and to people watch! I couldn’t help but notice some things about the people around me….which in turn, made me realize a few things about myself!
Here goes some total randomness:
I noticed that I need to slow down. What ever gave me this idea you ask? Well, for one thing, after traveling to Ireland where the pace is much slower and relaxed and then coming back to the States….I realized that we are all in a hurry to hurry up and wait. We hurry in our cars to get tot he next red light to WAIT, we hurry in the airport to get to our terminal and WAIT, we hurry hurry hurry and sometimes we forget to enjoy the moment. Cheers to enjoying the moment!
I will be even MORE cautious to be nice to people! You know that minute that the plane lands and the pilot/flight attendance announce that you can now unbuckle your safely belts and everyone hurries (see the hurry theme again) to grab their bags in the overhead compartment and try to be the first one off the plane. It gets hot and muggy, people are trying to push themselves to the first of the line and you sit there realizing that again everyone is hurry to wait. As I sat in my seat, I overheard a woman making a phone call. She asked the person on the other line, “is she still conscience? She was on her way to see her dying mother at the hospital. All she wanted was to get off the place so that she could get by her side and the man in front of her made a rude comment about her attempting to get off before him. My heart sank as I knew he didn’t know HER reason for rushing off the plane. If we all just took a little time to slow down without assuming everyone intentions, I think this world would be a better place.
And lastly, when exiting the plane I noticed two things. Some people are very inconsiderate while others will go out of their way to be kind. As I walked off the plane after an 8 hour flight, I couldn’t help but notice all the garbage, etc. all over the floor. I guess the think that boggles my mind is that people felt that it was OK to just let their trash there for someone else to pick up. It wasn’t as if the flight attendance weren’t around a million times collecting trash that I felt it was really rude and unnecessary to just leave your crap there for THEM to pick up. I don’t care how much you paid/didn’t pay for your ticket….have some manors! On the other hand, I made a comment to a girl behind me applying her hand lotion that it “smelled so good”, without blinking an eye she handed me the entire bottle and said, “here take it, I have an extra one in my bag”. Although, I declined (trust me I have WAYYY to much lotion) I was taken back by her kindness. I know it seems small but if you REALLY think about it, something nice-even small….goes a long way!
So I told you it was total randomness….it just makes you think of the type of person you want to be?! I’ll leave you with this Instagram photo…it rained a few days during our trip. And although it was a bummer, I felt blessed to even be there and sometimes during a storm, there is a rainbow…..do you see a theme?! 🙂
Stay tuned for more photos from Ireland throughout the week!
