Dublin. No, I do not have a creative title.

Somehow, when I travel, I always seem to have more adventures than usual even before I leave home.  Perhaps I am more attuned to adventures, or perhaps there is something about dragging a suitcase that creates adventure.

I don't know that I have the energy - or the time, really - to do my adventures of the last 24 hours justice, but I'll try to make a quick rundown for the benefit of posterity and my two readers.

• Met a bizarre character on the way to the airport
• Flew on  possibly the oldest commercial airplane currently in service.  
• Took pleasant, efficient, reasonably-priced public transit directly to hostel.
• Discovered that I have become too old and spoiled to appreciate hostels.  In this one, you have to either leave your stuff unlocked (bad idea, obviously) or lock it in lockers that are not only not in the same building as where you are going to sleep but not in an actual building at all.  This is particularly fun when you discover something in your bag has exploded; my approach to this has been to mop up as best I can and just cede that compartment to grossness for the time being. (Fortunately it only had bottles in it, no clothes.)
• Walked around a bit, trying to get my bearings and choose between the free walking tour recommended by the hostel guy, which seemed poorly organized but was free, and the 12E walking tour recommended by the guidebook.  After a meallet of yogurt and coffee (eating is an adventure for me even at home; in a foreign country, there are whole realms of excitement, such as the fact that they have hazelnut yogurt here, which is actually really good, even though it's Yoplait, which is a brand I can't stand in the US, and also trying to ingest caffeine in the absence of proper drip coffee, which which today's solution has been something called the macchiato) I chose the latter.  It turned out to be a good decision; there wasn't too much walking involved, but it was historically-focused and quite interesting.
• Comment: A lot of Dublin architecture reminds me of early U.S. architecture, I think what would be called Federalist at home.  Here it's called Georgian and is on a grander scale.  In general the city is a bit like Philadelphia - lots of history, lots of old politics, buildings from the same period, upscale shopping, a bit of seaminess - but with more aggressive drivers.
• After the walking tour, visited the Chester Beatty Library, which is an impressive collection of illuminated manuscripts, plus an exhibit about art books by Matisse.
• Walked north of the river - shopping (largely chains we have in NYC, plus Marks and Spencer), books and more books, tourists and souvenir shops, statues.  Had more coffee, and something called a "tiffin" that I thought, from the packaging and display, would be a granola bar or protein bar or something, but turned out to have the following ingredient list: "Belgian milk chocolate, biscuit".  I'm pretty sure this food item would be illegal at home, but it did give me the energy to continue walking - important, because at this point (around 3 p.m., or 10 a.m. after almost no sleep according to my internal clock) I was definitely flagging. 
• Continued walking.  Presumably there are pictures of the interesting things I saw on my camera.  Saw another shopping district and a biggish park.  Sat on the grass, fell asleep, woke up freezing (it was warm-ish this morning but by late afternoon was in the low 60s).  
• Detoured through residential areas to see the birthplace of George Bernard Shaw and the Irish Jewish Museum, both open only a couple hours a day and not the hours I was there.  At this point the day was starting to feel less like vacation and more like boot camp, which I suppose is how my vacations frequently end up.

I have at this point walked past/through a good portion of the tourism-relevant area of the city.  There is certainly more I could see, and museums I could visit and so forth, but I won't feel bad about leaving tomorrow morning.  Tonight - because a hostel is not a place you have a quiet night in - I'm going to go to something called the Literary Pub Crawl, which is basically a tour of places that writers went (although probably also a bit of a pub crawl as per the name) and is supposed to be very interesting.  Then, I'm looking forward (with perhaps a bit of delusional optimism) to a good night's sleep before a quiet train ride to Cork.