Arrived in IRELAND!

We arrived in Ireland four hours ago, and it is even more beautiful than I imagined. The last few days has been an entire whirlwind of events. My friends made my last few days there absolutely amazing, and I miss them already. That being said, I am so happy to be in Ireland to start out this trip and there's no other place in the world I'd rather be right now! Until Saturday night, I was under the impression in my head that my flight was leaving Sunday morning at 11. It wasn't until I texted Sarah (my ride to the airport) on Saturday night saying "Ok, I'll see you tomorrow morning at 8:30!" that I was corrected otherwise. She responded saying, "Don't you mean Monday morning?" So I checked my ticket (which I should have done a long time ago) and it dawned on me that I still had one more day in Provo. Yes, just call me the girl who cried wolf...on accident.

Fast forward to Monday morning...the actual time of our flight. We get to the airport and discover that our flight has been delayed by two hours. So I called and said my goodbyes to my sisters and mom and also enjoyed some airport Cafe Rio with Sarah. Finally, we got on our flight to JFK. 

Because our flight was delayed, we ended up having to really hurry to catch our connecting flight in JFK to Shannon, Ireland. The flight to JFK was uneventful...Sarah and I had an extra seat in our row which was really nice. We stretched out and slept a bit. I caught up on my reading for our ward's summer Book of Mormon challenge (I've struggled this last week to stay on top of that). I started to try to read my required book for my book report in London, but sleep got the best of me. It took forever to get off that flight, so once we were off, we ran to our gate in the JFK airport. Holy crud...that airport is HUGE and CROWDED. We had to take a bus to get to our gate for our next flight. We were worried about cutting it too close, but we ended up getting there about 15 minutes before boarding. Here I am... on the threshold to the plane that took us to Ireland!

We seriously lucked out on our flight to Ireland. We sat in the emergency exit row, which meant we had very spacious leg room. And, again, there was an extra seat. So we had plenty of room. We loved having our own personal TV's, blankets, and pillows. It was the first time I've ever gotten meals on a flight...both breakfast and dinner! Not the best food I've ever had, but it was free, so no complaints. I tried to force myself to sleep and try to adjust to the time change...and I think  I was semi-successful. I only got about 2 hours of sleep on the flight but that's been enough to sustain me since we got here. We arrived in Ireland at 9 AM, and since then we've been hanging out with our group in a hotel waiting for the last three people to arrive and join us. It's now 1 PM here (6 AM at home) and we're about to head to a castle and then to our hostel. As soon as I saw Ireland from my plan window, I was awed by the beauty of the landscape here. It really is full of green fields, trees, rivers and ponds, and scattered with cattle and sheep. I've hardly seen Ireland yet, but I already know I'm in love. It's going to be a great six weeks. :)