I’ve never been to Europe before.

I’ve never been on a plane that crossed an ocean, nor have I been in a car that drove on the wrong side of the road.

I’ve never seen sheep in a field, let alone seen them wandering down a two-lane highway with a speed limit of 100 km/h.

And the only time I’ve ever dipped my toes in the Atlantic Ocean was in warm, sunny Florida, nowhere near the northern Atlantic waters.

All of these things were true until last Tuesday, April 26 when Air Transat flight TS 0230 touched down in Dublin, Ireland and I, half awake, stumbled off the plane and into the crisp, if not stereotypical, rain of Dublin.

Before I left for my trip, I got many questions. “Are you excited?” “You must be thrilled!” “What are you going to see?” “Are you excited yet?” (I was beginning to feel a bit like pregnant Miranda in Sex and the City and thought it might get easier to fake my excitement.)

The thing is, I wasn’t all that excited. I didn’t know what to expect. And, since Keith’s mother was to be my guide, I had no idea what we were doing, or where we were going. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do because I didn’t know what was there.

It seemed like from right off the bat, we fired away. I wandered the streets in downtown Dublin in a daze. I visited little shops, the Guinness Factory and toured the Irish countryside (I even had a Tim Hortons coffee over here). And it was all very grand.

And while the Ireland I saw in my head doesn’t really exist in real life (for the record: little stone houses, rolling hills and mountains), parts of it do. I’ve never seen greenery like I did over here. I’ve never been caught breathless from the sites of pure nature, or the sense of history in one city. (After all the medical school at Trinity College Dublin is 300 years old — almost twice the age of my COUNTRY.)

But more than all of that, what I’ll really take away from my experience in Ireland for the past week is the sense of family, belonging and welcoming.

Saturday night, the house was filled with 30 members of my boyfriend’s family. It was the loudest bunch of card games I’ve ever been involved in, but it was also one of the strongest memories I’ll take away with me when I go home.

What trumps Saturday night is the family I was welcomed in to as soon as I stepped off the plane. Keith’s father, mother and sister made me feel like I’ve always been part of the group, part of their family. Not once this week did I feel like an outsider, or someone who didn’t belong. We spent evenings sharing good food and good wine, playing video games and board games and having lots of laughs.

While this trip allowed me to check off all of the things on my to-do list at the top of this blog post, it also allowed me to do it with a group of people who genuinely cared for me, and who I genuinely care for back.

And there’s no doubt, my trip to Ireland wouldn’t have been as grand if it weren’t for that.

So yes, I would highly recommend to anyone they should come to Ireland. But I guarantee your trip won’t be half as great as mine has been.

Thank you, all. We’ll see you soon.

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The past few days cannot be described in words, but I’ll do my best.

Green rolling hills. Breathtaking mountain views. The Atlantic Ocean. Small little towns where the streets are so small you can barely walk down them in a pair. Pubs as far as the eye can see.

We set out on Thursday for Killarney, about a three-hour drive. We stayed in an inn that was on the top of a pub — as many of the hotels in town were. We had a grand first evening, a nice dinner and then to bed (after all, Keith and I had stayed up until 2:30 the previous morning to watch the Bruins-Habs game).

It was Friday I’ll never forget.

We left Killarney to travel toward Dingle. A trip that lasted about an hour-and-a-half. For the majority of that trip, I sat in the car with the mountains on my right and the Atlantic Ocean on my left. Pure heaven. I’ve never seen so many sheep in fields in my life! (In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sheep before!)

Dingle was a great day trip. We spent the day wandering the town under the sun (it was about 25 degrees out). I couldn’t have asked for a better day.

I also finally got to try my first Irish Tim Hortons coffee (a request from my mother). It cost about $2 for a medium and is instant coffee. However, they do have sleeves for their cups which are Tim Hortons-made, so maybe that means it’s just about time that we get them back home.

On the way back to Killarney, we stopped at the beach where we frolicked in the ocean for a little while. It was a really cool feeling to be splashing around in the northern Atlantic on the western Irish coast thinking about the last time my feet were i this ocean and how far away Florida is from where I am right now.

After arriving back in Killarney, we had a great Italian dinner (yes, Italian), before spending the night playing cards in anticipation for the big card tournament to come Saturday night.

Like I said, words are hard to come by to describe how my day was, so here’s a photo slideshow of my travels. Click on the plus sign (and then on click to read more) for more about that photo.

I’ve been in Dublin for well over 12 hours now, and here’s the thing I can’t get over: the cars.

Not the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road — that I can almost deal with. Nor are all those roundabouts really a problem — I mean, I’ve only almost gotten hit a couple of time due to the lack of stop signs. No, what really gets me is the cars themselves — the fact that the driver is on the right-hand side.

I was introduced to it as soon as we landed in Dublin. Keith’s parents were there to meet us, we headed out to the car, his dad opened the car door for me in the back. Half asleep, I slid into the right-hand side of the backseat. It wasn’t until Keith’s dad, keys in hand, slid in front of me and started the engine that I noticed the steering wheel was right ahead of me.

Look! It's an Esso!

Weird.

This Esso, pictured at right, was the first thing we saw after leaving the airport — and

to think, I thought they were Canadian!

We left Canada around 9 p.m. Monday night, and arrived in Dublin Tuesday morning just before 8 a.m. On very little sleep, we were shuttled home, where we both napped for a few hours.

After I got up, we took a walk to the Sq. — the biggest shopping centre in Dublin (according to Keith, anyway). Then we played some Wii bowling (oh, how life is so different over here compared to back home), before heading out for a birthday dinner for Keith’s mom at a steakhouse.

Gemma and I with our "Irish" cocktails. My teeth still hurt.

Dinner marked the first time of me trying a drink that was “uniquely” Irish. I wanted a cosmopolitan, but passed the cocktail menu over to Keith’s sister, Gemma, to pick me something Irish. She picked the Blazzini, which was extremely sweet, pink and contained Jack Daniels (who knew there was such a combination?). I know, it’s not the most Irish of drinks, but a girl has to ease into the Irish beer, right?

I ordered an “American” steak, which I asked to be cooked medium rare, but it came back medium well (and that’s being very generous). Apparently, had I ordered my steak rare, it may have come back cooked medium. Ah well, you live and learn.

We closed out the day with some birthday cake and trivia. I look forward to waking up Wednesday morning when I will see this from my window:

You can view more of my holiday photos on Flickr, or follow along on Twitter as I tweet my trip adventures (with the hashtag #SarahInIreland).