Flight to Ireland and more!

January 20 – Chicago:
Eat lunch at Thai grill. Kill time with my replacement roommate until Nora picks me up for the flight. Bags don't seem too heavy as at this point I'm relatively rested and energetic.
Flight is on time, take off at 6:30 PM, with no troubles getting through security. In fact this is the first time I've gotten through security without getting the extra security check, I guess I used to be on some list suggesting I may pose a domestic threat to the country...
After boarding the plane it comes to my attention that I actually didn't have a flight direct to Shannon, rather it stopped in Dublin first. I had all intentions of sleeping on the flight however that was never the case. Food is lack luster, special request lacto-ovo- vegetarian meal, and in flight movies fail to amuse.
Flight to Dublin luckily doesn't seem too long which is nice because I couldn't sleep.
Land at 7:25 am Dublin time = 1:25 am CST. Bad weather in Dublin = lay over for plane de-icing. Still arrive right on time in Shannon on the shortest flight ever at 9:25 am. Literally I think the Dublin to Shannon flight takes longer to taxi, take off, land, and taxi again then it spends actually in the air, maybe 20mins air time?
Line to enter country an Shannon is a bit long. Convert $600 to € gives €431.xx
Bus to Limerick transit hub costs €6.80 and is a quick trip, quicker than expected. Note during trip I have seen the biggest hills in quite some time, Chicago is flat.
At customs I met up with a friend from Loyola, Catie Houlihan and we traveled together to Limerick. We are attending the same school and staying in the same apt. complex.
Not quite oriented right as we begin the trek to our apt complex and we walk the right direction but the wrong street. At this point we are unbelievably exhausted and have to stop every two blocks or so to rest. We are tired, wet, sore and hungry. Taxi would have been a good choice, but better would have been closer inspection of a better map than we had at the time. (note today on the adgenda is go buy a decent map. Limerick doens't have the nice grid system we are used to in Chicago and the streets are not labeled as frequently or clearly as we are used to) We were initially real close to our apt but we took the long tiresome route and ended up detting directions from a nice stranger.