Airplane Delirium/Reflections without Sleep

Things that I’ve learned:

• Clouds are the weirdest things ever. They look so fluffy. I just want to snuggle into them. But then there are the clouds that look like giant snow-covered sleddin’ hills. I’m not sure if looking down on clouds or looking up at them is better.
• If I were a giant, I would eat cloud and ocean soup every day. I’d just take my giant wooden spoon and stir the clouds into the water.
• I may be a moth; I’m mesmerized by lights.
• British children are good at being adorable. Seen at the airport: a little girl said to her mother, “Mummy, can we cheers with our plates?” And then they bumped their plates together.
• Immigration offices are like the DMV. Since I’ll be here for more than three months, I had to go to the immigration office to get a passport stamp. The process includes taking a ticket and waiting for 40 other people’s ticket numbers to be called before yours. And it takes over 9000 years for that to happen. Then they take a picture of you, take your passport, and make you pay €150. Then you have to wait another 20 minutes while they create a you-can-stay-in-the-country “Certificate of Registration.” It’s one of those fancy-pants cards, too. It’s hard plastic like a credit card or a driver’s license. It has one of those chips on it. And your picture. And your picture is going to be awful because you’ve been awake for an unknown number of hours, you haven’t showered since you left America, and they didn’t tell you why they were taking your picture. But, hey, now I have an Irish ID.
• I need American toilets back in my life. These European ones freak me out. The flushy hole is larger than that to which I am accustomed, and the width of the flushy hole makes me think that the chances of a rat coming out of the toilet to eat me, which is one of my most legitimate fears, increases tenfold.
• My rainboots are called “Wellies” here. I think I already knew that since I was able to recall that it’s short for Wellingtons (unless I made that up), but I was reminded of it. I spent my two million year long lay-over talking to an Illinoisan who was born and raised in Ireland.
• The tomato soup in Ireland is delicious.
• Where am I supposed to store all these one and two euro coins?
• Walking around Dublin for five hours will lead to the worst foot cramp you’ve ever experienced.
• This is going to be one of those places where I need a coat when I’m doing very light activity,  but I’ll burn if I do anything but walk for three seconds.
• I don’t fancy going into that bathroom to have a shower due to my fear of rats popping out of the drains, but I am a severely smelly American.
• I haven’t the slightest idea of how to work the shower in my room. Seriously. How does this work? I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. Are all showers in Ireland like this? There are two separate knobs for a bath. Then there’s some thingy on the wall beneath the shower head. It’s kind of like a light dimmer or a kitchen timer. Do I turn the bath water on and then turn that thingy? I do not understand, sir. I need the googles, but the internet is all the way downstairs.
• I figured it out. You turn the big knob to the left to turn on the water, then you turn the little kitchen-timer thingy to adjust the temperature. So now I’m clean.
• When I planned this trip, I neglected to consider the fact that I’m mildly crazy and tend to think I’m being attacked by ghosts or ax murders whenever I hear any noise.
• I love how tea is everywhere. What with it being my favorite thing.