Day One (of Twenty-Four)

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

The train hums, squeaks and rattles, the snack cart rolls by, two young men in suits and ties with " church __  jesus __" on their name tags scan the audience, a Pakistani man yells into his cell phone and the elderly couple next to us, seemingly bitter in the direction of the loud cell phone user, attempt to bond over a crossword puzzle. It seems as if we could be anywhere in the world, and yet - this is our view…

Oh Ireland (sigh...), even if I hadn't tasted your sweet (Guinness) fruit minutes ago I would have cooed still. 

Technically it's 6:32am for us (EST). Over the last fourteen hours we've flown from Richmond to Philly then to Dublin, eaten a proper Full Irish Breakfast, conquered our first Guinness (no time to waste!) and hopped on the train to Ballymote (Irish for "Town of the Moat"). We're carrying with us a 50 lb. bag of microphones, preamps, cables, headphones, a couple cameras and a portable audio recorder and are desperately hoping Rick (Epping - harmonica player and reason for the adventure) will be waiting at the Ballymote Station to whisk us away into the land of the leprechaun. 

Drowsy from lack of sleep and breakfast beer I stare out the train window full of gratitude and excitement. Over the next 24 days I know we'll learn a lot, meet many a fine lad and lass and add yet another one of a kind chapter to the ol' book.