An American in Dublin?

Yesterday was the visitors last in Ireland...They went on the Dublin hop-on, hop-off tour...reports are good..well worth the euro. They stopped for lunch with me at a Turkish restraunt right across the street from One Family..Laylas. I had hellim sandwich turns out hellim is quite lovely. We met again for dinner at Porterhouse...added oyster stout to the many porterhouse brews we've sampled..decent. Then we headed to The Oliver St. John Gogarty in Temple Bar area for some live irish tunes...they play music from 2:30-2:30. Watch some elbow pipe...an instrument native to Ireland...very interesting. Finished the nite in O'Sullivans with some acoustic american tunes. Definitly a bit of craic.

Upon the departure of our lastest batch of visitors... i began to ponder could i see myself living in Dublin long-term? The answer... (although this is VERY hypothetical...no plans whatsoever to stay) i feel would be YES. Before our departure, we were warned of the culture shock we would experience...how different things might be...and yes while things are at times quite different than they are at home...there are many things that are similar...I dont think any one in our group really experienced severe culture shock at all. In my experience thus far traveling around Europe...and i havent been many places...Dublin to me feels the most like a city in the US. While to a European that might seem like a bad thing...to me its lovely. Yes there are some alterations i would make to the irish culture...such as effective pills, drinkable diet coke, or variety in general. There are many aspects of the culture i would love to bring home to the US as well... relaxed work ethic, social approriateness of grown people eating ice cream in the middle of the day while walking down the street, or black courrant. I really dont feel like adjusting to a life in Dublin would be all that different from adjusting to a life in any unfamiliar city in the US (if that makes any sense?. I dont know....just thought i might share my thoughts....
Time to go to bed...cheers!!