Sitting in Dublin

I got on a plane at 6:50 and took off for Dublin, Ireland. During the flight I was writing and here's what I wrote about:

As you continue to fly east, you meet the sun. At first you can't tell if the sky is changing or if you're just hoping. Then you gaze out the window and you see the pale blue hilight on the horizon.

All you can see is blue. Dark ocean and a slightly lighter sky. As more light appears, you begin to see the highlighted clouds. You keep watching and soon you begin to see the palest pink gracing the horizon and meanwhile, you can gaze behind you and half the sky is still night. A slight mist hangs in the sky between night and day.

It is hard to imagine that anything could be so large. The ocean is so vast that it even makes the sky look smaller. It's a beautiful sight, all that blue. Not a sight you get to see very often. This is the sight I've been waiting for all night. I've been waiting to watch the sun rise over the ocean.

The sunrise color is bleeding into the clouds now. There is purple, orange, and the palest yellow in addition to the pink and blue. It's almost impossible now to tell where the sky begins and where the ocean ends. This is in part due to the clouds below creating their own ocean.

As things come together and the day settles in around you, things become clearer. You can now make out the tops of the clouds, a kind of greyish purple with ridges of pink. They look different from above. A kind of cotton candy appearance, if you will. They are far below and its odd to think that they aren't even the ground, it lies much farther beneath. You almost feel like you could be flying over a snow covered artic desert because as the sun comes up the scene changes. The sky becomes a sharper, brighter blue, but below becomes white.

The sunrise color slowly dissappears and as you look down into the clouds you fantasize that you can see the ocean below through the gaps in the clouds. And then the cloud front ends and you see it. The ocean.

A blue-ish grey in the morning light. Without the layer of cloud it becomes harder to tell where the ocean ends and the sky begins. A hazy cloud barrier blurs the horizon between sky and sea.

There! I saw it! Land! Or an island rather. But now the coast! You can see the white wave outline in the water. Now you can start to see the beaches and farther inland mountains. As the mountains end, you begin to see green. You can see rivers and trees.

At some point it hits you that as you are observing the start to the day, you are flying over the people of Ireland who are starting their day as well, and soon you will be down among them!

Ireland is green! And, as you start to descend towards the cloud level, you can see the different lots of land seperated by hedges. You can see the houses too, but they are really small still. You can see the lakes and even the mist hanging over the rivers. Its hard to get over how green it is! Its a sight that is almost ridiculously beautiful.

Slowly but surely the clouds get closer and then suddenly you break through them and you can see the animals down in their pastures. Everything gets closer and your ears start popping. And suddenly, you're on the ground, a strange sensation after being airborne for seven hours. Odd how things go.