The Dublin Time-Warp

Today was my first experience with the phenomenon Craig has appropriately named "The Dublin Time-Warp."  He'd mentioned it several times before, this idea that you run around for hours and hours, but at the end of the day you haven't really accomplished anything.  I was properly warned.  But there is no way I could be properly prepared, not without experiencing  DTW for myself.

Here's what my day was supposed to look like:
*meet Juli at 9AM
*take the DART to City Center to look at an apartment at 10AM
*look at a second apartment at 11AM
*swing by the Irish Bible Institute to pay my tuition fees
*take the DART a few stops further, go to the U.S. Embassy because my passport has to be renewed before I can go to the immigration office next week
*head back in time to eat a late lunch with Juli around 1 PM


Here's what I actually did:
*met Juli around 9:15 AM (no surprise I was running a few minutes late)
*we would have been at our apartment appointment on time if we hadn't gone the wrong direction from the DART station; even though we got off to a slow start, we were still done looking at the (fantastic) apartment before 10:30 AM
*Juli had to go back home, and I was early for my next appointment, I decided to go to IBI first
*while waiting to speak with someone in the office, I got a call from Appointment #2 saying that they "were in a meeting and couldn't make it at 11 AM.  Would 2:30 PM work?"  No, not really.  But I said I could rearrange my schedule to make it work.
*waited at IBI until 11:40 or so before the finance person came in; I had coffee and biscuits (cookies) with some of the office staff while I waited
*my bank card wouldn't authorize the full transaction amount for my fees; we ended up having to try smaller transactions; my card let us run it 3 times before it quit working; they will run it 3 more times tomorrow; this means I have to go back to IBI next week to pick up all my paperwork for immigration
*left IBI around noon; got to the embassy around 12:30 PM
*after waiting outside for several minutes, the security officer told me that I would have to go home, schedule an appointment online, and come back later; it was about 12:45 PM
*I needed to kill some time before going back for Appointment #2; I had passed a Starbucks on my way to the embassy; I went there
*got an Irish Starbucks card (you get free shots here!) and an Iced Passion Tea; let me mention that they don't actually give you ice with your iced Passion Tea, so I had to ask for some, I'm pretty sure they thought that was weird
*left Starbucks around 2 PM to get to Appointment #2 by 2:30 PM
*Appointment #2 arrived around 2:50 PM; the apartment was NOT worth the wait
*it started raining just as I was leaving Appointment #2; I made it to the DART station before 3:15 PM
*stopped at Juli's on my way back to the Hutson's to tell her about the rest of my day; got back to the Hutson's about 4:30 PM

And that's The Dublin Time-Warp.