May14th, 2022

Admittingly, my first taste of Ireland/Dublin was a New York deli.

Craving fresh and quick, the green awning and bold lettering caught my eyes, and a few other students and I wandered into the local small deli. It sat on the corner with open, welcoming doors and charming outdoor sidewalk seating.

Immediately I was welcomed like an old friend by the man behind the bar. It was his mission to make the perfect sandwich for me, which meant selecting tomato bread, which he thought I would like, and adding additions to the avocado and brie sandwich I had ordered from the menu.

I could smell, almost taste, the vibrant colors of the toppings and homemade loaves of bread before me. He described where each local vegetable, meat, grain, and cheese was from, sighing as he exclaimed that he wished I could have seen the cornucopia of food he had at the beginning of the day. These were just the leftover scraps from the day.

As I left with my warm tomato bread, avocado, and brie sandwich wrapped in thick paper, I watched his face light up as a couple with a baby walked in. He stopped talking to the man in line and shouted out to them, a slice of bread in hand. Talking with the couple like old friends and making faces at the baby, I couldn’t tell if they actually knew each other before or not. Everyone who walked into the deli seemed to be an old friend – even us, a group of students from the United States.

The brie melted in my mouth, and the bread crunched a perfect toasted crunch as I began to explore Dublin, sandwich in hand.