Find a time server for NTP to get the current time (EtherCard library)
The EtherCard library offers a method called ether.dnsLookup(host) where you ask it to look up the IP address for you.

etherCard.dnsLookup("pool.ntp.org");


...only that might fail, so it returns a false:

if (!etherCard.dnsLookup("pool.ntp.org")) {
    // Error! Do something!
    return;
} // if


But if it works...

if (!etherCard.dnsLookup("pool.ntp.org")) {
    // Error! Do something!
    return;
} // if
// At this stage, dnsLookup() worked...

// Can now connect to IP adress in etherCard.hispip


Now: please note that ntp.org would prefer you to use a more precise locale than pool.ntp.org. If you're going to distribute your application worldwide, then that's fine. But I always use au.pool.ntp.org because I'm in the Australian region. There are others that you can/should use instead.