Even More Shenanigans in DUBLIN

We all woke up in our lovely large hostel dorm room to my phone alarm which I had set for 9:45 since the free breakfast ends at ten. We all groggily climbed out of bed...we were still drunk. Great. Well, I guess that it´s a good thing in Ireland. We ate our disappointing breakfast of rolls, jam, and corn flakes when I looked at the time. It was 8:15am. I had made a drunken error and set my alarm for 7:45! You see, Ireland´s an hour earlier than Spain, but my phone remained on Spain time. For some reason that made me think the night before that I should set my alarm for 2 hours earlier rather than one hour later. I´m a drunken idiot. Oh well...shenanigans. We were actually pleased with this error because we could head back upstairs and sleep more. We slept until 10:45 and I woke up with a pretty hefty hangover. Excellent. I took some Ibuprofen, showered, got ready, and we all headed out around 12 to see the town. It was supposed to rain that day, but it was a gorgeous, clear day in the mid-60´s. We walked around the Temple Bar area, headed into a convenience store for a sandwich, a big bottle of water, and an apple. I still hadn´t kicked the hangover. We ran into Katie and crew on the street; they were heading for the Guinness storehouse and invited us to a Rugby game the next day. Tempting, but Stacey and I had plans to see the Irish countryside the next day (Melissa was going to stick around and shop). So we decided to think on it. After that we decided that we wanted to see a castle, so we went to, well, Dublin Castle. We couldn´t really figure out how to get inside so we walked around the facade, took pictures, bought some souvenirs, and hung out in the cute, typical Irish yard. That was nice. We got whistled at by these sketchy construction workers on some scaffolding the whole time which kind of ruined the moment. I thought that I had escaped that upon leaving Spain! Oh well. So we bummed around there for awhile not being too constructive. Melissa, Stacey, and I make a good travel trio because we´re all really laid-back and go-with-the-flow, so we were able to do things, but not really stress about it all. So we did a lot of dilly-dallying, but it was good. I like laid-back vacations. We then decided to see St. Patrick´s Cathedral which we thought was near our hostel. We found it, walked around for awhile confused and unable to find the entrance, ended up taking some pictures in front of a viking museum exhibit, and then found the entrance. Turned out that it wasn´t St. Patrick´s Cathedral, but Christ´s Church. Oh well, it was an Irish church nonetheless. So we entered, paid a very nice student discount, and took the self-guided tour. The church was really nice! I decided that I enjoy Irish Catholocism to Spanish...it´s just much less, well intense. There´s more simplicity, tranquility, and there´s an obvious concentration on peace. There are so many corners in which one can pray for world peace. I like that. And I liked the smell of the church, and the stained glass, and just, well, the simplicity. There was also a really cool mummified cat and mouse framed that was found in the organ pipes in the 1800´s. Sweet. The best part was the crypt downstairs. I learned all about crypts in art history so that was a cool thing to see in person. That´s what I love about studying art history in Europe: I actually get to see these famous structures/pieces of art in person! Not too shabby. The crypts were cool, except my hangover still hadn´t gone away, despite taking 2 Ibuprofens and drinking a huge bottle of water. Oy. Being in the crypt caused the pressure of my headache to increase a bit. But I was committed to continuing. I was in Ireland, dammit. After the church we headed towards the Guinness storehouse, of course. It was really cloudy and dreary out at this point, and a bit cold. And none of us had a jacket. Damn. We stopped at another convenience store along the way where I bought more water and potato salad. Potato salad! I had not had potato salad in ages! I loooooove my potato salad, as many of you know. What I love about the food in Ireland is that it´s all deli-based: sandwiches, potato salad, etc. Love it. I enjoyed every last bite of that potato salad, as well as the drunken group of Scottish guys wearing kilts buying drunken munchies and being rowdy. Love it. Then we continued on our journey towards the brewery. We got there, entered, and went up this tall escalator surrounded by modern pipes and glass. I felt like I was entering Willy Wonka´s factory. Actually, the entire visit felt like lost scenes from Willy Wonka. It was silly. There was a student discount to enter...only in Ireland would there be a student discount for a brewery. The brewery was basically a modern museum for, well, beer. Let me tell you, they take pride in their Guinness...as they should. I´ve decided that Guinness might very well be my favorite beer. This is because it´s the only beer whose taste I actually like, and it´s not really carbonated which is what I really dislike about beer. I don´t drink soda because the carbonation just makes me feel too full and gross, and most beers do the same. Guinness is not like that at all. It´s quality, man, quality. Anyways, I learned all about the making of Guinness and its history. This took awhile because the brewery/museum is huuuuuge. I´m talking 7 floors, perhaps. It was really cool learning all about Guinness. I don´t kow, I really enjoy learning about how things work. I was that kid that watched "Mister Rogers" and enjoyed the episodes where he visited factories. I just like knowing the how´s and why´s. On the 5th floor we were able to do a taste test, which was basically a free sampling of basic Guinness. Not bad. Then we got all the way upstairs to the famous sky bar which is a circular tower bar with walls of pure glass, so you get an excellent view of the town no matter where you stand/sit. There were seats along the window that are low to the ground and kind of office-looking. Very interesting atmosphere. We went to the bar to exchange a plastic ring we got upon entering the storehouse in order to get a free pint. Luckily, after getting our beers we were able to seize some seats along the window. We sat there for a good while talking and drinking, re-capping the previous night, making plans for that night. We planned to meet up with Katie and crew at 7:15 in front of Trinity College to go on some pub crawl. Because I was already kind of dehydrated, the pint made me feel pretty good and tipsy, and also killed my hangover. It is true what they say about beer curing a hangover! Ha. We sat there for a long time because we saw that it had started to rain pretty hard outside. But soon we got up and headed down to the gift shop where we spent about a half an hour. Yeah, we did. I bought some great souvenirs: a cool vintage poster and a long-sleeved shirt that kept me warm while walking back to the hostel. Great times! On the way home we stopped at another convenience store to buy dinner. At every convenience store they make grilled paninis and rolls for you with any ingredient you please. It´s awesome! What a concept...the U.S. needs to get on that. ASAP. So I got a grilled tomato mozzarella panini and more water, the others got sandwiches as well. We walked home, ate, and got ready to head out. We received a text from Katie while we were in the hostel saying that they weren´t feeling like drinking and wouldn´t be on the pub crawl. Who comes to Dublin not intending to drink? Lame, I tell you, LAME. We got ready and rushed over to Trinity in the rain, still determined to get to the pub crawl...we were running a tad late. Upon reaching the meeting point, Trinity Gate, we passed a dorm window where a guy inside wearing a tux yelled at us asking if we wanted a beer. Um, YES. How fun would it have been to go to a dorm party at Trinity? Unfortunately nothing became of it. He was probably quite drunk and didn´t really give us a way to enter. Oh well. I wonder what he was dressed up for...we also saw a bunch of other young guys walking around in tuxes. Who knows. It was raining, we didn´t see anybody meeting for a pub crawl, so we just said screw it. We walked around, thought about grabbing a pint, but decided to save the money (5€ a pint!), buy a fifth of cheap liquor, and go back to the hostel for a bit before heading out. We first stopped at a Starbucks where we got some little pastreys. The Starbucks in Ireland was nice--they have some really great sandwiches there, and they have a pure espresso frapuccino that sounded interesting. Besides that, all the same. The rain had let up a bit, so we left and walked to the hostel. Right as we walked in we found none other than PATRICIO in the main room! We thought that he was leaving for a trip to London, but he was staying one more day, actually. He was sitting with these two guys who were playing cards, one of which was, well, HOT. Oh man. So, needless to say, we grabbed a seat. Patricio continued the game of house from the previous night...he remembered! Yup, we continued to play house. We joked around about going to Christ´s church and getting married since he pretend proposed to me that night. I told him things were moving too fast. I think that we freaked the guys out who were playing cards. They were so concentrated on their card game, it was weird. We talked all the while, though. The hot one and I kept exchanging glances and smiles so it looked like it could be a good night if we all were to go out together. These guys are soccer players for the University of British Columbia on a tournament tour. I went upstairs to grab Sven (my Swiss shot glass), and we all sat around and took shots. While we were drinking this Polish girl walked over and asked for a couple shots. She was weird. She was saying how she needs vodka to sleep. And then she asked why we would want to visit Ireland. I explained it to her, but she didn´t get it. It´s weird, actually, when we told María del Mar and Maruja that we were going to Ireland they gave us weird looks wondering why. I guess it´s just not considered a major attraction. María del Mar had asked us why not see Italy while we´re in Europe, and why choose Ireland if we could go to a place like Italy. I don´t know, it´s hard to explain. There´s jut something about the Irish culture that really intrigues Americans, I guess. Anyways, this Polish girls was showing the same sort of cynicism. She was also saying how it´s weird that all Americans don´t say that they´re American, but from other places. Like, "I´m Irish," "I´m Russian," etc. Um, well, that´s because we are. Sorry we´re not an older nation like those of Europe. We´re all recent immigrants, deal with it. She was an idiot and didn´t understand my explanations and drank our liquor. She was also annoying. None of us were a fan of the Polish girl. We were happy when she struck up a convo with somebody else. We ended up finishing the vodka, which actually didn´t get us that drunk because it had a 10% lower alcohol content than typical vodka. No wonder it was cheaper. We all stood up to go out, but the soccer players said that they were going to stay in since they had to wake up early the next morning to go to London. No! I could have gotten that one, could have had him. Damn. Damn damn damn. So Stacey, Melissa, Patricio, and I all headed towards Temple Bar district. We decided to go to the actual Temple Bar which is an older pub that pretty much exemplifies the Irish Pub ideal. It was crowded, but comfortable. The crowd was fine because the pub scene is a laid-back scene as opposed to the typical American bar scene. Just people sitting around, making friends, and drinking. We ordered pints and struck up a conversation with this group of 40-something Irish couples. The convo started with Melissa asking if it would be wrong to order and Irish Car Bomb...they said yes. They seemed to take to us pretty well, especially since we were nice enough to ask before ordering a potentially insulting drink. We all sat aroud, drank, socialized, continued to play drunken house, I ran into the New Zealand guy from the bus the previous day and talked to him awhile. Then I saw on the bar a bottle labled "Highland Park". A liquor called Highland Park?? You know what that meant--I had to drink it. It turned out to be Scotch. Oy. I ordered it and drank it. My first Scotch! It was also really expensive...6.95€! Well, what can I say, of course Highland Park would be expensive. Mwa ha ha. I expected it to taste pretty terrible, but it actually was not bad. I could tell that this was high quality scotch. I actually enjoyed it a bit. I´m well on my way to becoming a whiskey drinker, peeps. Thanks, Ireland! The bar was playing some really awesome classic rock like The Eagles and Billy Joel (!!!). I actually heard a lot of Billy Joel while in Ireland...big reason why I loved it so much. There were posters everywhere advertising Billy Joel´s concert in Dublin in July. Billy Joel in concert in Dublin!!! I´m so depressed about missing that, I gotta tell ya. I´m hoping that this means he´ll start touring the States soon. I want my Billy! Anyways, soon a traditional Irish drinking song came on which I just happened to know; I own one traditional Irish CD that I bought in San Diego at a pub, and I listen to it on my iPod all the time. Now I was actually hearing it in Ireland! It´s called "Dirty Old Town". The group of Irish couples seemed to like the fact that I was singing along to every word. Since it was an Irish drinking song, everybody got up, grabbed partners, and started dancing all around. One of the men, a 40-something named Dave, grabbed me and started doing walktzy folk dances around the bar, spinning me, lifting me, it was fantastic! I loved it! I love the Irish! Dave then hung around with us and talked for awhile, shared some pints, until the bar closed at 2. We walked out and Dave bought me a red rose from a street vendor on the street! Haha. Then his friends dragged him away down the street. All bars were closing, but we are all so used to Spanish nights that we still wanted to stay out. So we found a random club which was emptying out since they were closing soon. We headed all the way upstairs where we ordered more pints. Somehow Patricio started dancing all over (literally...hard to explain) Stacey and I think that he was trying to kiss her. He was drunk. We kept saying, "No! That´s your sister! Incest!" Haha, drunken house would never get old. Suddenly some random French guy started hitting on Melissa, then somehow he and Patricio got into a debate about who knows more about America. You see, although Patricio´s Italian, he swears to be American. He wants to be an American pretty badly. He even walked down the street with us drunkenly singing "Proud to be an American" earlier that night. So this French guy who´s been to the States a few times is trying to show Patricio up, talking about all the places in California he´s visited. This was pathetic. He started saying how Sand Diego´s better than San Francisco (where Patricio lives) and since this guy was being lame I drunkenly stood up for Patricio and was the true American voice saying that San Francisco is much better than San Diego. He asked me if I had ever been to San Diego and I said yes, three times (lie), and that it´s nothing compared to San Fran. Then he started talking about all of the "fag flags" in San Fran. That does not make Lisa happy. I told him how stupid of a thing that was to say and that he was ignorant and close-minded. Then he asked to make out with me and I said, no, I don´t kiss people who say "fag". Then he started acting flamboyantly gay saying, "But I like the flags..." yadda yadda yadda, legitimately thinking that that would help the situation. I told him to fuck off. I´m not usually that mean to people, but if somebody presses my social issues buttons when under the influence, you´ve got problems. We soon left as the club began to close, and supposedly the French guy´s friend grabbed Melissa and made out with her despite her wishes. Oh man. Then we walked to Subway. Of course. Subway in Temple Bar is open so late, as are many other food joints. I got a veggie patty sub...they don´t have the veggie patty in most places in the State (they discontinued it in a lot of areas) so this was exciting. We sat around eating and laughing, playing house still, and then walked home around 4ish. Somehow we ended up staying out extremely late again. Gotta love being "Spanish" in Dublin. We got back to the hostel and told Patricio goodnight, hoping we´d see him the next morning before he left for good for London. We passed out at 4:30.
Again, shenanigans, I tell you. SHENANIGANS!