Let the shenanigans begin...first day in DUBLIN!

Luckily I got a good amount of sleep on Wednesday night, waking up after some creepily vivid dreams Thursday morning with a good 7 hours under my belt. Got ready, finished some last minute packing, packed a lunch, ate breakfast, and headed out the door for the San Sebastian bus station. We were to meet Melissa at the corner of Lujan and Asuncion at 8:10, but she called us at 8 saying that she had overslept and she'd just meet us at the station. Oy vey! Our plan was to get on the 9am bus to Malaga and subsequently fly to Dublin from there. So we walked, taking turns dragging the huge-ass, heavy suitcase (we decided to share a suitcase because RyanAir charges 7euro per checked piece of luggage), and bought our bus tickets. Luckily Melissa showed up at about ten to nine so we were able to get on the bus without any worries. I wasn't tired, so I spent the entire bus ride to Malaga chatting with Melissa. It was weird outside--after so many hot, sunny days it was cloudy, dreary, cool, and rainy. Strange. We got into Malaga at around 11:30 and decided to take the 11:55 city bus to the Malaga airport. Haha, I couldn't believe we were going back to Malaga. We got there around 12:30 with lots of time to spare before our 3:25 plane. So we checked in which took forever...this is how we first learned about how terrible RyanAir is. Yes, it's cheap, but the most disorganized, chaotic, stressful airline I've ever experienced. Never again, RyanAir, never again. We ended up standing in this long line at the check-in counter for an hour before a person even showed up to work at the desk. I mean, it was 12:30 in the afternoon, why couldn't they have somebody there working all day? So weird. After checking in we went through security and then upstairs to the food court to eat. The food court was an overpriced cafeteria so we went with the cheapest option, a cafe with sandwiches. We sat in the food court area for about an hour just chilling out and passing the time until going down to our gate. We got there to find a large line already starting in front of the door. There weren't assigned seats so people were pushing to get on ASAP although the plane wasn't boarding for another 15 minutes. Ugh, this would be annoying, for sure. We stood in line waiting anxiously for the boarding call at 3:05. However, they didn't start boarding until 3:20...so much for living up to its slogan of being "always on time." Then when we finally got on the plane, which was a bitch because they label the tickets with letters so that there's some organization to the boarding, but people's whose letters weren't called boarded when they weren't supposed to and the RyanAir people didn't care nor say anything. Ugh. And so many people cut in line and nobody said nor did anything either. How annoying. So we didn't get on the plane until 3:30, and then they made an announcement rushing us to take our seats so we could take off. Um, excuse me, who's fault is it that we got on so late? Also, we had to walk outside to get on the plane which was stupid. Luckily, the three of us found 3 open seats together. The seats are small, tight, and extremely uncomfortable; I had a terrible leg cramp for the entire flight. The flight didn't serve food nor drink unless you pay some outrageously steep price. Stupid RyanAir. I spent the entire 3 hour flight doing some studying and chatting with Melissa and Stacey. When we started to descend I was immediately captivated by the Irish terrain. Everything was so green! I didn't know that it would actually be so green, but it was. I was blown away, it was beautiful. We got into Dublin at around 5ish because we gained an hour. We walked off the plane into the beautiful, sunny, 70 degree weather which is quite rare for Ireland. Lucky us! The airport was cute, we immediately went to an airport pub for water and sandwiches. They had a tuna wrap. A tuna wrap! I hadn't seen a tuna wrap in ages. This is when I first learned the Irish affinity for sandwiches, of which I greatly approve. Oh yes, oh yes. The men working the bar were so fun and friendly, the complete stereotype. Amazing. I was so happy to be there. Also, eveyrone was so kind and friendly. I had not heard people saying "excuse me" or "pardon me" or "I'm sorry" in an airport in ages. So considerate, the Irish. We claimed our baggage and grabbed a city bus to our hostel. The bus was about 45 minutes long due to traffic, but it was extremely enjoyable. Ireland actually reminds me a lot of the States. I saw houses. Houses! I have not seen actual houses in ages! It made me happy. I was also quite entertained and thrown off by the whole driver on the right side of the car and driving on the left side of the road. Consider it: left turns on red...whoa. I asked the bus driver if he could let us off at Merchant's Quay as the hostel website had told us to do. When I asked him I pronounced it like "kwai" and he proceeded to correct me, "key". Quay is pronounced like key?? Who knew. I felt a bit dumb. We had some mix-ups knowing which was the right stop, but the driver was kind and helped us out. We struck up a conversation with a guy from New Zealand who had just gotten there to live, work, and study for a year. Way cool. He didn't have anywhere to stay, though, so he decided to tag along with us and hope for a vacancy in our hostel. We got off the bus at Merchant's Quay, a long stretch of road right along a, well, quay, or canal, or whatever it is. We didn't know in which directions to head, so we just kind of looked around aimlessly until this woman who was also on our bus and had gotten off asked us where we were headed and if we needed any help. She lived down the street and said that she could help us find our hostel. We told her the name, The Four Courts, but she was not familiar. She asked if we had a phone number and she would call for us to get directions from where we were located. How nice! So I gave her the number, she called, and then gave us directions. We were merely a block away. Way cool. We walked down the sidewalk in the beautiful, Irish sun and soon arrived at The Four Courts. We rung the bell, were buzzed in, and entered an open desk area with fun cartoonish paintings on the wall. A couple Spanish women were working the desk. One thing that surprised us about Dublin was the amount of Spanish people there. Interesting. We went through a bunch of check-in procedures...this hostel was a bit intense about security...and then headed up to room 101, our big 16-person dorm room. The New Zealand guy was able to get a bed just for one night in our room. We entered the room which was pretty nice, a big loft-feeling room with 8 sets of bunk beds. We were immediately greeted by this guy who looked about our age sitting on his bed reading Angels and Demons. We all introduced ourselves. His name is Peter and he's studying abroad in Valencia, Spain, and decided to take a weekend trip on his own to Dublin. He goes to NC State and we found a random connection: Peter's good friend from home, Ben, is one of Melissa's good friends at UofM who we just happened to be talking about on the plane. Small world, ain't it? We talked a lot about school, Spain, football (he's an OSU fan, grrrr), and whatnot. Stacey, Melissa, and I settled in and talked with Peter for a bit before deciding to head out and get a bite to eat. It was weird to go out to eat at a normal dinner time. I'm not used to it! I don't know how it's going to be in the States...I mean, eating before 9 just seems so unnatural to me now. We all really wanted Subway (we have been on a Subway kick since last weekend in Malaga), so we walked a few blocks down the street to a Subway/internet cafe which I found funny. There are so many internet cafes in Dublin, it's weird. We got to Subway and ordered some sanwiches. It was so weird to have to think and talk consistently in English again. It really is. Melissa was particularly happy then because she discovered,in Subway, that Ireland has Diet Coke. She's a Diet Coke addict and swears that the Coca-Cola Light we get in Spain, Portugal, Paris, etc. etc. tastes completely different and just isn't as good. So she went to town on the DC. Subway was yumminess, as always. We were happy campers. We then walked back to our hostel because it was getting close to 8 and in Ireland people actually go out at a reasonable hour. Again, it felt so awkward having to get ready to go out while it's still light outside. So weird. Oh, Spain, what have you done to me? We showered, got dressed and ready, and all the while chatted with Peter and met some friends he had made in the room, whose names I don't remember. However, they were two guys from Ecuador and one guy, Patricio, from Italy who has been studying in San Francisco and incessantly attests that he is American. Haha, it was silly. We headed downstairs to our hostel's main room with Peter and gang to pre-game before going out. We sat around, the boys drank beers while Melissa, Stacey and I finished a small water bottle of Corte Ingles vodka that we had brought up from Sevilla. Good times. We ended up getting pretty drunk and hanging out in the hostel until after midnight which was a dumb idea. Little do we forget that we're not in Spain and pubs close at some point or another. I was getting anxious to go out, but nobody was really moving. Eh. We finally got out at around 12:30 and we headed towards Temple Bar, the main pub district of Dublin adjacent to Merchant's Quay. I called Katie who had come to Dublin that past Tuesday; her boyfriend was given a birthday gift to travel to Ireland, and one of Katie's sisters and three of her friends from Ann Arbor decided to come along, and Katie planned to meet up with them all. So now we all had to meet up! Katie and gang were at the actual Temple Bar, which confused me because at the time I didn't think that there was an actual, concrete Temple Bar. So we wandered for awhile until deciding to meet next to the Hard Rock Cafe. We met up, I met Katie's friends and sister, but then we had to wait another ten minutes because Bryan, Katie's bf, was fetching liquor from their hotel room which was right next to Hard Rock. Then we all went looking for a pub. We found one that was still open, but they were checking ID's. Not only did some people not bring ID's, but you had to be 21 to enter. I had no idea and just flashed my ID and got in first. Yeah, I was anxious. It wasn't until people yelled at me from outside that I realized that I was one of the only people who could get in. Omigod, my first time being carded at 21! Yes! Even though we didn't go, it was quite exciting. I'm kind of confused as to why one had to be 21 to get in when the drinking age is 18 there. We later found out that later at night a lot of pubs only admit people in their 20's and above. Strange. We wandered for awhile to find almost all of the pubs closed or closing. So we ultimately settled on a club which was basically empty, and quite loud. Whatever, I really just wanted a pint of Guinness. There was a huge, Hungarian bouncer at the door who was checking ID's (ya had to be 18 at this one). I was first one in, and he immediately started flirting with me. Since a lot of my entourage had no ID, I flirted back so as to get them all in. Oh, the things us females do. We headed downstairs where it was dark except for bright colorful lights. It played absurdly loud music and it was impossible to carry on conversation. However, sometimes ya gotta make sacrifices in the name of Guinness, so we all bought pints. My first Irish pint. Not exactly the most ideal circumstances, but it really didn't matter in the end. I ended up going through 2 pints, getting pretty good and drunk, having random conversations with sketchy dudes, one of which was a weird Spanish guy to whom I gave a fake email address. The other was this short black dude, not sure if he was Irish or English or what, but he was a perisistent little guy. I walked upstairs because I just couldn't handle the noise and the scene, so I struck up a conversation with some hippie guy carrying around a guitar case, and the Hungarian bouncer who kind of looked like a Hungarian Arnold Schwartzenegger. Soon Katie and gang decided to head out...I guess one of their friends is not a big drinker (then tell me, why come to Dublin??), so they were off. We all stuck around until closing when they kept trying to kick us out, yet we never left. We were drunk, we couldn't help it. Then the little guy from before found me and asked if he could talk to me in private. Um, red light. No way. I told him no and that I was leaving. He kept insisting, pretty forcefully while holding my arm that it would just be for a second. NO. Nuh-uh. Bad news. At this point all of us were outside because we were being kicked out...it was already 4:30, they had to close! Then the bouncer grabbed me and asked if I would come home with him. Ugh. No! What was up with that night? Oh man, bad news. He was a bit more cordial about it. Then the little dude came back and kept asking to go talk to me alone. I was very curt and to the point about saying no. Get off my back, man! Then Patricio walked up, put his arm around me and asked the guy, "Why are you bothering my girlfriend?" Patricio to the rescue! The guy asked him if he was really my boyfriend and I said yes. We were drunk and not very good actors, so this guy definitely didn't believe us. He kept challenging Patricio saying if he was my boyfriend then kiss me. So Patricio gave me pecks on the lips which were not very convincing in the least. The guy was getting pissed off and requested a real kiss. It was tense, this guy looked ready to fight Patricio. This was messed up. Somehow we got out of the situation and lost the guy. What a weirdo. I almost caused a fight! Luckily Patricio is a pacifist and didn't give into the guy's challenges and just walked away. Patricio really came to the rescue, I was a big fan of the Patricio! On the walk back to the hostel we also discovered how funny of a drunk Patricio is. We didn't realize how drunk he was until he initiated what I have deemed "Drunk House". Let me explain. When we had that confrontation with the little guy at the club Patricio kept calling me "girlfriend", saying things like, "Oh, I love you girlfriend" (add in heavy Italian accent). Let me also digress and give you a Patricio mental image: he is very Italian looking, about 5'5", and kind of round. Not overweight, actually in pretty good shape, but he's just, I don't know, round. You'll see pictures. So anyways he kept calling me "girlfriend", and as we walked downt the street he started calling Melissa his cousin and then Stacey his sister. Somehow, eventually, Melissa's role changed from cousin to mother, so Patricio called Melissa "Mom" and Stacey "Sister". It was hilarious. Since we were all pretty damn drunk we played along not realizing how silly this whole thing was. Hahaha. So, for the entire 20 minute walk home (and quick bathroom stop at a Persian restaurant which took longer than it should have due to aimless menu staring but no purchases) we played house. Drunkenly. Henceforth, so we played "Drunken House". Shenanigans, I tell ya, shenanigans. It was too hilarious. That's how we knew that Dublin was going to be a ridiculously silly time. Just pure, unadulterated shenanigans. And they had just begun. We got back to the hostel, and before going to bed Patricio said, "Goodnight, Girlfriend; goodnight, Sister; goodnight, Mom." Hahahahahah. Patricio is awesome. We all passed out at around 5ish. I set my alarm to wake up at 9:45 for breakfast. Somehow we got home at Sevilla time. I mean, people don't really stay out that late in Ireland, butleave it up to us to find the only bar open past 2. Oh us. What a surprisingly awesome night. I mean, the scene wasn't too great, but the company was awesome and so many hilarious things happened...namely Drunken House. Yeah, that's my new favorite game now. We were sad because Patricio was leaving the next day. Our favorite playmate! Oh man. Anyways, I guess that that's what Ireland's all about: being among good company and just being completely silly. Lagos was a shitshow, but Ireland was sure to be SHENANIGANS.