dublin!

Ok, so Friday morning after language processors class I went to lunch with my friend Liana, while we where there a couple of the Americans I know from my database class show up. We sat around talking about what we wanted to do for the weekend and one of the Americans, A█████, liked my idea of going to Dublin for St. Patricks day. So we walked down to STAtravel‘s office on campus and purchesed two round trip tickets to Dublin—departing Sunday morning at 9 am and returning Sunday night at 9 pm! What could be better than 12 hours of Dublin on St. Patricks day?

Anyway that night I got a call from another of the Americans, Sherman, that they where all going to go out to a bar in Angel to drink Guinness because if you drank 5 you got a free hat (it’s big, green-black-and-white and says Guinness – St. Pat’s 2002,) whats not to love about a free hat? I’ll tell you, 5 pints of Guinness! That shit taste like used motor oil! Not to mention it has almost 1000 Calories a pint! Lets just say that we where all quite drink by the time we all hat the hats! And for some reason we decided it would be a smart thing to eat spicy Thai food afterwords! Oh… my stomach!

In the morning I got up at a quarter past 5 to take a shower and meet A█████ down in his room. I had to remind him to bring his passport—which lead to much comidic irony later, but I am ahead of myself. We walked, in the pooring rain down to Barbican station. It was closed. The tube does not open till 7 on Sunday’s. That was not a good thing, as we thought we needed to be at Herthrow by 7ish since our fligh left at 9… So we took at cab—cost: 50 pounds! (25 each!), not a good beginning to this story…

We got to the airport, it stoped raining, and checked in, they told us we did not need to be there till 8, meaning we could have taken the tube and saved ourselve a collective 50 pounds! So we sat in a cafe in the terminal and drank OJ to help recover from the Guinness binge of the night before.

At 10 am we landed at Dublin Airport, and we got off the plane and line up for immigration. But I could not find my Passport! So I ran back to the plane and found it on the seat! (ok thats a little bit of comidic irony but just wait.) Then took the city bus to the city center. It was raining. The next 9 hours is like a modernist novel—short extracts of situations that don’t quite fit together to form a coherent story…

…pub-beer-statue of James Joyce-bar-Bailey’s-rain-parade-pub-beer-jumping fence to take pictures of statue-parade-pub-Bailey’s-beer-driving wind and rain-gift shop-pizza-beer-“should we buy Sherman that sheep?”-rain-beer-Bailey’s-bought Sherman that sheep-beer-pizza-Malaysian Grande Prix on tv at bar-Bailey’s-“why did we buy Sherman a sheep?”-beer-rain-choaking statue of James Joyce-Bailey’s-“Because he will like the feeling of soft sheep wool against his skin at night.”-beer-buy post card of Joyce and burn him in effigy-beer-bus-airport…

After all this we checked in at the airport and went to get a beer at the lounge—at this point we are completly drained, but hte buzz is waring off after a 40 minute bus ride and we have another hour till the plane takes off. So while we are sitting drinking our last Irish beer I start looking for my passport—lo and behold I could not find it! So I’m sitting there going through all my pockets and my camera bag trying not yot A█████ know I cannot find it again and thinking to myself—I just had it in my hands when we checked in and when we ordered the beer. So A█████ says to me “Don’t leave you damn passport on the plane this time dumb ass, you loose that thing and your screwed—especially at Heathrow, they’ll do a full body cavity searh on your ass.” So I, hand in my camera bag feeling for my passport, says to him “I won’t loose it, just as soon as I find it.” “What? Tell me your joking.” “No, I just had it but it’s not in my pocket. Where the hell…?” So I look over to the bar and there it is… (p.s. for those among you too slow to pick up on it, that was the comedic irony alluded to above!)

Anyway, we managed to get back to London sans full-body-cavity-searches, and guess what. It was rainning! Anyway, we stumbled back to dorms and all was well… We even gave Sherman his sheep—now named Molly, the failed first copy of Dolly, the organs did not clone so well. (Note: Molly is a fake sheep skin rug about 3 feet long with an oversized stuffed animal head.) The only thing Sherman could say was; “What made you think of me when you saw this?” Answer: Beer & Bailey’s!

Last note, on the subject of Irish Beer: Guinness is nasty, see above, but A█████ and I ordered one in Dublin to test the old tale that it is better in Ireland… it’s not true. And half way through the pint A█████ looks down at his and says, “I really don’t want to finish this.” “Neither do I.” I said back, “Want to leave it?” “Yea.” So we turned and walked out of the pub while the bartender just looked at us.