Dancing with Leprechauns

Ron came to town for Paddy's Day. And he brought me stuff!! Which is, of course, more important that one of my oldest and dearest friends coming to visit. The last time Ron and I hung out together, he accompanied me on the long, long, dear-god-when-is-it-over ride to USC. Had I know then what a ride it would be when I arrived in LA, I might have stayed in Vegas and tried to fufill my long held childhood ambition of being a showgirl. But we drove on, I survived and now here we are, 4 years later, getting drunk together in Ireland. How anyone could have predicted that...

I picked him up from the airport in true Beth Fashion: I was 40 minutes late. I got stuck in traffic 3 times. Once on the train, twice in the taxi. He did not curse me and immediately board the next flight to Spain thankfully. After stashing everything at the house, opening my loot and doing a little chips and salsa happy dance, he took a shower and I showed him my little adopted hometown of DL. When we arrived back at the house he met the roommates and we did absolutely nothing other than blow up the airbed and listen as Nightmare Roommate talked incessantly. And when I say incessantly, I mean she literally kept up a steady stream of her oral autobiography. Including asking Ron if he liked the new hallway since she repainted it. (yeah, it only gets worse, so let's just move on from here, shall we?) Ron crashed that night after a bottle of very tasty Italian wine and the following morning I realized my critical mistake. If you're going to make it to a parade at 10am, don't feed alcohol to your jet lagged friend. It was a slow start, we missed the parade and it was ok. What it was, was cold. It had snowed the day before, as well as cleared up let the sun shine thru and then repeated the cycle about 6 times. Very odd weather indeed. We finally bundled up and took the train into town and walked to the Long Stone Pub, which faithful readers will remember is where we started the Paddy's Day Pub Crawl last year. It's a nice place, they serve food, who am I go break with tradition? Little did I know that when I bought Ron his first Guinness, it was his first Guinness EVER. I'm so proud of him for making it thru the first and immediately ordering another on faith alone. He didn't know it gets better. We ended up sharing a table with our new friends Roland and Margetta, who ended up spending the evening with us on our pub crawl. They were great fun I have to say. They danced, they drank, they let me take photos... I believe we made it to 5 pubs that night. Which means I only had 5 Guinness Mom. :-)

What I love about this holiday here is that everyone is in such a good mood. Temple Bar is crawling with tourists who came here especially for this, so it's easy to get talking to people from all over. Everyone is happy, everyone is taking photos, wearing stupid leprachaun crap. It's a great feeling and if you leave early enough in the evening, you miss the inevitable fights and pools of vomit. Which we did. Ron and I left about 2:30 and hit a kebab shop where he confessed that he'd never actually drunk for that long before. We'd been at it for around 12 hours, so really? the boy did GOOD...

The following morning we woke up, no hangovers, and decided to head to Glendalough. Excpet that we missed the one bus that goes out there for the day. sigh... So we stumbled around Dublin and took photographs. We went on board the Jeannie Johnston, whose history can be read here. Ron photographed and I spoke with a crew member who lived in Montana for 20 years. I'm ashamed to admit, when he told me, the first thing I said was "how the hell did you end up there?" and not in a flattering tone. He told me a typical Irish immigration story: there was no work to be had, so he went travelling, ended up with some guys from Montana for a few months, when they went home he tagged along, worked on the ranch and then just stayed. Until it was time to come home. Fair enough.

So really, we didn't do anything the next day. I gave him the walking tour of Dublin, he photographed stuff I couldn't see turning out nicely but did because he's amazing and we popped into several pubs. (You end up in pubs a lot in Dublin. Anyone else getting this as a theme?) I took him for his first carvery, a meal everyone needs to experience while in Ireland. All the pubs have a lunch service, where they roast several joints of meat (lamb, ham, beef are the standard 3, often you'll find pork as well) boil some veggies (carrots, peas - my personal favorite-, cabbage) and as many kinds of potatoes as they can think of (boiled, roasted, mashed, chips) and serve it on steam tables on the bar for about 10 bucks a head. Pick a meat, point at a veg, sigh as they load up 4 kinds of potatoes on your plate. Every day in just about every pub in Ireland. It's beautiful food usually. Far too much food, but quite nice nonetheless. There are really only 3 meals you absolutely must have when you come to Ireland: carvery, fish and chips, stew. We hit all three.

Out of the pub, more walking to help disloge lunch, Ron photographed some more and I tried to think where to take him. It was a beautiful day: some big puffy clouds wth the strong sun creeping out behind. It makes for great photographs. Especially if you're a photographer. As the day wore on, I was literally out of options when he announced that he really wasn't up for another pub. So I suggested a movie. (don't know what I was thinking) On the way to the theatre, we chanced by a pub playing loud music and I realized that I forgot all about taking him to see a traditional Irish band. And there's only one place to do that: in the pub. So we took the 3 flights of stairs to Oliver St. John Gogarty's and waited like dutiful tourists for the band to start. Which it did midway thru the first Guinness. They were good. The band, not the Guinness. Well, Guinness is always good but not usually worth mentioning. Moving right along... Ron got to hear is favorite song Whiskey in the Jar even though he couldn't understand any of the words. I got to listen to banjo. Then, fortune smiled on us. We were accosted by a beautiful French girl, her boyfriend and nephew. We started talking and they were lovely people! French Nephew moved her 6 months ago, so French Auntie and Swiss Banker (no really, he was a banker from Switzerland) came to visit for the weekend. After the band quit, we moved on to a few more pubs with them and ended up closing down a late night place before pouring ourselves in cabs home. They were mavelous fun, very interesting and I for one am thrilled we met them. Or rather, they met us. I will be seeing French Nephew again and FA + SB invited me to Geneva to their house. She'll teach me to snowboard, he'll teach me to ski. I'll teach them to sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate with Grand Marnier instead. :-)

The next morning, slightly hangover, it was time to hit Dublin Castle and the Guinness Storehouse. You can't come to Dublin without seeing the factory. It's an amazing tour actually and now that I've been on it 4 times, I can say, as an expert, it's worth blocking 3 or 4 hours of our day to see it. Besides being historically interesting, the building is amazing. We finished the tour in the Gravity bar, which offers a 360 degree view of Dublin. And no, it doesn't rotate. You used to be able to go to the bar and skip the exhibit, but recently they've changed it. I'm a little sad about that, but what are you gonna do? It really is a good tour, worth the 11 Euro. We had our free Guinness and then walked down to the river to see the Calatrava Bridge, known to non-architects as the James Joyce Bridge because it sits beside his house. It got cold. Really cold, so we jumped into the Brazen Head for dinner before meeting Former Flatmate Suzie for swing dance. More accurately, we listened to the swing band. There is no dancing at his particular venue, which I for one cannot fathom. How can you listen to that music and just sit? Sigh... so we chatted, FFS charmed Ron, no surprise there and all too soon the band quit. With little else to do that doesn't involve a pub,we wandered across the road for the finest fish and chips Dublin has to offer, hopped in a cab and when home.

The next day was souviner buying day and it dawned cold. Again. Really tired of it being cold. Last year was warm and I want the nice weather back. It's too difficult to sight see and hike when your face is frozen. Anyway, we hit Carroll's, home of fine Irish swag and spent the next hour or so making the crucial decision any traveller must make: red t-shirt or blue? candy for the office or not? do I really need this? It was exhausting, as most shopping tends to be when you don't get to keep the stuff. At least, that's how I see it. We decided to hit another carvery because you can't have too many of them. (Well you can, but he was only here for 5 days, hardly time to do any real damage) After what I deemed the best chips I've ever eaten, we walked back to the bus station, freed his luggage from the lockers (love that you can still find lockers here!) and I put him on the bus to the airport. I didn't cry when he left. I waited a whole 2 blocks and it was more of a watering of the eyes rather than a full blown 'someone get me a tissue!' affair. But still. I get homesick when people leave. So he left. And I went to console myself at Barney's. He'll be back next year though. Best Paddy's Day ever deserves a sequal.