And now, the anti-climax of Cork
Saturday, October 7. 2006
Last night in Cork. Mid-afternoon tomorrow and we were leaving; who knows when we would be back. In america, we say such is an occasion to "do it real big" or "go buck wil'."
We started the evening in a bar that seemed to be a hole in the wall. It opened up to be HUGE in back... who would have known. In the 30 minutes that it took me to drink my Guinness Tucan Brew (and for those who haven't tried it... suckers), it went from busy to shoulder-to-shoulder madness. For the record, everybody in Ireland drinks. And they always seem to pick exactly the bar that I am in.
A beer or two later, we bolt, looking for the late-night bar. We find "An brog" which probably means something in Irish, but to us meant, "good time." We managed to find a whole in the mass of people relatively close to the bar, so we set up camp and started the drinks coming.
Now I want to take a second to talk about bar movement. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. It should be an olympic sport. People in the US seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that I need to get to the bathroom and those GOING to the bathroom have the right-of-way. That is unless you're alone, and there is a line coming the other way. Also, I yield to women. In Ireland, everybody knows. It took me no more than half a minute to go past 2 bars, maybe 100 feet to the bathrooms. In the US, I would have needed to remember my sleeping bag for that trip.
A few (exact numbers aren't important) pints later, we all decide to "go dancing." By we, I really mean Joey and Brooke. But matt and amanda seemed to be into it, Mikey was down... and I'm thinking, "whatever. I'll loose them so none of them see how bad I am and then go crazy." We walk out of the bar and got an irish welcome: rain. At that point, though (after charles fort and ehem a couple of pints [notice the number getting lower?]), nobody cared. What we DID care about, even after a 10 minute walk, was that there was a 10 euro (or so) cover. That got a resounding, "F*** that!" As you can imagine, the bouncers were not amused. We tried another bar close to the dance club and got turned away b/c somebody had trainers on (tennis shoes), and got turned away from another that was 20+ only (hehe... I could have gotten in).
Did I mention we had all pre-gamed heavily?
And now, the 2nd most amazing part of the evening was upon us. We managed to find our way back to An brog -- a 10 minute walk through an unfamiliar city in the driving rain. We are amazing.
We get in and our encampment is vacant. In fact, there are seats this time. A few pints later and everyone is standing, though -- not sure how that one happened. Who gives up bar seats?
Matt suddenly asked me if I had a screw driver... i said no, but I did have change. He proceeded to demonstrate that a coin would not unscrew a screw holding a jack daniel's poster into the wall. I accused him of being a moron, and kinda motioned that he should just pry it off from the back. At this point, we both notice the bar tender talking to us. We were in the process of getting kicked out of an Irish bar. Merit badge: obtained.
He showed us to the bouncer, who blew him off like a hot girl at a star trek convention blows off every guy there. I'm not sure that he even saw us. Matt and I weren't about to try to get back in, though. We wanted McNuggets (i swear, it was a simultanious moment of genius).
There is nothing quite like sitting down with a 4-pack of nuggets and sweet-n-sour sauce having to text your friends that you just got kicked out of the bar. Apparently, amanda had joey down her Bulmers and they bolted from the bar to join us at McDonalds pretty quickly. Best meal ever.
Surprisingly, I woke up feeling fine at 8 the next morning. At some point, I called amanda, whose wake-up conversations are PRICELESS. If it weren't mean, I'd call her every morning just for a laugh. Brooke & Joey had gone to church (a muslim and greek orth. in a catholic church -- funny stuff) so the rest of us toured the city. I got some decent tourist-pictures. One or two made it into my "good" album. It was a nice day, though. Nice people.
We started the evening in a bar that seemed to be a hole in the wall. It opened up to be HUGE in back... who would have known. In the 30 minutes that it took me to drink my Guinness Tucan Brew (and for those who haven't tried it... suckers), it went from busy to shoulder-to-shoulder madness. For the record, everybody in Ireland drinks. And they always seem to pick exactly the bar that I am in.
A beer or two later, we bolt, looking for the late-night bar. We find "An brog" which probably means something in Irish, but to us meant, "good time." We managed to find a whole in the mass of people relatively close to the bar, so we set up camp and started the drinks coming.
Now I want to take a second to talk about bar movement. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. It should be an olympic sport. People in the US seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that I need to get to the bathroom and those GOING to the bathroom have the right-of-way. That is unless you're alone, and there is a line coming the other way. Also, I yield to women. In Ireland, everybody knows. It took me no more than half a minute to go past 2 bars, maybe 100 feet to the bathrooms. In the US, I would have needed to remember my sleeping bag for that trip.
A few (exact numbers aren't important) pints later, we all decide to "go dancing." By we, I really mean Joey and Brooke. But matt and amanda seemed to be into it, Mikey was down... and I'm thinking, "whatever. I'll loose them so none of them see how bad I am and then go crazy." We walk out of the bar and got an irish welcome: rain. At that point, though (after charles fort and ehem a couple of pints [notice the number getting lower?]), nobody cared. What we DID care about, even after a 10 minute walk, was that there was a 10 euro (or so) cover. That got a resounding, "F*** that!" As you can imagine, the bouncers were not amused. We tried another bar close to the dance club and got turned away b/c somebody had trainers on (tennis shoes), and got turned away from another that was 20+ only (hehe... I could have gotten in).
Did I mention we had all pre-gamed heavily?
And now, the 2nd most amazing part of the evening was upon us. We managed to find our way back to An brog -- a 10 minute walk through an unfamiliar city in the driving rain. We are amazing.
We get in and our encampment is vacant. In fact, there are seats this time. A few pints later and everyone is standing, though -- not sure how that one happened. Who gives up bar seats?
Matt suddenly asked me if I had a screw driver... i said no, but I did have change. He proceeded to demonstrate that a coin would not unscrew a screw holding a jack daniel's poster into the wall. I accused him of being a moron, and kinda motioned that he should just pry it off from the back. At this point, we both notice the bar tender talking to us. We were in the process of getting kicked out of an Irish bar. Merit badge: obtained.
He showed us to the bouncer, who blew him off like a hot girl at a star trek convention blows off every guy there. I'm not sure that he even saw us. Matt and I weren't about to try to get back in, though. We wanted McNuggets (i swear, it was a simultanious moment of genius).
There is nothing quite like sitting down with a 4-pack of nuggets and sweet-n-sour sauce having to text your friends that you just got kicked out of the bar. Apparently, amanda had joey down her Bulmers and they bolted from the bar to join us at McDonalds pretty quickly. Best meal ever.
Surprisingly, I woke up feeling fine at 8 the next morning. At some point, I called amanda, whose wake-up conversations are PRICELESS. If it weren't mean, I'd call her every morning just for a laugh. Brooke & Joey had gone to church (a muslim and greek orth. in a catholic church -- funny stuff) so the rest of us toured the city. I got some decent tourist-pictures. One or two made it into my "good" album. It was a nice day, though. Nice people.
