Our plan was….well we didn’t have a plan…we had roundtrip tickets to Dublin and packs on our back… My friend and I were probably the worst backpackers ever. And with each day that my pack became more of a burden I started to leave clothes all over Europe to lighten my load (at the time I thought I was quite clever) but before this started, we had our first few days in Liffey Valley.
We landed in Dublin after nearly missing our flight because my friend and I had decided to spend our layover in Phili at the bar…I’m not a terrible flyer but I’m much more fun when I’m flying drunk. We had booked a legit hotel for our first 2 nights and otherwise we had no tickets, no reservations nothing for the rest of the month. We stayed in Liffey Valley which for those of you from Boston it would be like staying at a nicer version of the Holiday Inn on Rt. 1 in Dedham. So when we told Dubliners where we were staying they literally thought we were staying in the Liffey Valley Mall because they could not comprehend that there was a hotel there and why would have stayed in the suburbs…well how the hell were we supposed to know?!
We had to cross a highway to find a bus stop in the rain, because it always rained at night in Ireland. From there I believe we treated the bus driver like our own personal chauffeur and asked him to take us to Dublin. I’m sure he was not amused and somehow between the buses and a cab we found our way to a bar.
We are not there 10 minutes when I was approached by an Italian man who felt compelled to tell me, “you have beautiful full lips”
The words full and lips make most women gag and the manner in which he did it…pressed up against my ear…made me yearn for drunken Red Sox fans and Bud Light.
So my friend and I decide to go elsewhere and we found a bar which would we would end up frequenting because it had singing and fun people. It was just like home, sort of, except everyone had accents. It was there met our first Irish friends.
When I had decided I would start writing about some of my European adventures my friend and I discussed at great length what I should call these men because I honestly don’t remember their names. I think we will go with the Odd Couple. Obviously we are ravishing ladies but I will say we might have looked a little worse for wear after a long overseas flight and my inability to stop ordering Mad Cow tainted beef at practically every opportunity.
It was like a tick. Even at times when I wouldn’t have ordered beef normally it was like I had word vomit and would just ask for meat. No side effects, so far.
Regardless of how we appeared the Odd Couple thought we were quite delicious and approached us to tell us of this fact. They introduced themselves, one thin, one slightly bigger. I would say the thinner one was 30s and the bigger one was late 20’s. After introductions they told us, “We are gay but if we weren’t we’d like to bring you home to our mothers.”
They also said I looked like Catherine Zeta Jones and my friend looked like Beyonce. Beyonce, my friend (not the recording artist) is white, about 4 inches shorter, and is not married to Jay Z unlike the former Destiny’s Child chanteuse. Also, I am about 15 years younger than Ms. Jones but that is neither here nor there.
We continued to talk with them for close to an hour when the Odd Couple say:
“Surprise we aren’t actually gay, we just said that because we thought you would be more likely to talk with us.”
Sigh…this might be slightly true but they literally said “SURPRISE!”
It had been well over an hour at this point and I thought that this seemed like quite a long time to maintain this inside joke. I’m not sure what kind of surprise they thought this would be really but I was jet-lagged, sleepy, and moderately drunk at this point…Thin Odd Couple man asked if I would kiss him before we left.
So I did.
In my defense, my mother always said I was friendly and I like to extend an American hand in friendship to strengthen diplomatic ties whenever possible. It wasn’t very good. The lady bouncer (literally every bouncer in Ireland I saw was a woman) then said, “I don’t care where you go but you can’t stay here.” So we had to move on.
We promised to meet them back there at 7 the next day…we did not…we laid low and were seriously rough until close to 9pm when we then boarded the night, rain bus for another excursion…first stopping off to get another meal of tainted beef
On that night we met Kevvy - another story.
Im going to be camping this weekend but except a new post Monday, as I'm sure I'll have something new to put out there based on my communing with the animals.
Im going to be camping this weekend but except a new post Monday, as I'm sure I'll have something new to put out there based on my communing with the animals.
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