I'm back from Ireland, with liquor and liquor paraphernalia in tow. My mother isn't as creative as some, but she did buy me a cute round flask with 4 shot glasses attached at the jameson distillery - she figured it would be a nice complement to the jd flask she got me for my 21st. I think it may have been a bribe, though. She and I went t0 the distillery alone, as our only mother/daughter activity. I was very disappointed in her at the end of the tour. They had us "tasters" (that means I got 5 shots of whiskey, one of scotch and one of bourbon – so the guide could teach us all about whiskey. I was the only taster who was able to finish all their liquor without outside intervention. I finished some of theirs for them.) sampling several whiskeys, then comparing them to a scotch and bourbon. When he asked us to guess what the bourbon was (before trying it), my mother called out along with everyone else, "Jack Daniels!" I hung my head and said correctly, "Jim Beam" - how could my mother forget that Jack is NOT made in Kentucky? I obviously picked up the alcoholism gene elsewhere. But the picture from the DART ride home much later that night, with me asleep on my mother's shoulder, is just priceless.
In Galway, for the first time that I can remember, I had a hard time making female friends. The Irish women were generally cold and unfriendly towards me. Luckily, this was more than made up for by the Irish men.
My cousin and I set a one bar, one drink rule. This way we could cover more of the city and not get caught up with whatever silly boys were flirting with us at the moment. A few observations of Galway… my cousin is about to be 40, has two kids and a mullet. But the people in Galway seemed to be very unassuming (and forgiving?), so plenty of guys still saw her for the loud, brash, HILARIOUS person she is. We...
made lots of friends, learned how to toast in several languages, upset a french boy, were stopped in the street by some boy who had to exclaim, "you are so BEAUTIFUL", liberated some pint glasses (only to have one break in my bag while I was flirting in a dark alley), traded scar stories with some dude, tried to steal a sewer cover and went around asking boys to clean my hand when it got me dirty, unintentionally pissed off some girlfriends, had to turn down two different Irish lesbians in the same night, got to walk around with a boy on each arm (literally), broke into a church (well, sort of), drank wine in a park while we watched the sunrise, made up fake (only slightly racially offensive) nicknames for the boys whose names we forgot, flirted with a bouncer who said "why can't I meet a girl like you when I'm not working and single" to which I exclaimed,"you're not single?!?!" He quickly cleaned up his faux pas, Ellen went into the bar to give us some "private time" and ended up comingback with the owner... who she called "a pervert and a liar." To which he replied, "thank you." The bouncer was really cute, and we had every intention of returning (especially since that's probably where we lost our disposable camera), but we ended up doing family time the next evening. The most impressive part, however, was that we made the 9am ferry to the Aran Isles the next day. Of course, we slept on the deck, leaning against an exhaust pipe (this is another great picture from the trip)… but we made it. So, that was the west. There were also sheep and friendly people. And a flat tire in the middle of nowhere with a super nice guy. And an island that looked like it grew rocks. And family drama that almost had us peeing our pants laughing all night. And horseback riding along Galway Bay (I can't even describe how I felt trotting along the coast and then cantering into a meadow full of wild flowers). And great weather and beautiful, beautiful countryside. But none of that is going to make you guys laugh. The boys, however? The boys were priceless.
As for the trouble I was intent on getting into... The one drink rule was so successful that I attempted to repeat this rule in Dublin. Since I was barhopping alone, extricating myself wasn't quite as easy– but some of the interactions were priceless. I was doubtful that Dublin would be as enjoyable or as happy to see me as Galway had been. This was premature. I created my own whiskey tour – this apparently misguided some men into thinking I would be easily suggestible soon. Even though I was brutally honest about what they were and were not "purchasing", I had so many drinks bought for me over the course of one night in Dublin that I was able to justify acquiring a bottle of Midleton 2004 to bring home for a special occasion (I'm sure it's not worth it, but I just have to see what all the hype is about.)
A fun exchange with a bartender from pretty early in the evening...
Russian Bartender: You don't need whiskey, you need a man.
Me: Can't I have both?
Russian Bartender: (looking skeptical) I don't know…
Me: Then I'll take the whiskey (guy next to me laughs and raises his glass.). I'm loyal like that.
I made friends with bartenders, danced, fell into a bandstand when a dude was too drunk to be spinning me, read my book of whisky (yeah, no"e" – crazy), found a sketchtacular late night club, hung out with this crazy group of old dude republicans who all wanted to fight with my "escort" to buy me a drink, talked baseball with tourists to catchup on what I was missing, never ONCE brought up education or grad school, and sat drinking a six pack of some Irish equivalent of bud while watching the sun rise behind Kilmainham Jail. It was about 10am when I finally had to call it a night. I think I could've made a realbender out of it, but don't believe what they tell you: Guinness is NOT a good substitute for food when you're drinking whiskey all night.
