I welcome you OHA members to the land of leprechauns, beer and a hell of a lot of green moss!
Lets begin with the flight of the ever trusty and reliable RyanAir......so safe that when the plane lands you can hear the horse race bugle fanfare congratulating the pilot on finding ground level and landing everyone safely!?! The bright blue and yellow interior resembles something made out of Lego world and the flight attendants look like they've attacked themselves with a makeup counter and a can of bulk hairspray.
We clear security and leave the airport excited about seeing the mysterious country that is Ireland! The public transport seems quite satisfactory, no complaints there.. but when we check into our hostel, that's where the fun begins.
The hallway looked like were on a ship because every door had a porthole in it the size of a dinner plate and the room we were given had just about the same amount of space as a ship cabin. The shower was on time trials only giving us a limited amount of time with running water so you had to keep shoving the tap back in every 30 seconds and to make the morning times more fun, the hand basin was located at the end of the shower with the toilet seat only inches away.. cosy!
We had a tiny little spiral staircase to take you to the bunks upstairs that was built by Frodo Baggins and his mates, being a perfect size for hobbits, but a little tricky for us travellers who resemble a bit more of Gandalf's height. It was agreed that we didn't want to stay in this rabbit hole for long, so we set out in search of our first pint of Guinness. I was glad to have tasted the traditional Irish beer, but upon completing it, it was more like a roast dinner in a glass with creamy froth on top and one pint was more than enough for me.
One thing i will warn you of if you do travel to Ireland, is the addictive way you start talking like the locals. After four days of being there, we were getting any excuse to talk with a twist at the end of our words like ..
"pohtayyyyyyytoooohh" - potato
"toouu be shhhhuarrrreerrrr" - to be sure
"its nieeeeeyyyyce" - it's nice
and may i also include that this is all pronounced at the highest decibel level in your voice box, just so you can be heard over the loud Irish. Candy didn't do too much damage in Ireland although i will include a little story of her brief time in a town called Cork.
After checking into another hostel that provided oodles of room (almost as much as a pet kennel), all four of us went downstairs to grab a drink and listen to some good tunes on the jukebox. I decided i hadn't been very patriotic listening to American and British pop on my ipod for most the trip, so i wanted to request a strong Irish sound to infuse the fun into this bar and create some fun times for our last night in Ireland.
Instead what i did was create tumbleweeds to blow by as i placed 1 euro in the jukebox and selected song D2 (which was the one and only theme from Michael Flately's Riverdance). Whilst the previous selection of a chilled Bob Marley song was playing, it briefly gave me some time as I walked over to the bar afterwards to get a drink.
We clear security and leave the airport excited about seeing the mysterious country that is Ireland! The public transport seems quite satisfactory, no complaints there.. but when we check into our hostel, that's where the fun begins.
The hallway looked like were on a ship because every door had a porthole in it the size of a dinner plate and the room we were given had just about the same amount of space as a ship cabin. The shower was on time trials only giving us a limited amount of time with running water so you had to keep shoving the tap back in every 30 seconds and to make the morning times more fun, the hand basin was located at the end of the shower with the toilet seat only inches away.. cosy!
We had a tiny little spiral staircase to take you to the bunks upstairs that was built by Frodo Baggins and his mates, being a perfect size for hobbits, but a little tricky for us travellers who resemble a bit more of Gandalf's height. It was agreed that we didn't want to stay in this rabbit hole for long, so we set out in search of our first pint of Guinness. I was glad to have tasted the traditional Irish beer, but upon completing it, it was more like a roast dinner in a glass with creamy froth on top and one pint was more than enough for me.
One thing i will warn you of if you do travel to Ireland, is the addictive way you start talking like the locals. After four days of being there, we were getting any excuse to talk with a twist at the end of our words like ..
"pohtayyyyyyytoooohh" - potato
"toouu be shhhhuarrrreerrrr" - to be sure
"its nieeeeeyyyyce" - it's nice
and may i also include that this is all pronounced at the highest decibel level in your voice box, just so you can be heard over the loud Irish. Candy didn't do too much damage in Ireland although i will include a little story of her brief time in a town called Cork.
After checking into another hostel that provided oodles of room (almost as much as a pet kennel), all four of us went downstairs to grab a drink and listen to some good tunes on the jukebox. I decided i hadn't been very patriotic listening to American and British pop on my ipod for most the trip, so i wanted to request a strong Irish sound to infuse the fun into this bar and create some fun times for our last night in Ireland.
Instead what i did was create tumbleweeds to blow by as i placed 1 euro in the jukebox and selected song D2 (which was the one and only theme from Michael Flately's Riverdance). Whilst the previous selection of a chilled Bob Marley song was playing, it briefly gave me some time as I walked over to the bar afterwards to get a drink.
As I was waiting for that beverage to arrive, I slowly heard Bob Marley fading away which meant my request was next, but as I turned around to look at the jukebox, I saw that one of my other mates was standing there to make some of his own requests too. The Riverdance song I had selected started slowly with a haunting choirgirl voice and everyone in the bar had facials like they were getting held at gun point to listen to this music. All conversations had come to a halt and now everyone was looking directly over at my mate blaming him for such a tragic song request that the whole pub would now have to endure. As his back was turned, he wasn’t aware of everyone glaring at him and I started to laugh so hard my legs were crossed to prevent any spillages.
May I also remind you that when making a ‘paid’ request on the music machine, it automatically plays it at a louder level so the pub was now blaring with the deep and rich sounds of the tin whistle and bumbling goat skin drums with the added clutter of a 50 person dance troop doing the Irish jig in tap shoes.
The bar chick promptly comes over and in a thick Irish accent says “you had to start the feckin Riverdance didn’t yeh?” and it was at that point I felt that my work in Ireland had been done and that I felt sad but satisfied to be leaving the next morning.
Xxxxx Candy
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