Dublin and Guinness - Day one

Again I have to start my blog with an apology for the lack of the blogging. I literally have been pressing the snooze button constantly for 2 months. Actually, I was working on my dissertation but now that the mofo is finished I can do some more blogs. It has nothing to do with Aniek (Happy now?) telling me to write a new blog or the fact she is known to get violent.

The other day I was drinking a Guinness and it made me think about Dublin and how amazingly different the Guinness tastes there. Anyone who's been will know what i'm talking about! So I thought in this blog I would write about Dublin and the trip I went on a couple of years ago for Sam's birthday with Luke, Pagey, Dan and Miles... and Sam obviously. We got £1 pound flights, with one of those cheap airlines, so that was our reason for going to Dublin. The kind of airline when the plane lands safely the pilot begins to play a trumpet...or maybe it's a CD (I don't know...but I would like to think it's the pilot playing) and everyone on the plane starts clapping and hugging because they are still alive - you know the sort.

But knowing us the adventure started before we even left the airport. Because it was a cheapo airline where you get free hand luggage and they are strict on the weight and size of the bag. If it's slightly too heavy or big they will charge you to check it in. I thought it would be a good idea to double up on clothes to avoid being screwed over. Sam is the organised one of our group and he had all the boarding passes for everyone and gave them all to us as we were about to go through security. In the line for the metal detector thingy, one of the guards called out "is there a John Griffith here?". I'm not going to lie I was a bit scared but then I remembered I was not a drug mule so I relaxed a bit but I was concerned to how this security guy knew my name. Has this guy got intel on my second pair of boxers? Who's grassed me up?! I owned up that I was infact me and he dangled a bit of paper in his hand - which turned out to be my boarding pass. "I think you'll be needing this, I'll put it here pick it up when you come through". This led to a few jokes from everyone about how typical it was of me. After going through the whole x-ray process and being looked at like a terrorist, we were ready for the departure lounge and more importantly duty free. The security shouted after me "John, You've forgotten it again." He definitely thought I was a bit special needs but who isn't these days.

We're still not even on the plane yet and we get to duty free. We heard that the prices in Dublin were crazy so we did the sensible thing and brought 4 bottles of veuve cliquoet champagne, of course! I still have no idea how this happened I was on the phone trying to get through to Tesco dublin to see how much vodka was...Which is extortionate by the way. 25 euros for a bottle of Glen's vodka! We landed at Dublin airport at 10pm, the pilot did his trumpet thing and the passengers thanked God. We get into a taxi and tell the driver that the hotel is in Balymon. He replied "I don't think there is a hotel in Balymon". Anyway we get to Balymon after a long drive and it turns out Balymon is pretty much like the Eastern Block with a brand new travel lodge smack bang in the middle of it. As we drove past various buildings the driver warned us not to go in them. One place he said "Don't go in d'ere. You's get your trout licked if you go in d'ere." noticing are confused looks to whether it was a good or bad thing to have your trout licked, he made a hand gesture and it turns out it means getting your throat slit...so brilliant. What a tranquil place.

By the time we checked in and got to our rooms we found out that all liquor shops close at 10 so for pre drinking all we had was the champagne from duty free. We ended up playing drinking games with it in mugs, probably the worst possible way to drink champagne. Luke warm champagne in mugs, in a travel lodge, in the eastern block...Real classy.

The cobbled streets of Dublin are amazing. We went to a few bars and ordered Guinness which was like 6 euro 50 which we worked out was 6 times as much as the flight! That's how they get you! Cheap flights but bloody expensive drinks! After the first one I think we all became addicts and Guinness became our crack. After queueing up for the same club twice without getting anywhere we found a student club, which had an underground dance floor with a thin spiral staircase leading to it. While we were on the dance floor there was some girls dancing near us and one of them started busting some crazy shock dance moves like i'd never seen before. I'm not sure about the others but I stopped to watch...it turns out these were not dance moves at all... she was having an epileptic fit! As she began to fall into us we caught her. We carried her off the dance floor where we had a comedy moment Pagey was knocking people out of the way to clear a path, as me and Luke missed the spiral staircase all together and there was a trail of people following behind and then we all had to back up awkwardly to reach the stairs. When we got to the top, the bouncers took over and stole our glory. ..Didn't even get a free drink...Rubbish! Turns out you're not meant to move them at all...whoops.

And to be honest I don't really remember what happened after this that night but this Dublin tale shall be continued! A lot happened in 72 hours. So in the first few hours of being there we found out what trout licking is, took part in the most expensive drinking game, queued for the same club twice, and saved an epileptic girl (I think).

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