delightful dublin.

I am not sure if I described our living situation detailed enough yesterday, so let me take the time to explain it so you can fully understand everything as the rest of our wonderful trip unfolds. The hostel is a co-ed dorm style, with co-ed bathrooms and co-ed rooms. 1 dorm sleeps 6: 3 bunks beds to be exact. The Gorilla and I share one and Carolyn is on the bottom bunk of another. the other three beds are open for other guests. Last night we had our first round of french fun but they checked out today. Okay, so just remember this if I describe any more scenes from our dorm room. Now on with our day, we woke up early this morning originally to make sure we could eat the included breakfast but by the time we all showered and made it down there, we realized it was about to close and that the food wasn't all to great. Black as death coffee and dry desert toast wasn't going to work for us. We asked the cheerful man at the front desk for suggestions for breakfast and he kindly walked us across the street to his favorite place. Dublin is known for their breakfasts and places everywhere claim they have the best breakfasts in town. It was nice to order a real cup of coffee and scrambled eggs. We sat in the front window to people watch and indeed we did some people watchin. We spotted a group of men following behind one man wearing a large poster sign around his neck, a dress-up police helmet and a back pack and a purse. He must of seen us laughing at him through the window because he came inside the coffee shop to talk to us. Apparently he had been kidnapped by his friends for his bachelors party and his friends told him that he had to go around and collect enough money to pay them back for his flight and that he was on a time crunch. If he didn't collect a portion of the money by a certain time, they would make him drink. At 9:30 in the morning it seemed he had already missed the deadline a few times. He asked us for money and Carolyn and I gave him a couple of worthless U.S dollars and coins and he made us sign his poster necklace. I took a picture of him with Carolyn (see above) and he wanted us to send it to him. Xbuthol@hotmail.com. His name was Xavier but we prefer and reference him as X-butthole. What an unfortunate name. X-butthole continued on with his quest and we enjoyed the rest of our breakfast. We toured the streets of Dublin, stopped at a designer market and a food market, bought jewelry and taste tested olives and spicy salsa. We headed to Top Shop (shop top, bop shop, tip top..meh who knows?) Dublin's fabulous stores, similar to H&M and Zara. The Gorilla got her Europants groove on. We all bought scarves at the stands on the street and we walked around St. Stephen's Green. It was just beautiful! We made it back to the market for lunch and sat on the steps right outside to enjoy our home-made mexican quesadillas. We then obviously had to purchase a delightful sweet. (look above for visuals) and we headed to the river for sitting and sweets. We walked up and down almost every street, stopping here and there to look into shops, snap pictures of interesting statues. It was just the perfect day to tour. Around 4:30 we decided to buy a deck of cards and head to a pub for drinks and games. We ended up chatting up a storm until 7. Both the Gorilla and Carolyn were stopped by a body guard at the front door of pub, questioning their age. The Gorilla proudly roared 21 and carolyn had to bust out her ID. It was the first and only time her 19 year old ID would work at a bar. Who knew that the side kicked looked older than her Gorilla. We headed back to the hostel to freshen up, relax, watch some "Friends" and email our friends. We cam back to our room to find a fresh set of french roommates snoozing in their bunks. In the words of John Isenberg, they were "Freaky and Frenchy". By the time we made it back out again it was already 9:00. We had the grand idea of going out to dinner. Indeed eating dinner was a good idea but finding a restaurant that was reasonable and open, was almost impossible. Restaurant after restaurant. Window menu after window menu, we decided to settle for street falful and save our money for drinks. We brought our dinner down to the river and sat beneath the stars and lamp posts and watched the river drift calmly down the stream. After dinner we headed back to the city center for a night on the town . We had read about a few pubs in the hand books at the hostel but ended up going back to the pub we went to earlier. The entire city center was packed with people and it felt like it was marti gras on Bourbon Street. Older women in flapper dress and men in matching shirts filled the streets. Playboy bunnies, devils and slutty old construction workers filled the bars. At first we tried to get in and the bouncer said it was full but then when we went to ask him where else we should go to listen to music, he felt bad and let us in. The bars was hopin' with old men and women and a man with his guitar brought the bar alive with his fine oldies tunes. We looked around the bar and realized we were definitely the youngest people there. After we had spent all of our money on drinks we were hoping to find some kind and sweet Irish men to buy us a round of drinks but rather we met fat Mick and Andy from Essex England who were for sure older than my father. They were visiting Dublin for the weekend to play golf. It was all fun and games until Mick crossed the line and asked us if we were looking for an old and rich husband. Some words also popped out about a three-some he wanted to have with us. I literally told Mick with hand motions in all that he had crossed the line. We as a group (the Gorilla, Carolyn and I) decided that after 30 full solid minutes of talking with these old chumps and with not a single offer to buy us a drink, that it was time to head home. Our new roommates were out and about, so we undressed freely and hopped right into bed. Ciao Ciao.

writing translated in a post came on the 27th of April in the year 2008 in the town of Dublin in the country of Ireland.