Ireland: Day Two

As we left Dublin, we were informed about the location of Bono's house, crucial info for us as U2 fans. Also, Phil bought a "lad's magazine" from a nearby gas station that proved to be useful reading material on the bus ride. Once you got past the British skanks, it wasn't bad reading. After seeing some random historical sites (we're fabulous tourists, aren't we?), we moved on to Waterford, home of crystal (but sadly, not Cristal). On the tour, we encountered a very sassy glass blower who took advantage of the tour guide's unfortunate choice of wording: Glass Blower Garry was making a cup and putting the handle on it, and the tour guide informed us that "there's only one opportunity to get it on." Garry was particularly gleeful in echoing her sentiments.

After the factory, we headed back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. We decided to take the opportunity to check out Irish television. Among the highlights: a reality show set in a hair salon that had no plot or competition, just a camera showing the goings on on a daily basis. It was as exciting as it sounds.
We also enjoyed a program called Stars In Their Eyes: Kids that consisted of children dressing up as famous singers and performing their songs. One contender was a girl who, quite eerily, had been possessed with the voice of Karen Carpenter, and another girl sang a song that became one of our favorites of the trip, "Murder On the Dance Floor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. We had dinner at our hotel that evening, and ended up sitting at a table with Dr. Robotnik and Knuckles. Conversation was as strained as possible; a highlight was Knuckles abruptly inquiring if we were "religious," to which Joe replied under his breath, "Are you awkward?" Knuckles was oblivious. After dining (note: all the food we ate in hotels was either salmon or what Emily likes to call "prom chicken," aka chicken in a sometimes unidentifiable sauce), we headed out for a night on the town. Unfortunately, the night scene in Waterford was not too exciting, though we did encounter some stag & hen parties (aka bachelor & bachelorette parties). A popular, if stultifying, theme in hen parties was the wearing of bunny ears. Also, one bride to be was going for a shotgun theme by wearing faux pregnancy pads. Irish Whiskey Tango indeed. We had a drunken lad harass us briefly by repeatedly asking us to dance. Eventually Joe tried to dissuade him by offering to be his dance partner, but Drunken Donal was a cheeky lad and agreed. We headed back to the hotel fairly early for some Sex & the City reruns and The Best Show of All Time. The program was entitled "Boys and Girls," (note: Emily is elated to find out that it was hosted by Vernon Kay, the giant choppered host of "Hit Me Baby One More Time") and featured a competition called, "Babe or Minger." "Babe or Minger," much like "Hot or Not," consisted of audience members deciding whether they believed fellow audience members would vote them to be "babes" or "mingers," and it resulted in the co-host chirping, "You were 70 % babe, 30 % minger!" As we had no clue what a minger was, we were somewhat lost. We ended up asking various people at bars about mingers and quickly found out it was somewhat of a dirty word. Oh well.

Pictured: the randy employee at Waterford