Ireland: Day Four

This was the day that it rained. Yes, we are lucky bitches, we had one day of rain in our entire trip. The day's activities consisted of a trip around the Ring of Kerry. Nicholas and Phil weren't feeling well that day and stayed in the hotel. Nicholas' excuse? "Tell them Dr. Robotnik took all my golden rings." The Ring of Kerry was beautiful, but not overly exciting. The best part was our stop at a miniature recreation of a bog village (you could enter the huts and walk around) that featured some random dogs running around that Shannon told Emily not to pet, and a trip to the Red Fox Inn, known the world over for their amazing, amazing, amazing Irish coffee. Somewhere along the way we stopped for a group shot. Joe, Shannon and I were posed in front of the rest of the group on our knees, prompting one of us (Joe?) to say, "We're kneeling because we're the only ones who can."

We went back to the hotel, found the boys, and went on an adventure: a ride around Killarney in a jaunting cart. Our driver, Patrick, and his horse, Paddy, seemed to know Peter the tour guide, but their thinly veiled hatred revealed a longstanding feud that we weren't able to delve into too deeply. We don't remember what else we did that afternoon, I'm guessing it involved ice cream. We do recall watching a LOT of music videos, including Simply Red, a lad called Alexander who had a song called "Take Me Tonight," Atomic Kitten, and a strange lad who had won 2nd runner up on "German Idol" named Daniel K. His video was an odd parody of Austin Powers that also featured Kermit the Frog. Apparently there aren't too many limits on the VJ's dialogue on European tv; one of the DJ's talked of "electrical c***ksucker c**t knobheads." That evening Phil and Emily took a brief trip to the Crypt while everyone else stayed in, but nothing else of note occurred.

Pictured: Emily "pushing a ho" in the bog village

Ireland: Day Three

Day Three began at a farmhouse, where we enjoyed tea and scones. We did NOT enjoy the smell of manure that wafted through the region, forcing Nicholas to exclaim, "This poo is getting me high!" One of the family members that owned the farmhouse provided us with our first (but not last) Irish mullet sighting, prompting Emily to remark, "Top of the morning to you, mullet!" She did not say this to his face of course. After farmhouse shenanigans, we were off to Blarney Castle and the magical smooching of the Blarney Stone. Despite fears of mouth disease, we all kissed the stone, except for Phil and Nicholas. Nicholas was scared away by the meanest man in Ireland, who was in charge of holding people to kiss the stone. We also went to the Blarney Woolen Mills (which still sends us e-mails to this day), where we did some claddagh shopping and we saw (and took pictures of) more men in diagonal shirts, and a woman in rainbow shoes. We were then off to our hotel in Killarney. Peter, ever the fount of information, informed us that there was a club for young people in Killarney called "The Crypt." However, during our Killarney shopping, a girl informed Joe that the crypt was "SHOCKING" and full of divorced people. Sounds like Grapevine to me. We shopped around and tried (in vain) to find a liquor store. No dice: the locals responded with puzzled stares. Apparently the term "liquor store" is not self explanatory. We eventually discovered that liquor was sold at establishments called "off-licenses." We also had our first encounter with the amazing "Angelito." No, this was not a swarthy Italian traveler, but the best. ice cream. ever. We're all about superlatives. It's basically vanilla soft-serve with "ribbons" of flavored gel. We realize this sounds nasty, but trust us, it's tasty (and available at Naper Nuts and Sweets!). Emily was partial to the chocolate, while Shannon favored strawberry. We also had our first encounter with signs protesting the US military's occupancy of the Shannon Airport. As the signs proclaimed, "Get the US Military Out of Shannon," Shannon was forced to pose with one. We also encountered the first of many shady mannequins. They were much uglier than Kim Cattrall, and "nothing was gonna stop" Emily from taking artsy photographs. Our dinner at the hotel was quite nasty, (that may have been the evening Emily made the mistake of ordering lamb with mint sauce), so after yet another round of Angelito, we headed to the pubs. Note 1: we got Kindereggs in Killarney. Kindereggs, you ask? They're chocolate eggs with toys inside. Emily first encountered them on her senior year JCA trip to London. Good times. Note 2: Causing controversy in the ice cream world at this time were the "Seven Deadly Sins" ice cream bars, each named after a different sin. Apparently lust tastes like strawberry and chocolate. Earlier in the day we had spotted signs for an "Irish Idol" competition to be held at an American-themed bar called Mustang Sally's, and we had to check that out. The "American theme" consisted of statues of the Blues Brothers and patriotically colored bathroom doors. Note: the bathrooms were co-ed. Separate stall areas for genders, but the sinks, they were co-ed. Very Ally McBeal. The Irish idol competition was all that we imagined it would be, and more. There was a really hot guy who sang "Yellow" and "Get Here." Emily congratulated him on his prowess in the bathroom (well his prowess in singing, not his prowess in bathroom skills), but there was no love connection. Also competing was an incredibly talented Asian lad, who sang "Flying Without Wings." At the time of this trip, we were somewhat obsessed with Justin Timberlake's song "Rock Your Body," so we made up many versions of this song. The best by far was Joe's, "Don't be so quick to. . .say you're Asian, I'm gonna rock you in with. . .my persuasion." We also made up a calculus themed one that involved "derivation" and "calculation." We eventually did some strangely colored shots at the bar and felt sufficiently brave enough to check out "The Crypt." The Crypt was festooned with carpet that consisted of miniature versions of "The Scream." We had a lot of fun at the Crypt. . ."Tales From the Crypt" included Joe drunkenly demanding that the DJ play "Rock Your Body," which had not yet been released in the UK, and our repeated requests to hear "Murder On the Dancefloor," which were finally met. I believe we started the dance party at that place. At one point Shannon drunkenly ("drunkenly" is a key word in this post) abandoned her drink. She went to reclaim it, but was saved from the inevitable dose of Roofies by Emily's slightly more sober common sense. After some gymnastic adventures involving what looked to be a high bar placed in the middle of Killarney, we called it an evening. Note: there were also some adventures involving a fire hose that no one remembered until we saw the pictures.
Pictured: Nicholas enjoying a spot of tea.

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

Ireland: Day One

After a somewhat uneventful flight (except when Joe passed out and we didn't find out till later), we arrived in Ireland. We think (?) the food on that flight was good, but we don't remember for sure. All Shannon recalls were the many Bailey's and coffees we consumed. Shannon recalls a French mademoiselle at the airport who kept trying to ask Shannon how to use her cell phone. Shannon announced, "American! American!" and Crepes Suzette's face fell. At the airport we consumed our first European meal: a bag of Lord of the Rings "Fruits of the Shire" we split amongst the five of us. Note: Emily went all Gollum with the rings. Note 2: We don't know the guy in the picture, but he's wearing a ring on his schnozz and for that we applaud him. After Hobbit time, we got in a cab that we presumed was taking us to our hotel. Oh no, the body-odor stricken driver took us to a different hotel. We were suspicious when he said it had a pool, as we knew it couldn't be that high quality. So we got to the hotel, and met up with the rest of our group. I don't know what I was expecting out of this tour group, but the mostly geriatric motley crew we encountered was not it. Everyone there was over 40, most over 60, except for one girl in her 20's and a youth (with a misshapen face that no one mentioned until the last day, it was the proverbial "elephant in the room") who took to prowling in odd places. The dad of the said youth looked remarkably like Dr. Robotnik, so we named his son Knuckles. Also, three men in the group (count'em, three, including Robotnik) looked like Cliff Clavin. They were dubbed the "Cliffs of More." Pictures of them will ensue.

After meeting "Peter," our tour guide, an older gentlemen with various forms of dental malady, we made a stop at Dublin Castle. Pretty rooms, not much else to say except they really liked Bill Clinton there. We moved on to the Guinness Storehouse, "to learn about the origins of the famous brewery and how the popular black brew is created." That info comes to you courtesy of our tour brochure. Peter referred to Guinness as "liquid viagra," informing us that "there's a baby in every bottle." No word on where or how Peter was conceived. At the Guinness Storehouse, a strange trade went on: we got pebble with "the black brew" in them that we showed the bartenders in exchange for a free pint. Much better than a Girls Gone Wild "flash for a t-shirt" exchange. We hung out at the rooftop bar and encountered some other tourists taking pictures of us. I don't get it either. A befuddled Joe and Shannon managed to get lost on the stairs at the Storehouse, but managed to rejoin the group a bit later. Deciding to opt out of hotel food for our first night, we had the bus drop us off at a restaurant called Panama, where we enjoyed some paninis and encountered our first "sex & candy machine." This machine sold both condoms and sweet treats. After changing clothes at the hotel, we headed out to the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which features lots of bars and street performers (one who jumped, jumped, jumped in a burning ring of fire). Our first stop was an unknown bar where we encountered a lad from Blackpool who told Emily her shirt reminded him of candy. Due to his terribly thick accent, Shannon had to translate. The dude also told Shannon she looked like Alanis Morrissette, and thought Joe actually was Justin Timberlake, so he was kind of iffy. After stopping at another unknown bar for shots of whiskey, only to have Joe befriend a toothless patron, we ended up at a club called The Ballroom (take the movie tour, it's worth it). This hotspot was where we had our first encounter with the popular men's trend of 2003 in Ireland, the diagonally striped shirt. They were everywhere. The Ballroom was fabulous, we heard a lot of "In Da Club," which was a little disconcerting, but the music was overall high caliber. Among the patrons were a man who kept licking his fingers in order to groom his eyebrows. His cronie wore a mesh shirt. We also encountered some British girls who were highly amused by Phil's knowledge of Knight Rider. Finally, we encountered some very nice Irish lads. Emily's paramour, Ronan, informed Emily that she had a lovely "figger." Shannon's wee love, who stood a head shorter than her, was named Fergus. He kept trying to convince her to come back to his apartment and "talk all night," but Shannon resisted the mini-Irish Don Juan. Numbers were exchanged, and Emily called Ronan upon return to Dublin. However, Ronan's sister had just given birth so he was in his hometown (possibly Tipperary, we're not sure). Eventually hunger pangs lured us away from our Irish loves (though Shannon almost encountered a drunken paramour at the place where we got food) and Joe bought himself a panini. Maybe we should call it The Panini. The Panini was the most amazing food ever consumed. After one bite of the ham n' cheese concoction, we were hooked and went back to buy our own. After purchasing said paninis, it was time to get a cab. We hailed a cab, only to see that food wasn't allowed. We let the cab driver go, but he was quite angry, yelling, "This ain't a f**kin' restaurant!" Sketchy. . . we consumed our sandwiches and got a more gracious driver to take us home.

Pictured: Fruits of the Shire, a guy with a ring on his nose.

An Introduction. . .

As we promised 2 years ago (we're slow), we are finally bringing you Eurotrashed: Tales from the Emerald Isle, created by Shannon and Emily. You may know them from their respective blogs, ShanMac and Whiskey Tango. In April of 2003, Shannon and Emily, along with Joe, Phil, and Nicholas, took a trip to Ireland. It was awesome. The 10 day tour consisted mostly of geriatrics and our youthful selves. Also, a guy that looked like Dr. Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog. We had lots of adventures, including singing in bars, viewing the spectacular Irish Idol competition, eating mass quantities of ice cream (and trying to avoid prom chicken), being so hungry that Subway smelled good, meeting local lads and Spanish senoritas, getting kicked out of cabs for eating paninis, and being hit on by Old Scratch himself, the Devil. We bring to you tales and pictures, although some of Shannon's pictures were stolen by Beelzebub. Grab yourself a Guinness and enjoy. Note:For those confused, that's Emily with the short hair. It was sassy for a while.