First Night Out! - Blogabond

Dublin = amazing! Originally my plan for my first night here was to go to bed wicked early because I was so tired from my long day. Also, with the time difference I basically didn’t have a Wednesday night. But Megan wanted to go to City Centre for some dinner and drinks so I figured sleep could wait! I’ll sleep when I’m dead, right? Or my new motto: I’ll sleep when I’m back in Boston! Plus we found out it was our suitemate- Bobby’s- 21st birthday so of course we had to celebrate! (We have five bedrooms in our suite with two people in each and four of them are all girls and then we have one room with two guys.)

We took the bus down to City Centre and then wound up at a place for drinks and dinner.

The first Dublin bar we hit up on our first night in Dublin!

Bobby chose here because apparently the name had “a lot of vowels in it” according to him, which apparently made it a good place. (Oh yeah, I should probably mention that prior to heading downtown Bobby, Megan, and I had a couple beers so some of us were already a little tipsy.) Anywho, Bobby found out I’d never had a Guinness on tap (actually I’d never had a Guinness at all, or any other type of beer on tap). So he ordered a round of Guinness for everyone (there were 10 of us there!) We tried to explain that you’re not supposed to buy the drinks on your birthday but we figured if he wasn’t going to argue then neither were we! Also, there were more rounds we figured we could buy later! I had to laugh though because there’s a movie called 'Penelope' where James MacAvoy’s character is talking with Christina Ricci’s character and he asks her if she’s ever had a beer. And she replies, of course I have. He asks if she’s ever had a beer on tap and she says no. “Then you’ve never had a beer.” So I guess I have only now officially had a beer according to the James MacAvoy logic! But of course since I’m not 21 that was the first time I’d ever had an alcoholic beverage in. my. life! Honest. :-P

It was a pretty chill bar and we were able to take up a corner of it and all sit and talk. We wound up staying there to grab some dinner and I had a burger, which was delicious! Ooh, and yummy onion rings too! That combined with another drink made for a pretty amazing first Dublin dinner. After dinner we asked the waitress if she could split up the bill for us. Her reply? “It’s already been taken care of.” My reply? Um, what?! So naturally every head turns to Bobby with a questioning look. He claimed he didn’t take care of the bill, that would be crazy wouldn’t it? Another suitemate of mine, Jahna, asked the bartender and found out that yes, Bobby was the one who paid the bill. Okay, we are talking about TEN people who each had at least two drinks and everyone had dinner. So 5 euro a drink, 10 euro for dinner (and that’s on the low estimate) we’re still talking about 200 euro!? Crazy!

After dinner most people went home because I guess they were tired but Megan, Jahna, Bobby, and I went to another couple bars. The first was a great little place that had an acoustic guitarist who sang a song for Bobby’s birthday! Haha. We only had a drink or two there and then moved onto a different, pretty laid-back bar. By this point I knew I’d reached my limit so I didn’t drink anymore (see, don’t worry, I’m a smart gal!) Bobby had also reached his limit a couple shots of whisky ago, but he’s a guy so of course he wasn’t going to admit it and he ordered another beer. But by the time he had a couple sips I think he realized his limit was reached. Jahna and Megan had moved elsewhere in the bar so it was just Bobby and me as he sat with his head down holding the beer, looking like he was about to pass out! I stood with him for the next twenty minutes or so to make sure he was okay- I guess I was the ‘babysitter’ for the night! Haha, but no worries – still so much fun! Every once in a while Bobby’s drink would begin tipping forward in his hands so finally (after much coaxing) I convinced him to just give me the damn drink!

I motioned to Jahna and Megan that we should go because Bobby wasn’t doing too well and they said we’d leave after the next song – but of course that song lasted like ten minutes, I swear! So we finally got Bobby down the flight of stairs (of course we had to be on a second floor bar! Wth!) with Megan on one side and me on the other. So we get him downstairs and Jahna turns to him and says, “So are you ready to go to the next bar?” My thought process: Are you F’ing kidding me? He can barely stand up, I’d been with him for the last half hour, and I’m pretty sure he actually passed out/fell asleep at some point! I tried to talk some sense into him but like I said before, he’s a guy (!) so its not like he’s going to say no. But thank god on the way to finding another bar he admitted that we should probably go home. So then began the fun drama of finding the bus back to campus!

We weren’t quite sure which number bus we had to take so when one pulled up to the curb I ran to ask the driver which bus we should take. Well somehow (and I’m still not quite sure what happened), I completely (!) wiped out! Right in front of the bus! So embarrassing (but luckily I was in no state to actually be embarrassed). I now have this huge bruise on my right leg- but luckily that was the only harm done! Finally we just decided to take a cab home, which I tired to pay for but when I handed the cab driver my money Bobby took the money out of his hands, gave it back to me, and then paid for the cab! (Oh and did I mention, he paid for all our other drinks too!) Now here’s the real kicker- we paid 60 euro (!!!) for that twenty-minute cab ride. And why did we do that? Because we were drunk and didn’t know how much it should be and the cab driver was well aware of that. And what should we really have paid? According to the locals I’ve talked with, about 20 euro (F!). Kind of made me glad I didn’t pay for it! Haha.

written by

kmr788 on May 29, 2009 from Dublin, Ireland

from the travel blog: Dublin, Ireland

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