Land of Lepricons

Went to Dublin with my American friend Alejandra (from New Orleans) last weekend. We had yet another national holiday (what’s up with the French and their endless holidays… these people never work) so we decided to spend 2 days in Dublin to see how the other side lives—basically we just wanted to spend a girls weekend partying. Which we most certainly did… and never have I been as conscious of my age as I am now.

We arrived on Friday morning and I quickly realized that despite being a tiny city, in addition to having a pub every two steps (a local radio station actually had a contest to see if anyone could walk from Point A to Point B without passing a pub... no one could do it), Dublin has the very thing that make London such a great town—amazing shopping! They had The Office and Oasis, Boots and the crème de la crème: TOPSHOP… they even had a Wagamama, which is, hands down, the most delicious Asian fast food I have ever had in my life. I was in heaven.

So after lunch and an afternoon pint (the pubs were packed even at 2pm, gotta love the Irish!), Ali went to take a nap while I set out to hit the stores (who needs sleep when you can shop?). Its times like these when I really miss my girl Paula (we once had a 4-day, sun-up to sun-down shopping fest in London. By the end of it our bodies ached, our feet were literally swollen. We had to sit on our suitcases to close them and feared getting stopped by customs due to the sheer amount of things we bought. But we came back to the States with piles of delicious clothes/shoes) but I went at it alone, and even though I’m hopelessly poor these days, I walked away with a few cute summer dresses.

We were staying in a hostel and our 3^rd roomie was a Californian named Kristy who had been studying abroad in Florence for the last year. She was super sweet and traveling alone so we invited her to join us for “an easy night out”. We had dinner and then decided to stop by a pub on Temple Bar, the party street which was a block away from where we were staying. After the first pint, we decided to go to a second bar. Then walking out the door, we bumped into an Irish girl who told us we HAD to check out another bar (off Graffton St which is where the locals hangout)… we arrived at the 3^rd bar and spent the next 3 hours dancing with a group of Brits in town for a bachelor party—the DJ spinning everything from Britney Spears and 50 Cent to “Grease Lightning” and “New York, New York”. Funny what music sounds so “fantastic” when you’re drunk :o) At closing, the doorman gave us free tickets for the club across the street which was inside an old theater so we stayed there till closing an hour later. And as per usual, we needed junk food to end the night properly so we decided to stop at Burger King (I know, but you really get to miss American junk food living overseas), where Ali met an Irish guy who escorted us home around 5am.

The next day, we woke up at noon, hurting from the night before. We had planned to see the Guinness Factory regardless of our physical state, so we walked over, waited in line for over an hour to get in and have our tour, complete with a free pint of Guinness (meanwhile, at that point just the sight of beer made us nauseous). We got back around 5pm and fell into bed until it was time for our dinner reservation at Elephant & Castle, apparently one of Colin Ferrell’s favorites. After dinner we wanted to do something chill but since it was Saturday night (or simply b/c its Dublin?), everything was a huge, loud, packed party. So we went to bed at 11pm Saturday night like a couple of losers… granted our flight left at 7am the next morning but its odd to think that just a few years ago I could party till 5am six nights a week and feel fine, while now, one night will do me in… oh well. Dublin was a blast, very cool city with really nice people, but probably made more for the younger set. But after living in a crappy shopping city like Paris for so long (yes, it sucks unless you can afford Chanel and YSL), at least I had a chance to shop!