June 28 - Socializing the Irish Way!

Ireland is still going pretty good I think. 99% of the other program participants arrived today and we had a big lunch all together to try and get to know each other. I mean, I still kind of stuck with the people that I met yesterday, but I met the other people who will be living with us in our flat, and hung out with some pretty cool people.

After lunch we waited an hour for people to shower and change before going back out. We hit a pub called Fitzgeralds, right across the street (across the river) it was pretty nice. I had a glass of Guinness (I wish I'd ordered a half pint but I didn't know it was called that until after I got my glass). We spent a couple hours there, went back to the hostel to pick up some more people and then headed back out to see some more of the pubs of Dublin. Seeing a theme here?

The first place we went was the Brazen Head again because we "oldies" wanted to give the new people a glimpse of the oldest pub in Ireland and have a chance to get some food. After that the best way to describe our evening is as an old fashioned pub crawl. Walking around about 6 of us at this point, sampled 3 more places sometimes have a beer, sometimes only a shot, before we settled in a place called "The Legal Eagle". The best way I can think of describing this place is as a pothead's dream. It smelled of incense and had live music - which consisted of a smoke machine and a few people strumming guitars and singing into the mike. Imagine a few straggly people with long hair and you won't have a hard time picturing yourself here. It was here though, that myself and a girl named Bailey decided that it was time to go home. I mean, all of us had to get on a bus tomorrow at 8:30am and I knew that if I was going to get up in time for breakfast and to repack? I did not need to go out anymore. I wasn't drinking anymore necessarily, I just knew that if I kept following these people around I wouldn't be in bed until midnight or later. Especially since the sun doesn't go down until about 10:30pm.

All in all, I'm happy to report that Ireland is still a lot of fun. Nice people, cool buildings, and the accents are pretty rockin. So don't worry about me. I'm doing just fine.