May 19, 2007 at 8:00 AM was the thirstiest moment of my whole life, yet my body had and will never want to expel liquid any worse. This is my one and only memory from that day until 2 o'clock. The posse decided it would be best to nurse our throbbing melons with some fresh salty cliff air, so we took a short train to the island of Howth to relax. We walked around looking at all the pretty things, like weird new plants we'd never seen before and humongous cliffs that dropped hundreds of feet to the ocean. It was great. I think we all felt we were seeing Ireland for the first time even though we'd been there for over 36 hours. I wrote a poem about it. It was pretty gay.
Today we saw the coast
It was the freshest air I've ever breathed
So green, so pure
I hope my beginnings began there
Fish & chips are fish & chips
Guinness is still Guinness
put them together in an Irish pub
and you'll feel Irish as fuck
The hangman had the upper hand
but dawn became the day
we saw a book so old and fine
my pubes turned halfway gray
The Book of Kells was a tedious task
and I bow to the monks who wrote it
but 9 Euro is far too much for a page of Christian bullshit
On to Prague we four go to understand not one word
but beer be the worlds mutual language and our voices will be heard
Oh yeah, we also went to Trinity College before heading to the country to see the Book of Kells. That thing some serious patience and skill, too bad the Bible is poppycock. Sorry monks, better luck next life.
We had some fish and chips and a few Guinni(?) at a cool little pub in Howth and headed back to stinky Dublin. Needless to say we were all pretty tuckered out, but we pressed onward, headed to bar town and tried to recreate our magical first night. Nope. We might have drank 3 beers and called it a night.
The next day we had about 5 or 6 hours to see stuff before we hopped a plane to Prague. The day started ominously when Nathan had a frighteningly awkward exchange with a French dude at our hostel. Nathan had just woken up and was trying to put on his pants when this guy gruffly mumbles at him. Not knowing what he said, Nathan ignores him. The guy then stares Nasty down and blurts out "I said , Good morning!", to which Nathan reciprocated with a squeak. It was much more intense than it sounds, trust me. It was also a sign of things to come.
After the three amigos had breakfast and I got dressed we visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, which had Johnathan Swift's death mask in a glass case. I'd never seen or heard of a death mask, so I was pretty creeped out when I read it was a plaster cast of a person's face immediately following death. I could not stop looking at it.
All that stuffy church air made us thirsty so we made like the Irish on a Sunday morning and went to the pub. Robbie and I broke from our steady diet of Guinness and Balmers cider and each got a Kilkenny Red, sat down and tried to make sense of the Cricket match on the tele. Flabbergasted, we asked a young Indian looking Brit what in the blue hell was going on. He gave it his best shot, but after five minutes of explaining rules he gave up in favor of critiquing our appearance. Apparently tattered jeans, t-shirts and patchwork facial hair is not a good look over there. Guess the whole slacker mentality never came to roost in Europe.
We then packed up at the hostel and got a cab to the airport. When we told the cab driver we were going to Prague he began to weave horrible tales about beautiful Czech women who seduce young travelers and hand them over to robust, furry men who demand large sums of money. All very disconcerting. Nevertheless, we were exited to be going somewhere completly removed from our own culture. That excitement was quickly replaced with fear and helplessness.
Our Goodbye was an angry good morning
and an intense stare to boot
we stumbled around St. Patrick's house
feeling a bit like four mutes
One mere glance at Swift's death mask
and my blood ran cold as ice
That solemn, grave and silent face
would turn strong men to mice
One last pint of farewell brew
and we need to shave our faces
Our whiskers are shameful, our goatees disasters
which bring our families disgraces.
In Prague await beautiful sirens
who want not love but Euros
When they bat their eyes and wiggle their asses
we must reply, "Fuck you, Ho's."
But of this planet's people, the Czechs drink the most
so we tip our cups and raise our glasses to utter a hearty "Prost!".
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