Day 2: After Hours

I had kinda figured that'd be the day for me. But I woke up to this English guy talking to me. We chatted for a little bit, and said he and his friend were getting ready to head out, and asked if I wanted to go along.

Karl is from the UK, 26, and is part of an oil surveying team. He seemed to be very well traveled, and has spent quite a bit of time in the states, particular out west like Texas and Colorado.

Sammy is from Finland, 30, and makes silicon wafers. Sammy got some extra days off, and decided to take a really long weekend in Ireland.

We walked out to the Temple Bar. This place is wild. Best I can tell, there was a bar named "The Temple Bar", but eventually the name kinda took over the whole area, so there's about 2 city blocks full of bars and other tourist spots referred to as "Temple Bar". It was probably about a mile and a half walk from our hostel.

Of course we started out with a Guinness. The first place we walked in to was a bit too touristy for us. So we finished our round, and Sammy mentioned this Czech place down the way that was a bit off the beaten path.

Awesome suggestion, Sammy. It was much more low key. They had a live band playing older popular tunes like Layla on a piano, violin, and acoustic guitar. There we had two rounds of this Czech beer called "Radegast". It grew on me after a little bit.

By then we were feeling pretty loose, so we worked our way to the college side of town to a pub-turned-club named "Sip" (I think!). This place specialized in beers from various countries, and the menu was very descriptive. We tried out 3 different beers. Sammy picked out this one that had like 8% alcohol content, and you could feel the yeast sitting going down with the beer. Karl figured this stuff probably ended up fermenting in our stomachs. :)

Shame my thumb got in the way. The night was cool, tho. Karl and Sammy are both very intelligent, and we spent a good part of the night talking up the differences between America and Europe. Social structure, laws, etc. Karl of course was very familiar with America having spent quite a bit of time there.

What was most amazing to me about the night was how much Europeans seem to know about us. Sammy and Karl knew more about American politics than I'd guess most Americans do. Probably obvious they all want Obama to win the election.

The bars in Dublin all close a 2am, so we worked out way back to the hostel where I got to my bunk and crashed. Finally, the end of Day 2. It was a LONG one.