...to go to Ireland, to call an ambulance at 4am

SHMLACK

The sound of a face smashing off a brick pavement is disgusting. It's not a hard sound, like the dropping a rock, it has more substance, more flesh. A unique sound indeed. It was this sound that made me turn around to see my new friend, Manny, face down on the Irish pavement at 3am, knocked out cold.

But that was 3am, let's start this Irish tale where it truly began, 11am at Isaacs Hostel, Dublin Ireland.

We pulled into the hostel after our early Ryanair flight and dropped our bags in the locker room. By "we" I mean Nate, Jenn, Cassie, Steph, Amanda and myself; 6 American's on their first Irish journey, 6 people who are completely clueless. We couldn't check in to our room until 1 so we began a very long journey around the city that included, but was not limited too, Temple Bar, Guinness Factory, a 200 year old prison and every other iconic Dublin tourist trap we could find. We walked, and we walked, and we walked walked walked all around the city and explored our home of 48 hours.

I experienced a city that was dirtier, more confusing, cheaper and in my opinion better than London. It just had the feeling that you didn't have to rock a collared shirt to take piss and the amount of Bentleys and Ferraris I saw was zero. This place was sweet, but the walk was only the beginning.

That night we joined a Hostel Pub Crawl which, for those who don't know what that is, is a guided journey around several pubs and restaurants where we would get free shots and discounted drinks. For 12 euros its a great deal! We started at 9pm at the Mercantile with a half-pint of Guinness and meandered our way around the city. I brought no money with me on the crawl so I wouldn't be tempted to buy any drinks so to keep my sober self busy I started meeting people. I jumped from table to table through the night looking for other college students with the tell-tale orange Pub Crawl wrist band and met people from all over the world. At midnight Nate and the girls were ready to head back to the hostel, but not I! They left and I remained with 4 guys who were staying at Isaacs Hostel too. Manny, Diy, Lile and Mason were my new companions as 12am rolled around.

After watching Manny throw down a pint in 3 seconds, and partaking in my first real Jeager Bomb, we left the bar with the few Pub Crawlers who remained and headed to Dandilion, Dublin's #1 club. It was sick. Three floors down opens into this massive club and bar where we would spend three hours dancing and drinking and having a merry Irish time.

In Europe, drinks are bought in rounds. For example, if there are five people in a group you buy five drinks, and then the next person buys five drinks, and so on and so forth. I was put in the round even though I explicitly said that I didn't have money for even one drink, much less a round, and all of a sudden I was 6 drinks deep and it was 2am. Awesome.

Also, in Europe, clubs have a much different atmosphere than in America. In America you go to a club, or a house, or a party and you look for someone to dance with; and by dance I mean grind. In Europe you go to a club, or whatever, and you actually dance! You jump around and dance with girls face to face and ahh its so much better! Needless to say I lit up the floor as usual, people love the worm in almost every setting!

At 3am the club music ended with Robbie Williams - Angels and everyone filed out to their next adventure. Being 3am I was dreading by 6am wake up and couldn't wait to get to bed, but alcohol had other ideas. That was when I heard it...

SHMLACK

...and I started running toward Manny who was face down in the street with blood dripping out of his mouth. We got him onto his back and Diy called 999 (911 in the US) to get an ambulance. By the time Diy got through to the operator Manny was able to sit up so he nixed the call and helped him lean up against a building to check him out. Then, this man came up to us and thought we were mugging him! For real! Once we reassured him that we were not in fact stealing Manny's money, but were trying to help him out, the guy left only to be replaced by two other blokes who thought the same thing! GEEZE! This time, the two guys decided to call 999 instead and an ambulance showed up with a paramedic who gave Manny a look-see and deemed him 'ok'. Manny went with Diy in a taxi back to the hostel while Mason, Lile and I walked.

4:30am and I crawled into bed with my head abuzz from the nights adventure, and drinks. I fell asleep for what felt like 10 seconds and was awoken by Nate's 5:50 alarm signaling the start of our next day. Tour day. We hopped on a bus and went all the way over to the other side of Ireland, specifically the Cliffs of Moher and the surrounding countryside. It was incredible! The bus navigated the coastline on the tiniest roads I've ever seen! Nate and I felt the Atlantic ocean and we all considered the journey one of the best parts of the trip. Ireland is gorgeous!

All good things to come to an end though and we hopped back on a plane the next morning and made it back to London in one piece. A whirlwind adventure for sure, and one not to be forgotten any time soon!

...to get mugged (not really)

Turning off of the path trodden upon by millions of tourist's feet can be an exciting experience, and Gumtree is leading the way.

   We needed a fridge, plain and simple. You can't drink cold beer, you just can't, and bars are way to expensive for anyone on a budget. SO! What do you do? Go to Gumtree, the pseudo Craigslist, and start hunting for a cheap fridge relatively close to you, and that was exactly what I did. Finally, a deal popped up, a real banger, 35pounds for what looked like a small mini-fridge, a mini-fridge perfect for our dorm! As I emailed the seller and made arrangements for the pickup, students paraded around the halls and through our room on their way to a night of pub crawling and club nuke-ing. Not I, not Nate, we were on a mission. 9pm rolled around and we finally had a destination, stop T on bus 18, 30min away. We walked out through the main doors like the other students but instead of dressing like classy Londoners we threw up our hoods and skulked below the cameras looking ghetto as possible, we were going fridge hunting.

   We crammed on bus 18 which was packed with people leaving the main part of the city, presumably toward their respective homes, or to jail. As we shuttered along we noticed the buildings growing smaller, the lights becoming dimmer, and the stops becoming fewer. Finally, stop T showed up and we hopped off the bus into the litter filled street in a part of London that no sane tour company would ever bring customers too. We were in the middle-east. No, not literally, but even though I can't read Arabic I know what it looks like and the majority of shops were covered in either Arabic names, or Arabic graffiti. The diesel bus leaves the stop as an army of police officers fly by at 60mph, sirens blaring; it was too late to turn around now.

   I pulled out my iPhone to look at the map, instantly assuming I would be jumped, and tried to find the correct road to take off the main drag. Upon finding it we ventured forth through the darkness towards something called Jubilee Centre, our meeting point. Apparently the Mayor of London spent very little money on this part of town, with its minimal lighting and trashed streets; can't say I blame him. We passed fully covered women sitting on their stoops, staring at us through the slits in their clothing, expressionless. Tv's blared from flat's windows in foreign languages and uncut lawns sprawled across the sidewalk we were walking on; this fridge better be worth it.

   Finally, we find our man. Neil, I think his name was, stands on the curb wearing a sleeveless collared shirt and a wicker bucket hat. I was amazed he was English, having not seen anyone white in 20 minutes, but I was no less worried about being mugged and beaten, especially being an American. Neil made a joke about Crystal Meth dealers, something about how he thought we would be one of those, and he unlocked his gate to his flat. After unlocking his gate he unlocked his door, and then unlocked his house, and then we saw it... the fridge. It was working, nice and cold as Neil promised. It was Bosch and "...Bosch appliances run forever!" Neil reassured. It must have been a 20 year old fridge, but as Neil counted the 35pounds under the yellow light of his porch our journey with the fridge was going to begin whether we wanted it to or not.

   Nate and I hefted the MUCH larger than expected fridge out of the gate and started making our way back towards the bus station. This time, instead of being sketched out, we were the ones who looked sketchy. Just two Americans, walking though Pakistan with a fridge at 10pm, no big deal. We found a street with more lights this time and set down at the bus station. As the bus pulled up to pick us up he opened the doors only to wave at us frantically and shout NO! He drove off. Crap. Well, we thought about trying the next bus, crossing our fingers for a more lenient bus driver, but when we read the digital sign that told people the estimated time for the next bus it said "NO BUSES EXPECTED FOR 30 MINUTES" double crap.

   So we hailed a taxi, loaded the fridge in the seats, and made our 10pound journey back to Regent Park. The taxi driver even gave us 2pounds off because, as he said it, "I feel bad for you guys." Well geeze, if people gave me money every time they felt bad for me I'd be in good shape! But, we thanked the driver and made our way into our dorm and started cleaning the filthy fridge with hand-soap and water, mixed up in an old Coke bottle.

Clean that fridge!!

   And that was it. We woke up the next morning, turned on the fridge, and to our delight it fired up and cooled down, it even has a freezer! Our goal is to charge people for keeping their drinks cold, hopefully we'll have the fridge paid off by the time we leave. Until then, we have the coolest dorm room in Reid hall, we have a fridge.

...to go to London!

London 2012

It appears I have changed locations, dramatically. This blog will now be giving updates of my adventures (with Nate) of London and oh boy, it’s been ridiculous already.

Plane: Freaking smallest plane ever. I’ve been on a bigger plane to Wisconsin!

Orientation: Slept through the whole thing so you’ll have to ask Nate (who was probably taking notes) what it was all about.

Public Transportation: Easiest thing ever. Cleanest thing ever.

People: Nice. Kind. They say “Cheers!” as “Thank you” and I’ve already decided to adopt it.

Ok, so what have we been doing? Exploring. This city is immense and overwhelmingly exciting. We have been out almost every night to a different location pretending to not look like tourists. Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace and so on and so forth. Once we learned that you stood on the right side of escalators, and walked on the left, traveling around the city became much less embarrassing and much easier. We’re Oyster Card pro’s, swiping that thing erryday, on the busses as well as the trains. We’ve tried to find pubs and bars (harder than you might think) to buy some rounds at and generally messed around the city as best as possible.

Our pre-term-get-together happened on the Thames River on a pretty good sized party boat. The boat gave us some amazing views of London’s coolest attractions, all at night. We popped a champagne bottle (courtesy of Tayeb) and hung out on the boat’s deck just in awe of life. It was an incredible night, a night that will probably never happen again in my life. It was as if I was suddenly transported into luxury for 4 hours, an amazing 4 hours.

Tonight was much different, but no less exciting. After explaining to people that I was going to church to worship God, and not going to Club Church to rage on ecstasy, I set off with a map in hand to find Victor who would be showing me the venue. I knew Victor, through Roo, through Ashely, through Windfall and we met a tube station in Euston. Along with a fantastic message the church held a great deal of wonderful people, and a lot of them students. Looks like God put me in contact with the right people this summer!

Alright, I know this was a quick update so hopefully I’ll have more time to write in the future. Cheers!