An unorthodox Thanksgiving
Last Thursday, Thanksgiving, was rather depressing. I have never missed it before and thinking about the food, family, and MST3K marathons I was missing did rather englumen (look for it in Sarah Palin's twitter sometime in the next week!) me for a day or so. Friday morning I set out to Dusseldorf airport, arriving late and almost missing my plane, but fortunately found myself airborne heading towards Ireland. I got in and started hunting for some place to eat. I only had the most rudimentary directions to get to my hotel, so I needed a frame of reference to work from. I walked to the Liffey and happend upon a brewpub that was on my list of places to check out. I ate a gigantic lunch that could compare, in size, to almost any Thanksgiving dinner (picture on FB). From there I walked to my hotel, checked in, and set out for the center of town. I did a lot of walking around, went to Dublin castle, Christchurch, etc, and walked around the shopping area near Exchequer street. I was on the hunt for a Burns Bison bass but I didn't find one. I did find this insane guitar repair place that had a bunch of awesome stuff, the best probably being a '53 Precision owned by Paul Lynott which was signed by the other guys in Thin Lizzy. Not too shabby!
In the evening I met up with my Cousin, who manages an incredibly swank restaurant in Temple Bar. I waited around for a while and drank irish whiskey and then ordered an awesome meal. It was venison shank (kind of like osso buco) and venison loin served on a bed of mashed and reduction with blackberries in it. Quite good. Dessert was a cherry cheesecake and then a series of expensive drinks. I left to see an Irish metal band (http://www.myspace.com/deadlabelireland). They were quite good, but halfway through the second band, and after two more beers, I decided it was better to go because I was starting to get ping-pong eyes.
Next day I woke up and went into town again for some more tromping. This was the day of the big austerity protest, but I saw nothing of it outside of some thrown away signs and a helicopter hanging in the sky for a while. I met my cousin again at 3 and we departed from there on a long drinking binge. We started off with two guinnesses each at a low key pub, and moved from there to more pubs, more Guinnesses, some 10 EUR cocktail at a hidden bar disguised as an Edwardian mansion (order in Boston accents only!) to a mexican place (surprisingly good burritos) to a rock bar with a booming jukebox. We were there for quite a while, and I, for two Euros, was able to force this playlist on all the people there:
Flight of Icarus - Iron Maiden
Fear of the dark (live) - *
Run to the hills - *
Black diamond - Kiss
At this point it was midnight and the bars were closing. We went back to his restaurant, which was preparing to hold a lock-in, but I wisely demurred. stumble to a cab, bed.
I weak up at 8am to a knock on the door. I get up, get dressed, and open. It's the owner, who is a fifty year old Indian man. This is a problem because I have not yet paid for my hotel after two nights. Their card machine was busted and as much as I planned to pay them each morning, I just never had the requisite cash when it became time to pay. I apologized and told him that I had been in very late and didn't have a chance to pay. He said it was ok, that I could wait to pay and that checkout wasn't until noon, though I could stay later. Then he asks me if I'm staying alone. Yes. No girl? No. The owner insinuated that, because of this unfortunate arrangement, that I would be stuck jerking off. I laughed it off with a "it's true!" kind of joke, but I started wondering if this guy was playing pimp and was going to offer me the 'companionship' of another lonely single lady staying in the hotel just that night. Shit, I thought, first I think I'm going to get booted for not paying, now I have to keep this guy from getting me a hooker. Oh, and it would be nice to get some more sleep in too. The owner isn't leaving, but he's sort of inching into the room like he wants to make sure that I don't have a dog or a grow operation in the corner. I start holding the door to create sort of a roadblock, restricting movement. This is when the owner tells me that I'm strong, I have a good body, and he likes me.
Hmmmmm.
So this is incredibly awkward; the owner of my hotel wants to have sex with me at 8 o clock in the morning. If anyone reading this (Tim, Darin, maybe Scott, Liz on days when she gets a 4 on her 2d6) has ever been in this position, please drop me a line on how you handled it. I handled it by cutting the conversation off at every turn and slowly pushing the owner out of the room withe door and then locking up. I was amazed at what had just happened, then a little angry, and then paranoid, because, what the fuck? What's going on here? So the owner of the hotel is trying to use it as his own meatmarket? He waits around until a single guy checks in and then raps on their door in hopes of passing on a complimentary hotel blowjob? How has this guy not been beaten to death by some crazed homophobe in 'gay panic'? Then I got a bit sad, in a weird way, because like, if that's that guy's life, then I feel really bad for him.
And seriously, does anyone want an 8am blowjob?
The rest of the day had less weirdness. I went out to my cousin's neck of the woods and hung out with him and his wife and kid. The kid in question, my demi-nephew, is an energetic little cracker named Finn who is extremely cute but I can't understand a damned word that comes out of their mouth. We hung for a couple of hours, did a fry-up, watched X-Factor (The people on American idol are much more talented and attractive. On X-Factor any old fat slag can get on), and eventually drove to the airport for me to take off. It was a great time. I'd love to go back, but during the summer this time because it snowed every day I was there and it was damned cold.
Also, I finally spotted a DB ticket inspector! Good thing I had a ticket that time!
In the evening I met up with my Cousin, who manages an incredibly swank restaurant in Temple Bar. I waited around for a while and drank irish whiskey and then ordered an awesome meal. It was venison shank (kind of like osso buco) and venison loin served on a bed of mashed and reduction with blackberries in it. Quite good. Dessert was a cherry cheesecake and then a series of expensive drinks. I left to see an Irish metal band (http://www.myspace.com/deadlabelireland). They were quite good, but halfway through the second band, and after two more beers, I decided it was better to go because I was starting to get ping-pong eyes.
Next day I woke up and went into town again for some more tromping. This was the day of the big austerity protest, but I saw nothing of it outside of some thrown away signs and a helicopter hanging in the sky for a while. I met my cousin again at 3 and we departed from there on a long drinking binge. We started off with two guinnesses each at a low key pub, and moved from there to more pubs, more Guinnesses, some 10 EUR cocktail at a hidden bar disguised as an Edwardian mansion (order in Boston accents only!) to a mexican place (surprisingly good burritos) to a rock bar with a booming jukebox. We were there for quite a while, and I, for two Euros, was able to force this playlist on all the people there:
Flight of Icarus - Iron Maiden
Fear of the dark (live) - *
Run to the hills - *
Black diamond - Kiss
At this point it was midnight and the bars were closing. We went back to his restaurant, which was preparing to hold a lock-in, but I wisely demurred. stumble to a cab, bed.
I weak up at 8am to a knock on the door. I get up, get dressed, and open. It's the owner, who is a fifty year old Indian man. This is a problem because I have not yet paid for my hotel after two nights. Their card machine was busted and as much as I planned to pay them each morning, I just never had the requisite cash when it became time to pay. I apologized and told him that I had been in very late and didn't have a chance to pay. He said it was ok, that I could wait to pay and that checkout wasn't until noon, though I could stay later. Then he asks me if I'm staying alone. Yes. No girl? No. The owner insinuated that, because of this unfortunate arrangement, that I would be stuck jerking off. I laughed it off with a "it's true!" kind of joke, but I started wondering if this guy was playing pimp and was going to offer me the 'companionship' of another lonely single lady staying in the hotel just that night. Shit, I thought, first I think I'm going to get booted for not paying, now I have to keep this guy from getting me a hooker. Oh, and it would be nice to get some more sleep in too. The owner isn't leaving, but he's sort of inching into the room like he wants to make sure that I don't have a dog or a grow operation in the corner. I start holding the door to create sort of a roadblock, restricting movement. This is when the owner tells me that I'm strong, I have a good body, and he likes me.
Hmmmmm.
So this is incredibly awkward; the owner of my hotel wants to have sex with me at 8 o clock in the morning. If anyone reading this (Tim, Darin, maybe Scott, Liz on days when she gets a 4 on her 2d6) has ever been in this position, please drop me a line on how you handled it. I handled it by cutting the conversation off at every turn and slowly pushing the owner out of the room withe door and then locking up. I was amazed at what had just happened, then a little angry, and then paranoid, because, what the fuck? What's going on here? So the owner of the hotel is trying to use it as his own meatmarket? He waits around until a single guy checks in and then raps on their door in hopes of passing on a complimentary hotel blowjob? How has this guy not been beaten to death by some crazed homophobe in 'gay panic'? Then I got a bit sad, in a weird way, because like, if that's that guy's life, then I feel really bad for him.
And seriously, does anyone want an 8am blowjob?
The rest of the day had less weirdness. I went out to my cousin's neck of the woods and hung out with him and his wife and kid. The kid in question, my demi-nephew, is an energetic little cracker named Finn who is extremely cute but I can't understand a damned word that comes out of their mouth. We hung for a couple of hours, did a fry-up, watched X-Factor (The people on American idol are much more talented and attractive. On X-Factor any old fat slag can get on), and eventually drove to the airport for me to take off. It was a great time. I'd love to go back, but during the summer this time because it snowed every day I was there and it was damned cold.
Also, I finally spotted a DB ticket inspector! Good thing I had a ticket that time!