RUB-A-DUB-DUB - DAY TWO

Okay, so, you were up to Odessa yesterday... when we were recovering from Dublin day one... Rewind to that morning... You can imagine the state we were in. I was tempted to just stay and bed for a couple of hours, but nooooo.... WE HAVE TO DO DUBLIN!! the man said, shooing me into the shower BEFORE collapsing BACK INTO BED!!! Of course, he roused the minute that, seeing him fast asleep, I proceeded to curl into the covers and nod off. Bleah. But no.... Dublin awaited... So coupla hours later, we Odessa-ed, then we walked and walked and walked. I saw his school and the apartment he used to live in with the boys... I was very grateful when he showed me the bars/cigar joints he went to, because then we HAD to stop for a mandatory pint or coffeeeeee! First stop, the Decent Cigar Emporium (www.decent-cigar.com), where we hung out with Belinda and the brilliant Mr-I-Eat-Frozen-Yoghurt, aka Zeek, who took to Pete right away. Then we did the big Dublin walkaround... all the way to St Stephen's Green, which was, strangely, closed, though the shopping centre next to it wasn't... We contemplated going in, but decided on another pint instead... Well, when in Ireland do as the Irish, right? Dublin is phenomenal... There is something that makes you turn your head at every corner. It truly has to be one of the most charming European cities ever, and of course, Pete was the ideal guide, because we were constantly ducking into side streets and discovering (or at least I was) cosy little hideouts and little bars that you're not going to see in the lonely planet guide. By six, I had done at least three pints.. I actually felt more human after.. Don't ask. Irish insight: Strange? Seeing stores called Malones, Murphys, O'Donnell etc, made Art suddenly realise that the only things she has, till now, association Irish names with... are Irish pubs. Okay. Final stop before dinner was the Porterhouse Brewing Company, Dublin, which has got to have the largest range of beer I have ever seen in one place, in addition, of course to the 10 stouts, ales, lagers and weiss it brews in house, and set against the backdrop of amazing Irish folk music. I had the Weiss, tempted by the description in the menu: "a wonderfully refreshing, thirst-quenching ale with classic fruity flavour of banana and bubble gum". Really. And it still tasted good. The plan for the evening was this very atas (singlish for swish) French restaurant that is so atas you cannot reserve tables, so you have to get there an hour before it opens (6pm) to queue (does this sound familiar?? Must be owned by a Singaporean). AND you have to queue even if just to tell them you'd like a table at 9pm. Thankfully, the food was superb.... as was the wine, so we were all grinning by the time we got to the BIG thing of the night - being on Irish national television (seriously!) Lets start at the very beginning, which, according to the Sound of Music, is a very good place to start... Okay - the Camembert Quartet (www.camembertquartet.com) (Paddy, Cormac et al) is the band that plays on the Tubridy Tonight (http://www.rte.ie/tv/tubridytonight/index.html), Ireland's answer to Letterman I guess, ... and so we got tickets to watch the recording of the live broadcast. Prime perk of being brought in by the band is that you also get to hang out with the show's guests in the Green Room, where they are plied with alcohol - probably a bid to loosen them up for the show. So we got to rub shoulders with Ryan Tubridy himself, as well as this guy Hector, who was hilarious. He apparently has his own talk show too - in Gaelic!! - and is one of the strongest advocates of the Irish language. (Check him out here - its the show we saw recorded). All this, of course, while having a few more drinks, which, I have to say, loosened us up rather nicely too. Heh. What was especially thrilling for Pete was that Mick Lally (for whom the Green Room ply with booze "strategy" clearly worked) and Mary McEvoy - better known as Miley and Biddy off one of Ireland's longest running soaps - Glenroe, were also guests on the show. Miley's, well, dem funny but clearly has a bit of a chip on his shoulder over Glenroe coming to an end coz he kept retorting to people who said they missed him to ""Go ask them why they stopped it!!". Okay, so one would expect that given that 1) We hardly slept the night before 2) We had already had a fair bit on board 3) We had to be at the airport at 7.30am or some ungodly hour like that to catch a flight to Cork, we would logically call it a night right? No, wrong. The party at The Green Room continued till the wee hours, and spilt over into another room after, where we found a piano (yes, this is all still at the RTE tv studios) and I proceeded to try and impress everyone by playing that classic hit: Chopsticks... and badly. Of course, thanks to Jim (Camembert Quartet's keyboardist), I didn't sound as spastic as one might have guessed. Even the security guard that was trying to kick us out (NOT on account of my piano playing) was somewhat impressed (as you can tell from his expression). Of course, the next great idea was to pop by and see Eoin and Hillary's joint after... So... Well, we made the flight. Barely. Because the world conspired for us to go to hell and back trying to though - Overweight bags, silly R-air girl who checked us in and only gave us ONE boarding pass, couldn't stow hand luggage because plane needed to "redistribute weight" - whatever that means. We couldn't sit together either. My last memory was standing up, looking at Pete and yelling: ""I have two words for you: Aer Lingus!". Neither of us remember take off, or landing. That said, the people sitting next to us will likely never forget. Pete, apparently, snored all the way there, and me, well, so used I am to having Pete on my side and so unused I am to being that comatose (really!), I think I grabbed the thigh of the old lady on my left when the plane jolted on touching down. Ah well. She was very nice about it. But I think Pete's neighbours might switch to Aer Lingus next time too... Art