12 September 2008: Belfast, Ireland

I woke up this morning to the lovely sound of someone setting off a fire alarm in the apartment building at 9:10. It was literally screeching for five minutes and by the time it stopped there was definitely no way I was going back to sleep.

That actually was convenient, though, because I had made a date to meet someone from the night before at 10:00 at the coffee shop at the union. I hadn't set my alarm but, thanks to some douchebag, it looked like I'd be able to make it anyway.

So I headed to the Union, but when I got there realized there was a bit of a problem. Since it was still open house at Queen's University, there were literally hundreds of people roaming about the union. And, since I couldn't remember anything about the girl other than that she had brown hair, there was no chance in the world that I'd be able to recognize her.

So I sat on a chair outside the coffee shop and waited for ten minutes, hoping she'd recognize me. No luck. And thus I had the first casualty of my phone-free European experiment.

You know what? It'll happen. And I'm OK with that.

At this point I headed to the church down the street for some food. The previous night Clark had mentioned something about them giving out free lunch, although he wasn't sure if it was only during the school year. It turned out that he was right and I was a week early, but I must have looked especially hungry and pathetic because the woman made me two ham sandwiches and threw in a couple bags of salt and vinegar crisps. I'm guessing she had meant it to be both lunch and dinner, and I tried to hold off on the second round, but that wasn't going to happen. I was starving.

Like I said, Queen's University was having it's second open day, but I hadn't shaved that morning and, though it's not like I had a beard after one day, I felt like my "20 year old" identity was precarious enough as is, and going back would only be tempting fate. So I avoided campus for a bit and, unknowingly, tried to walk downtown but went the wrong way.

It took a bit longer than you would have expected for me to realize this, and by that time I felt like I had done enough walking for the day, as I still had my pack with me. So I headed back to the campus and reclaimed my 20-year old traveling self.

There were a bunch of "student leaders" outside the union, and the third one I talked to-- giving him the "been traveling for two years and need a place to crash" bit-- took a keen interest in finding me, indeed, a place to crash. I went inside with him and he started asking some of his friends on my behalf, but no one was biting. Finally, he asked this girl Julia who was walking by, and who also was a student leader.

(Incidentally, during the time that the dude was looking for my couch, I was eating the rest of his corn beef sandwich. Isn't that lovely?)

Julia made a phone call to her friend Colin, who she described as a "crazy guy," and he said it would be fine for me to crash at his place. Queen's University open day comes through.

Colin said he would meet me outside the union in about half an hour, so I went to the library to relax for a bit. At this point I started seriously second-guessing my decision to stay at Colin's place. For one thing, it meant I'd have to pretend to be 20 years old the entire time, and I'd have to maybe seriously talk about my wild and crazy adventures from two years of traveling. More importantly, though, Julia had later described Colin as a "good Christian boy." So, were I to slip up, I'd not merely be exposed a lying conman-- I'd be exposed as a sinner. I was terrified.

So I met him in half an hour, and to make matters even worse it turned out he had just spent the past six months traveling around East Asia and Europe. Good grief.

I don't know the first thing about Asia, and would only have been able to talk about London-- where I had just been-- and Spain-- where I had been earlier in the summer-- so I just kept my mouth shut. I mean, I must have said 300 words the entire afternoon and evening.

When we got back to his place-- which was nice but pretty far away-- he made a frozen pizza and I feasted. I was cleaning up in the food department. Then I went upstairs to take a nap, and when my alarm went off two hours later-- trust me, I needed it-- I could barely get out of bed. It was 9:00 and I was giving serious thought to just sleeping through to the morning. I was a weary dude.

I made myself get up, though, because it was a Friday, and I went downstairs to see if my laundry was done, since I had put in a load before going upstairs. While I was down there I heard the front door open and, figuring it was either Colin or the roommate I had met, called up to them.

However, some dude who I had never seen before came down and, as I was standing there in my boxers and he had no idea who I was, gave me a real good who-the-fuck-are-you glare. And wouldn't you know, I forgot the name of who I was staying with. I just stared at him for ten seconds before remembering I was "a friend of Colin's." Jesus, I was this close to being out the door.

When I left the house I headed to the student union, which I had heard was the place to be on Friday nights. I obviously didn't believe this, but seeing as there HAD been a dance party there the previous afternoon figured it was worth a shot.

Well, what a decision. There was a bar upstairs and a club downstairs, and both places were packed. The bar was alright and had £1.70 pints of beer, which is less than half the price you'd find in Dublin and maybe a pound less than you'd find in the other bars in Belfast. The club downstairs had the same price and I spent most of my time down there.

And this place was going off. I mean, I couldn't believe it but there was a legit party in the student union. I saw the guys from the previous night who said that, as I had been told, everyone went to this place on Fridays. It was out of control.

Now, I did call this place a club as opposed to the discoteque from the previous night, because there was room to breathe, it wasn't just a drunken mess, and people were actually there to dance and have fun rather than accidentally bump into people. But the music was still the same-- still more eurorave discopop. I might as well get used to it, because I don't think this is going to change much regardless of where I go.

Just for fun, I handed the DJ a slip of paper asking him to play any of "Living on a Prayer," "Don't Stop Believing," "Your Love," or "Take Me Home Tonight." Not because those were appropriate for the situation, which they weren't, but because you couldn't possibly go to any single bar in Ann Arbor without hearing all four of them over the course of the night. As expected, the DJ refused to even play one. What a jerk.

So that was the night, although what I learned was that "you're perfect... except you don't have red hair" is neither received well or considered funny by the girl you say it to. Fucking Irish need to lighten up.

And when the night ended I was sufficiently drunk, so I went back to Colin's place. And then I went to town. On a box of Special K.