22 September 2008: Galway, Ireland

I meant to take the 6:30 bus this morning for 5euro but I slept right through it. Instead, I woke up at noon and was out the door by 1:00. I went to check what time the next bus was, but it wasn't until 3:00, and even then it was going to cost another 12euro, which was too much. So I decided it was a beautiful day for a hitch, and I hit the road.

Back on the road again. Good thing I had brought my lucky car.

The 3:00 bus was due into Galway at 4:45, so my goal was to beat it back into town. I got off to a quick start, then, because after only 15 minutes thumbing in Westport Julia picked me up in a red Toyota Corolla and took me 28 minutes down the road to Ballinrobe. A nice chunk of the way, although in a very quiet car. I don't think Julia said one word the entire time. So be it.

When I got to Ballinrobe, I thumbed for 9 minutes before Joe picked me up in a red Opal Astra and took me 10 minutes to Kilmaine. Joe was another quiet type, but half way into the ride he asked me "Are you McCain or Obama?" I told him I was Obama and then asked him what he thought of the situation. He replied "I don't know much about American politics," and I gave him a few minutes to follow that up with something. But he didn't, and I figured that was enough. 10 minutes isn't a whole lot of time for a crash-course in American politics.

At this point I had gotten two quick rides and was a nice portion of the way to Galway. It was going to take a catastrophic disaster to not arrive before the bus, so at this point I changed my goal-- to beat the bus leaving. That is, to get back to Galway before the bus to Galway even left.

I thumbed for 12 minutes in Kilmaine before Richard picked me up in a black Toyota Yarus, whatever the hell that is, and drove me 15 minutes to Headford. Richard is a driving instructor, making him the safest driver who's ever given me a ride. I asked him if he instructs his students to pick up hitch-hikers, and he said "only if they look like they really need it." Ouch. I think. We got to Headford before I even knew it, and he dropped me off on the side of the main street and went to see a friend. But he said that if I hadn't gotten a ride by the time he came back he'd take me the rest of the way.

I didn't need it. After all of 6 minutes, Lar picked me up in a black Suzuki Jimmy and took me the rest of the way to Galway. At this point I was within striking of 3:00 and so I had my eye on the clock the entire way. Lar was a real good dude, and about a minute after I told him I was from New Jersey we had the following conversation.

Lar: You're from the Boss's country?
me: Excuse me?
Lar: The Boss.
me: Bruce Springsteen?
Lar: Yeah, I love him.

I liked this guy already.

Lar was going to Galway to get his pipes cleaned, which would sound sexual if only Lar was a woman. Instead, he was actually getting his musical pipes cleaned because he teaches pipes, guitar, and whistle. I'm not sure you could have a single more Irishly-musical music teacher. It's just not possible.

Anyway, Lar was a really nice guy who seemed to understand that, as an American bumming around Europe, I might need to be a bit on the lookout. Before dropping me off in Galway, he said "Some assholes might tell you 'Yank this' or 'Yank that' but don't pay them no mind." And the last thing he said was "Be careful, Zach." A nice thing to say, for sure, but I really liked that he said my name. Not in a Destiny's Child sort of way, but it's always nice when someone who gives you a ride also thinks to remember your name.

The final thing about Lar is that, when I told him I was doing this adventure on the cheap, he told me to get some beer from the shop before the bars in order to save money. There's no more obvious advice in the world. But what I liked was that he said "Get some beer at half 6, then you only have to buy a pint or two when you go to the bar at 10:30." That's great, but the thing is that I'm not so sure I can pre-game for FOUR AND A HALF HOURS. I just don't think it would work.

(And by the way, for those of you keeping track at home, the ride took 22 minutes. 22 stinkin' minutes. I literally got dropped off in Galway at 3:01. One minute late for beating the bus. I'm not kidding.)

When I got into Galway I gave Melissa a call. I hate to use the phone during this adventure, just out of principal, but it was the only way to get a hold of her. And I also typically don't like going back to a place for a second round, but I figured that my time in Galway-- and the towns around Galway-- had basically been spent with an all-star cast. I mean, Melissa, Aisling, and Kolja. That's the A-team, if there's ever been an A-team, and pound-for-pound it might not be matched by any other town that I go to. I truly believe that. That being said, I didn't want to risk finding a new couch and having it be sub-par. That's not my usual philosphy, since a couch is a couch and anyone nice enough to put me up is good enough for me, but in this situation I didn't want to risk the overall grade of my Galway experiences.

So I called Melissa, but she said that her roommates were a bit less enthusiastic about a second night. Which is understandable. She did, though, say that I could leave my stuff at her place overnight, which would be a huge help.

So I got myself some lunch-- 1euro for a baguette and a thing of mozzerella cheese, the kind that comes in water in a package and is delicious, and had an Italian picnic, practically-- and then I headed to the Union to get directions to Melissa's place. What I found, instead, was speed dating.

Yes, Fresher's Week speed-dating. A place for NUI freshers to see and be seen and maybe score a date, a phone number, or a lay. And I only needed to score a place to crash.

The way this speed dating went was there were rows of guys facing rows of girls, and they would alternate a guy getting up and picking somewhere to sit and a girl getting up and picking somewhere to sit. Which might be how all speed dating works, I have no idea.

So I sat down as a fresher, but when the first girl asked me where I lived I realized the gig was up. Big time. I mumbled something to get me through the speed date, but when the next girl sat down across from me I had a new bit.

"I got into NUI but deferred for a year so I could mopve to Galway, set myself up, and make some money. But I'm coming here next year." So whereas I was a 20 year old in Belfast, I was now an 18 year old would-be fresher. Problem solved.

Now, I know these girls were only freshers, but they were dumb as rocks. I told them I was from New Jersey but explained that I was going to be in Galway for the whole year and then to attend the university, and at the end of our time together just about all of them asked "So when are you going back to New Jersey?" I wanted to kill them.

But the funniest thing was these two girls. For the question of "What was your funniest night?" my answer was "tonight." And when I told these two girls my answer, they actually wrote down "2-nite." I'm not kidding. So I told them that 2-nite isn't really a word, and I swear to you that one of them said "I know, but that's just how I talk." I could not believe it. I wanted to ask her how 2-nite sounded any differently from tonight, but figured she wouldn't get it.

As for my other answers: How would you settle an argument? "Kiss and make up"; What do you do for fun? "Go to Ireland"; If aliens came here and asked you to go with them to their planet, would you go with them? "If it had a temperate climate"; What is your favorite sexual position? "Crabs."

(As for the girls, the only constant answer was "everything" for favorite sexual position. Which means that the fresher class at NUI is made up entirely of sluts or virgins. Or maybe just sluts. What a time to be at NUI.)

Now, I thought my answers were pretty good, but I hadn't realized they were actually pretty GREAT. The guy co-running the event called out my name to win a prize because he especially enjoyed one of my answers-- although I don't know which-- but he didn't see me when I raised my hand. Since I figured I should at least get what I deserved, I stole a shirt from the table next to me.

When the woman co-running the thing came by, though, I told her I was "Seth from New Jersey"-- apparently the girl who handed in the answers misheard me, because I was guessing no one else there was from New Jersey. She went away and brought me my shirt, which meant that now I had two. The kid next to me wanted one, and since it would be tacky to have two of the same shirts and wear them on different days, I figured it wouldn't hurt to give him one.

So now me and this dude both had a shirt. And what a shirt it is. On the front there is a picture of an air freshener with the words "air fresher" inside it, and below that it said "So Fresh and So Green." On the back it says "NUI Fresher Week '08." What a keepsake. ("Green" because of Ireland, incidentally.)

When the speed dating ended I hadn't scored a couch, mostly because all the girls there were idiots and none of them understood I was from New Jersey, not returning, and needed a place to sleep that night. So I went up to the guy I gave the shirt to, told him he owed me one, and then asked if I could crash on his couch. He was a bit hesitant but realized that he DID owe me one, and so we went back to his place.

The dude's roommate, though, was weird as hell, and when we got to his building the dude said that I couldn't stay there. I asked him if I could at least store my things there that night and he said no to that, too. So I asked him why he had waited to tell me this until we had walked for 15 minutes, and he didn't have an answer. I was astounded.

I called Melissa and she said she would meet me back on campus in 15 minutes. I thanked her profusely, since this was obviously at the very last minute, and when I hung up the phone I asked the dude if I could have the shirt back. I admit it was sort of a dick move, but Melissa was doing me such a favor and I figured it would be nice of me to give her the shirt. Well, dick move or not, the dude refused to give me back the shirt. I mean, he literally refused. I couldn't believe this guy.

(The shirt is a size Small. Good luck wearing it, asshole.)

Unfortunately, I got brutally lost on the walk back to campus. I mean, incredibly lost. The dude told me to "take a left from off the bridge" when he should have said "take a left after the bridge," and I was about half an hour late. I felt completely terrible but Melissa was as sweet as could be about it.

We walked back to Melissa's place to drop off my stuff. I asked Melissa if she wanted to go out, but she said she was tired. I mentioned that we should have a party at her place instead, which would have meant hanging out and watching movies. And which would have been lovely, but it was my last night in Galway and we both figured I needed to go out for it. Melissa agreed to come out with me for a drink, and we went to meet Crona at a bar.

The bar was sort of lame, though, and Melissa and I both wanted to leave. But I wanted to go to another bar or club while Melissa was ready to go back. So, though I probably should have gone back too, Melissa told me to just call her when I was back at the apartment after the bar and she would let me in.

The thing about a Monday in Galway, though, is that it's THE night. The first three clubs I tried to get into were maxed out, but I finally found one that was good-- probably because it was "Cheesy Night." AKA the night of non-stop American '80s. And let me tell you, Irish people go absolutely ape-shit for Bon Jovi. More than any American bar or party would get.

Anyway, I went to the bar next door after a bit and was talking to this dude when the bar closed. Because, unbeknownst to me, I had accidentally set my watch back by an hour. Terrible luck because I was still without a place to crash.

I told the dude I was talking to my predicament but he said he wasn't going back to his place because he was "going to get laid tonight no matter what." Good luck.

So we both went outside and started seeking our agenda with the bar-goers, me trying to find a couch and him trying to get laid. And wouldn't you know, appropriately enough, both of us ended up talking to the same fat chick.

The fat chick was much more interested in getting laid than in letting me sleep on her couch, but her friend told me that she had "put Americans up last week" and so she invited me back to her place for the night.

We didn't leave the bar area for over an hour, though, during which time the girl Helen's friends were being dumb bitches and one of them stole my glasses and thought it was hilarious. It was, trust me.

I asked Helen if it was still OK for me to crash at her place and she assured me that it was. I probably should have taken the hint from her friends and given up, but the only other option at this point was to call Melissa. And I would have felt like an asshole if I did that because she had gone to bed hours before.

So this whole chirade continued for over an hour, with these girls and the guys they were with ignoring me, but like I said it was this or nothing. So when they tried to escape and I saw them getting into a cab without me, oh hell no. I was there in two seconds. Now it was on.

This was the beginning of some kind of night. And let me just say that Lar was a prophet of truth that afternoon. Indeed there are assholes in Ireland.

We got to the house, and here was the roster for the evening. On the girls side: Helen, red-head, blonde, brunette, tiny brunette, fat chick. Of the girls only Tiny Brunette was cute. Helen was close, Brunette could have been a busted Ana Faris with a little work, and Red-head at least had the right ingredients. But there was no hope for the Fattie and Blonde.

On the guys side there were four adversaries. One was a douchebag with a mohawk. One was the prototype of a Soccer Hooligan. One looked like an older version of Macauley Caulkin, if you had only seen him in "Home Alone" and were trying to imagine what he would one day look like. And the other looked like Tobey Maguire with Down's Syndrome.

It's this last one that I'm the most confident in. I mean, he was Tobey Maguire with Down's Syndrome to a tee. If I had taken a picture of him it wouldn't have given you a better picture than simply imagining it. Just watch "Spiderman" and imagine that Tobey Maguire had Down's Syndrome. I'm telling you, it coudln't have been any more obvious.

When I got there, Macauley thought it was pretty funny that I had ended up at the same house as the glasses-stealer, AKA blonde. He seemed pretty decent but that didn't last too long. The whole night was basically an episode in "Yank this, Yank that."

A little while after "funny" became "asshole," which happened quicker than you would have imagined, Macauley said something stupid and I wrote it down. They asked what I was doing, and I quickly responded "Just writing about earlier." Since I was guessing they wouldn't be too happy about my taking notes about them.

They told me to stop and then Red-head went outside with Macauley and Soccer Hooligan. I figured they were about to tell me to leave, so I started to write down the blog website so I could leave it there and have the last laugh. I only got as far as "LifeofSaturdays," though, before Fattie saw what I was writing.

She asked what it meant, and I very quickly came up with "It's my motto that I write whenever I'm in a tough situation." Boy, I can't begin to tell you how lucky I am that I wrote that much and not a letter more.

Red-head came back in with Macauley and Soccer Hooligan standing behind her, arms crossed and glowering at me. These dudes were FEASTING for a chance to fight a Yankee. Red-head asked me what I had been writing and I showed her "LifeofSaturdays" and explained about it being my motto. Tobey said from across the way, "Oh, so you don't like being here?" Please, shut up. All I could hear from this guy was DUN DA DUN.

To my surprise, Fattie backed me up that I had only written "LifeofSaturdays." This was astonishing because only ten minutes before she had been pissed that "my friend" had called her fat. Bless her heart.

Nobody else was convinced, but Fattie told them I had only written that one thing and so they backed down. Seriously, you don't realize how lucky I am that I only wrote those three words. If I hadn't written it they would have looked for the actual notes, and if I had written the website part they would have known I was going to write about it later. Either of those would have been catastrophic.

So that was my night. I stuck around after all and there was no way in hell I was falling asleep in that room. Unfortunately, there was no hell in hell I was going to write another note, either. Everyone was on watch from that point, so the rest of this is to the best of my memory. Make that, the best of my drunken memory.

First and foremost, Blonde left because she got her period while we were in the house and Fattie fell asleep almost instantly after defending me. Everyone else then talked shit about both mercilessly. Not hard to see why.

Red-head kept going on and on, telling me "You can't take notes about Irish people in their own house." DENY DENY DENY but she obviously wasn't fooled by my excuse. I at least have to give her that.

Mohawk, similarly, told me "You're observant. Too observant." Good work by him, too.

The most entertaining thing about these two, though, were their dance-moves. Mohawk spent about an hour doing what I would call "Lifting weights." As in, he literally just stood around with his hands over his head, like he had lifted weights and was raising his arms up and down. Or like he had made a muscle pose and was lifting his arms up and down over his head, if that's easier to imagine.

As for Red-head, she actually gave her dance moves a name-- "Playing basketball." She was spot on. Her main move was "the dribble," where she literally just turned her hand over like she was dribbling a basketball. (Palming a basketball, really, for those familiar with the term.) Then she had the "spin the basketball," where she would spin the ball on her fingertips. Then she had the "behind-the-back pass," where she would pass the ball behind her back. And finally, her fanciest move, she had the "between-the-legs dribble," where she would literally pretend to dribble the basketball between her legs.

These two were idiots.

The best, though, was Macauley, who was the biggest idiot of all. I told him I had graduated in April, and he said "You graduated in April and it's already September. What are you doing in Ireland, Yank?" I don't even know what that means, but I called him out for being an idiot after this one.

The other best thing about Macauley was when he asked me where all my stuff was. I told him that it was outside Melissa's apartment building, which was almost true, and he actually said "If your stuff is OK being outside for the night then so are you." I explained that I had given my only winter coat to my stuff, and so I wouldn't actually be OK outside since my stuff was wearing the coat and I would be cold. He didn't have a response, so he went into the corner and his girlfriend gave him a hand-job. I'm not kidding.

(The other thing about Macauley is that, after his hand-job, he asked if I liked Ireland. I told him I did, and he said he was surprised because there are so many Irish assholes. I told him "Actually, you all are the first assholes I've met." He went into the other room and told Soccer Hooligan, but came back alone. At this point I realized that these guys were all talk. Not an ounce of bite in them.)

I will give Helen, the host, credit for being pretty nice. She tried to teach me a few Irish phrases, and reminded everyone else that she had invited me back, which WAS true. But at the end of the night she asked if she could cut my hair, and I said there wasn't a chance in the world of that happening. She got offended and said that she had cut Tiny Brunette's hair that morning, and I said "Well, it doesn't look terrible." She got more offended, go figure, and said that I either had to get a haircut or leave. What a dilemma.

Before I left, though, I wanted to leave the blog website so they could read about it and I could, as I said, have the last laugh. I went up to the bathroom to write the website down but had forgotten my pen downstairs. I went down and tried to inconspicuously grab it, but they all saw me go back up again. There was no way around this one, and they opened the bathroom door after about 20 seconds so they could make sure I wasn't doing something sneaky. I scribbled the website and a note on the paper, hopefully legibly but probably not.

They tried to usher me out of the house but there was still the matter of handing off the note, which I couldn't do in front of everyone. I tried to stall in the kitchen but eventually they made me leave the house, with Tiny Brunette right behind me.

And so was the end of the night. And, in all honesty, the biggest heist of my time in Ireland. Since, despite all their attempts, I had gotten what I needed out of the night. And I lived the tell the tale.