Vendredi 3 juillet 2009

I had a great relationship, this year.
Which ended to soon.
Abruptly.
I left.
I got on the bus, and I left.

But let's tell this story from the beginning.
I was in Belfast, with some friends, shopping.
And then, I noticed.
Dark.
My size.
Simple, but elegant.
Love at first sight.

Unfortunately, I was too shy to act on it, so we moved on to the next shop.
But I couldn't forget.
And then, I got back.
And this time, I acted.
I bought it.
The Friendship Hat.


And we were indivisible.
At least, almost.
I brought it with me to most of the nights I had, and, as I'm not jealous, it went from head to head all night long.
It was risky, and I knew it. I could have got louses.
But then, I was lucky, and I enjoyed my time, as much as I could, and so did this hat.
It enabled us to met more people. An effective ice-breaker, I could say.

And one day, I wanted to bring it where I first saw it.
So I bought a ticket to Belfast.
But just before I got on the bus, I went to toilet.
So I took off my hat, hanging it to the door.
And in the emptiness that followed, I forgot it.
I found out my mistake too late to fix it, and when I went to the lost and found, it was gone.

After days of mourning, wondering how it was doing, who took it, if it will remain the same in its calling, I moved on.
By then, it was my very last day in Dublin, I went to Sara's place for a lunch.
"Here it is, I forgot to give it to you for your birthday."
It was a hat, more suitable for the irish weather: made out of leather, it could have taken rain.
More than happy, I took it, explaining how I lost my last one and how this new one was very welcome.


This very night, I went out with it, like in old days.
We christened it the Irish Hat.
With Bulmers, of course. We needed a real irish drink.
We could have chosen Guiness, then.
But you can find Guiness anywhere.
Bulmers is much more difficult to find.
Especially when it's named Magners outside Ireland.

It looks like the baking powder's story all over again.
Par Mathoche - Publié dans : Lost in Dublin
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Dimanche 28 juin 2009
Il a bien fallu "sociabiliser" avec les autochtones.
Pour cela, rien de mieux que de sortir avec les irlandais.
Ce qui revient à dire aller dans un pub.

Une institution de l'Irlande, ces pubs.
D'ailleurs, pour les irlandais ce n'est plus métro boulot dodo, mais plutôt métro boulot bistro.
Un irlandais sort du bureau pour rentrer dans un pub, et n'en ressort que pour dormir.
D'ailleurs, la plupart des pubs servent à manger (de la friture, en général : onion rings, chicken wings, french fries... Le tout arrosé de bière, un régime très diététique !)

Et durant les dernières soirées que j'ai passées là bas, je ne m'en privais pas : pubs à touristes (reconnaissable car les  habitudes vestimentaires des filles n'incluaient point les mini-jupes, où à la musique traditionnelle), nos pubs préférés (reconnaissable. à l'habituel guitariste que mes compagnons avaient pris en affection)...

On a fait également quelques pubs crawl.
Le principe étant de rentrer dans un pub pour une pinte ou deux, et d'en faire d'autres.
La tournée des bars version irlandaise, quoi.
A ceci près que dans les pubs irlandais, il y a souvent un groupe qui joue en live.
C'est donc moins l'ambiance (assez semblable et souvent boisée) que la musique qui prime pour le choix du pub où finir la soirée.

At the Mezz

Déjà, ce qu'il faut savoir, c'est qu'à Dublin, les pubs sont plus grands que les supérettes.
La plupart sont sur plusieurs étages, et la surface finale est souvent impressionnante.
Certains poussent le vice (comme le Church) à abriter restaurant, pub et night-club, d'autres (comme le Fitzsimon) on un étage en terrasse pour les fumeurs, un étage avec une piste de danse et un sous-sol boîte de nuit...

Tout est poussé à l'extrême, je vous dis.

Autre institution irlandaise : les buskers. Performeurs des rues, ils hantent Grafton Street et Temple bar la journée, et ce jusqu'à ce qu'il soit temps d'aller finir la soirée dans un pub.
En clair, pour vous remettre de votre terrible gueule de bois (car vous n'êtes pas irlandais), vous vous contentez de vous promener dans les rues de Dublin, à la recherche de la perle rare.

En général musiciens, et très souvent doués, ils se produisent seuls ou en groupe, et on peut mesurer la performancedu groupe à l'attroupement de badeaux devant eux.
Si le groupe est bon, c'est un véritable embouteillage de piétons !

The Super Fantastic, in Temple Bar

Enfin, vous partez à la chasse aux buskers s'il ne pleut pas, évidemment.
Sinon, vous rentrez directement dans un pub !
Par Mathoche - Publié dans : Comment survivre culturellement à l'Irlande
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Mardi 16 juin 2009

Just before I left Ireland to go back in my home country, we went for a last road trip to Wicklow, to enjoy the sunny day.
For once, I was on time at the meeting point, but I soon received a message from Patrick to warn me (and obviously some others) that he will also be late.
Ah, I almost had forgotten the pleasure to travel with ladies.

Then when he arrived, Patrick found me reading.
And he let me do so for five minutes or so.
In fact, he waited for me to have a quick look up and realize that he was actually just in front of me.

Thanking him to let me know that he arrived, I soon realized that he does the same with anyone, as we saw Marie waiting without noticing us.
I finally got out of the car to point out to her where the car was parked, and we soon were back in the car to wait for Caro.
Caro, who lived like five minutes away from there.
Caro, who was like one hour late when she eventually met us.
Pfff... These women and their make-up !

But then, we arrived in Wicklow, and had a first stop to get some food before going eating on the beach.
Or I'd better say port. Which was rather empty, but then that left us enough space to fart and belch.
When I say 'us', in fact I mean Patrick, actually the only man of this adventure.
After this romantic moment, we went back to our civilized manners, and went for a walk around an old castel's ruins.

'Ruins' was the key word.
Instead of a impressive and majestuous castel, we spotted three walls hardly standing out from the ground on a rock clung hell knows how to the coast.
We climbed there, just to see that there were nothing much more to see.
And also to avoid Caro's frentic moves while she was listening to Galway Girl on her mp3 player, bringing down with her Marie, who is too easily corrupted.


As it didn't stop them, Patrick try to shake them off and get down to the beach, but females are terrific, and they followed us singing a whole new world.
You can't teach proper music to girls.
Then we tried one more time to get rid of them by racing to the car, but we failed, letting them in for the rest of the trip.

We then reached a real sand beach, but still didn't dare to taste the water, for we were still in Ireland. So instead we played a rather funny game.
Tick-tock.
That's an easy game.
I played tick, pushing Caro towards Patrick, and Patrick played back, pushing Caro to me and so on.
At last, Caro gave up and let her fall on the sand.
So we decided that the better solution for her was to take a bath as soon as possible.

But she woke up in the process, and so we resumed our trip to a nice park where we took a sunbath before going back to Dublin.

Yes, it was sunny enough so that we could get a sunbath.
Par Mathoche - Publié dans : Lost in Dublin
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