Ireland & me

OK, I'm in Limerick, Ireland, and it's great, etc., etc. A few observations:

- Last night I was smoking ouside the restaurant where we were eating with Super Hot Irish Girlfriend's mother and we got accosted by a panhandler. She asked for "one euro." You know what the exchange rate is? One euro is real money to me.

- SHIG and I have been to the "Off License" twice. The Off License is a liquor and beer store. It's in a totally shady part of town near the hotel. Here, shady means that it's rundown and kind of deserted, except for vaguely dangerous looking Irish guys loitering around. SHIG's Irish friends confirmed that this was a dodgy part of town, but it really doesn't seem all that bad.

- The front page of the Limerick Independent featured Miss Limerick, who isn't all that, and Miss Clare, Aoife Gallagher, who is totally hot. Aoife, incidentally, is pronounced "Ee-fa." SHIG is displeased that I may have a little crush on Aoife Gallagher.

- Saturday is some kind of rugby championship between Munster (the province of Ireland that Limerick is in) and Toulouse, France. It's like the Super Bowl or something around here. There are shirts in the shop windows that say "Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God" and tons of Munster rugby banners and flags and all that crap. The main street is going to be blocked off Saturday and they're showing it on big screens outside. From what I gather it'll be the largest outdoor collection of drunk people I've ever been near.

- Limerick's downtown is actually really nice. A lot of the streets are closed to vehicle traffic and there are a bunch of nice shops and pubs and so forth. Then there's the Internet cafe I'm writintg this from, which is basically a bunch of little carrels with computers and a bunch of Polish guys playing Counterstrike and isn't really a cafe at all.

- The vending machines in the hotel have beer, wine, gin & tonics, screwdrivers, and Powers Irish whiskey. This availability is lethal past midnight.