I woke up from my nap at 11pm last night and did a pub crawl, but only “late bars” in Dublin are open after 1am, so I was only able to find and down 8 pints of Guinness by the late bar close time of 2:30. Pathetic, I know. I will do another crawl, probably tomorrow, and try to improve on my performance.

I passed on the black pudding again this morning for breakfast, I think its because I’m sane.

I visited the Dublin Writer’s Museum, played some snooker (following the rules this time - still a cruel, cruel game), and went to Dublin Castle after lunch.

I had a great tour of Dublin Castle, mostly because the tour guide, whenever he said the word “forty”, like in any year containing forty, he would pronounce it “farty”. I mean, c’mon, that’s funny. Yet I was the only one chuckling, over and over and over again. Did I invest all of this time and energy and euros, just to report on fart jokes from across the ocean? Why yes, I did.

Oh, and I forgot to report from the other night, that Sin City was a very watchable movie, especially if you’re the kind of movie fan that likes to see someone’s head get smashed in with a hammer. There was a very funny moment in one of the short pieces where a gang of Irish mercenaries (IRA types) were hired to kill one of the protagonists. As soon as they started speaking with an Irish accent, boos and hisses came up from the crowd. “Shut the f*ck up you f*ck”, I believe, was the most consistent commentary.

I’ve also been reading a bit, I finished Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, which was fun brain candy, and I’m working on an Irish travel essay book, The Last of the Donkey Pilgrims by Kevin O’Hara. Its pretty good. I also bought a copy of Dubliners by James Joyce, which will be next.

Well, sorry to cut this e-mail short but I have to run. I’m getting a massage. Tough life, I know.

P.S. Another language quirk I need to mention - “is it”. That phrase is used whenever you are asking for something, and the person rephrases it in the way that they would like you to ask for it, and then they tack on “is it?” at the end. Like:

Me: I’d like to extend my stay through the weekend.
Hotel Receptionist: You’d like to stay one more day, is it?

I need to work on that for my next job, its a pretty good Jedi Mind Trick.