Swept Under The DRUG

Happy birthday to me! Now that I’m 21, I hope to get into the fine art of cocktail mixing. As such, here is my birthday list, ambitious though it may be:

-Bartending tools: cocktail shaker, jigger, strainer, zester, muddler, etc…

-Hendricks Gin

-Decent vodka (hell it’s most likely to be a mixer, so no need to get fancy)

-Laphroaig

-Drambuie

-Kahlua

-Some kind o’ rum – perhaps Tortuga

-Bailey’s (or an off-brand substitute)

-anything else you fine adults deem necessary in a good collection of liquors/liqueurs – I’d go into more depth, but I left my bartending book in Ann Arbor!

Ahem. Back to the previously scheduled travel blog.

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On the day I left Ireland, I lent my favorite hoodie to a speed freak.

Wait, let me start over.

So on Saturday, there I was, on Inisheer. On my way over, I’d bought a “return” ticket, but the fella selling the tickets said to just call in the morning to find out what time the ferries would run. I was under the impression that the ferries ran every hour or so, and I wanted to leave sometime around lunchtime to catch a 12:45 bus to the Shannon airport. I woke up around 9:30 and called after getting dressed – no answer. After packing up my stuff and checking out of the hostel, I went to the island’s one proper hotel and asked if anyone knew the ferry times for my company. I was informed that the early ferry had come and gone around 9, and the midday ferry wasn’t until 2:15 that afternoon. Well shoot.

In the hotel lobby, a quartet of Irish folks overheard my troubles. They were as follows: Joel, a scrawny mid-30s guy; Sarah, a modestly attractive mid-30s girl; Richard, a very strong-looking mid-40s guy; and James, a jovial late-50s-early-60s guy. Almost immediately upon our meeting, Sarah asked if I had a hoodie she could borrow (on account of that being the day the good weather broke) and I lent her my trusty Dude and Catastrophe sweatshirt, for which she was very grateful. Turns out they were waiting for the same ferry and, since there wasn’t anything else to do on the island, they were waiting for the hotel’s pub to open at 11 AM so they could get, and I quote, “absolutely fuckin’ hammered”. They invited me to join them – Joel offered a pint for me – and who am I to turn down a stranger’s generosity?

I didn’t take too much part in the communal conversations, really, since they were an already-established group of friends. Mostly I just watched and enjoyed and laughed, and they had no problem with that. Every once in a while, they’d split up and go out for a smoke or in to the toilet or something. For whatever reason, this left me alone most frequently with Joel. On the first such occasion, he informed me that he was a drug dealer. Surprised, I asked what kind of drug dealer he was. “Oh, speed, heroin, coke, whatever. Why, you want some?” I turned down his offer, providing the (quite reasonable) excuse that I would be getting on a plane in several hours and it would probably be a bad idea. He seemed to agree in principle, but commented that takeoff on speed would be “probably fuckin’ unbelievable”. As the morning wore on, I learned that all four of them were hardcore drug users – that is not to say that their use of drugs was hardcore, because they were all clearly quite pleasant, functional, non-junkies; rather, that the drugs they chose to use were on the hardcore side, as opposed to, for instance, weed. I saw a baggie of white powder (presumably coke) change hands surreptitiously between Joel and Sarah, and in fact about half of each person’s trips to the toilet were centered around doing more drugs. I’m not one hundred percent certain what drugs were being used, because at one point Sarah emerged from the lavatory with a tiny twisted-up packet of toilet paper and downed it like a pill, and I’ve never heard of that particular method for any drugs that I’m familiar with. Still, the point is – these folks were flying by the time the ferry came. And even with the very rough waves, they had a blast.

Anyway, after getting my hoodie back and bidding the drug-users adieu, I moseyed to the Doolin bus station to find out that the only remaining bus to Shannon was leaving at 5:45. It was said to be a two-and-a-quarter-hour bus ride. And I had a 7:50 flight. It was looking extremely tight. I ended up going back to my Doolin hostel, where the ever-helpful Cal was happy to give me advice: take the bus to Ennis, which would arrive around 7:15, and then high-tail it to the airport with a cab. He said that I “should make it.” Awesome!

Anyway, it cost me a €30 cab ride, but I did make it in time! Actually I walked up to the baggage check desk quite literally seconds before they were closing up for my flight. The specially-marked bag signifying “last luggage for this flight” was in the girl’s hands and about to go onto the conveyor belt when I ran up to her. Man was I lucky. But that was how it was; I got onto the RyanAir flight to London, which wasn’t nearly as bad as I was preparing myself for, arrived at my hostel to find out there had been an error with my booking and there were no free rooms, and got a free ride to the other hostel owned by the same people ten minutes down the street. And then I was in London!

More on that later. 'Til next time!