There is a Donegall Rd, Place, Park, Sq. Street, and a couple others in Belfast

All of these streets named Donegall, completely different sections of the city. I was staying at a hostel on Donegall Rd. Not to be confused with the 15 others. Needless to say, it took me a little while to actually find the place. Hungover still. Yet another reason to NOT drink a lot before traveling when by yourself. Has is stopped me, of course not.

Went to Katy Daly's Pub in Belfast (had to ya know). Also, my swear off of beer lasted about 10 hours (which was how long it took me to get to another pub). It was a really cool place, met some locals, made the mistake of calling them Irish (they corrected me at once... BRITISH, right.. and its a funny thing, I met an englishman the next day and at least he considers all Irish people (northern or republican) Irish.. haha) but other than that, I really liked Belfast. Traveled to the Giants Causeway, which is a geologist's wet drea,m, then to Derry (which is about 80% Catholic in Northern Ireland and the site of Bloody Sunday) There was still a lot of tension in the air even though there is "peace". Some asshole kids were shooting off some fire crackers and basically a whole crowd of people jumped 10 feet in the air. It was pretty intense. Derry was a cool city though. (also I hear they have one hell of a Halloween party, must make a note to hit that up sometime)

And without further adoo the rest of my week in Ireland: Sligo: abby, Galway: beer, pubs, fiddles and flutey things, too much fried food, made the mistake of ordering a sandwich with about a gallon of mayo- almost puked, connemara ponies, sheep, cottages, more sheep, stopped to let the sheep cross the road, umm cows,

sheep, sheep, sheep, beer, castles, beer, sheep, did you know ireland has a fjord?, sheep, beer,beer beer (at this point it has replaced food because the Guinness agrees more with my system than the fried pub food does... it is also probably more nutritious),

This was the greatest monument I've ever seen: The plaque reads "On this site in 1897, Nothing Happened"

Cork: Kabobs are popular here, rain , rain rain rain rain.... at least no sheep, kissed the blarney stone (only because it was raining and therefore somewhat clean) I LOVE castles by the way. umm beer, beer, pubfood, darts (the real metal tipped kind!) more rain.

**I should make a note that the grounds around Blarney Castle reminded me of something out of a Disney World attraction, there were crazy looking trees, things you could climb on and explore, signs marking everything important, humungous leafy plant things the size of myself and streams running through. I seriously thought I was in the cartoon Sherwood Forrest and a cartoon fox was going to come jump out of the bushes at me (not that I would mind, Robin hood was one good looking fox). Also, when I was leaving...there was a FOX in the door to the men's toilet (speaking of toilets...advertisments for space to rent signs are marked "to let"... and I always think it says toilet at first glance) anyways... a fox man, stuck in the mens room, just like Robinhood... coincedence? I think not.

Never take a 4 hour bus ride hung over.

the reason for this is...
1) once the stomach can handle it, you will need to rehydrate, and you will have to pee while riding the bus. buses in ireland don't have bathrooms on them... so after sitting in pain for like 20 minutes the bus stops off at some town bus station for around 10 minutes and I jet off, spend 5 of those minutes looking for the bathroom, pee as fast as possible and run back to the bus only to see it starting to pull out of the parking spot, bang on the door, and the nice man lets me on. That was a close one.
2) your head is usually foggy when hung over (and in my case, I was spacier than usual) I had a small bag with me on the bus, and my larger bag stored under the bus. I got off the bus in Belfast, happy to be off the bus and in desperate need of an ATM, so I go in search of the ATM. I get to the street outside the station and realize that my pack is awful light. Yup, left the bigger one in the storage under the bus. RUN, no SPRINT back to the bus, still there, just closing the baggage doors, the nice bus man sees me and opens them again, I grab my bag. This bus driver must think I'm a complete idiot. two close calls in one day, I seriously should have played the lotto with that luck.

Lessons learned from Dublin

Note to self. Pubs are dangerous. Drinking 9+ pints of Guinness in one day and only 500ml (that's 1/2 litre)... only 1/2 litre of water to accompany those pints is NOT a good idea. The moral here, drink water in proportion to beer. I know better than this. Frankly I'm disapointed in myself, I feel like that 15 year old who got drunk for the first time and swears they are never drinking again. I give my beer boycott a few hours at most.

When drunk in Ireland, while talking to Irish people, I totally picked up an irish accent, and some fantastic Irish slang (and I really wish I could remember some of it) it will probably come to me when I stop being hungover. Moral of the story, pints of Guinness help you blend in with the locals, in fantastic local pubs. It think it is kind of like I am better at speaking spanish and italian when under the influence also, which I think I was speaking spanish last night for some reason. hmm...

Make sure you raise your hand really quickly to volunteer to participate in the Taste comparison at the Jameson Distillery tour. You will not be disapointed. You get a shot of Jameson, a shot of Paddy's Whiskey, a shot of Powers Gold 500 Whiskey (both of which are popular in the land of Eire) and then to compare, a shot of Johnny Walker Red, and a shot of Jack Daniels. Once you finish those you then get a glass of Jameson in the tasting room. I volunteered for this, along with a British girl, a Canadian guy and a British guy. Irish Whiskey is by far the best. They certianly know how to make tasty booze here. Also, a real Irish Coffee= phoenomenal! Moral of the story, I went toe to toe with 2 brits and a canadian throwing back whiskey and survived, my liver and kidneys hate Dublin.
Moral of the story no. 2: its the real pure cream that makes it good.

liquor store, liquor store, 24 hr mart, babershop, gay bar... gay bar? I think we should turn around.

I am a girl. I have boobs. Being hit on by creepy old men in bars is just something you have to take as being a part of being a girl with boobs. It happens. So what happens when you go to a Gay bar with two very straight, cute boys... and me? You get, ha ha, now you know how I feel guys. or.....

Adventures of straight boys in a gay bar
(Everybody Loves Raymond)

This past Friday; Ron, Derek and took a road trip up to Albany to see The Strokes concert (which was AWESOME by the way... and it is actually kind of sad that this night will never be remembered as the awesome Strokes concert, but as the night of Derek's " the Bad Touch" in a gay bar.)

So we get out of the Concert, walk back to my car, try to call this kid Zogby who we are friends with who live in Albany, but he doesn't answer. We decide to check out the bars around the area where the concert was. It wa G-H-E-T-T-O. We keep walkin down the street and after we pass like 4 liquor stores, a barber shop, a couple 24hr markets packed with people at midnight, a couple hair salons and what looks like a townie bar with a bunch of guys standing outside smoking and shit. We turn around and run right into this bunch of dudes. Raymond, the owner or bartender or whoever was like, hey you all should come in and have a drink, C'mon it's on me, just tell them Raymond sent you in... 3...2...1... OH CRAP, its a gay bar!

The boys both look at me (probably because they wanted me to make the decision, so a) they wouldn't seem like they wanted to go into a gay bar, or b) if something went wrong, they could blame me. ) I say, its up to you boys, I'm cool with it.

"Ok, well, what's one free beer." Oh, Famous last words.

Raymond tells us to go on in to the bar and say that Raymond sent us. (and "not to worry honey"... to me... "the bartender is straight at shirtless" =sweet!... by the way he sprayed water on his half naked chest for me... it was nice)

We go into the bar, immediately Ronnie notices the naked cherub boy holding his nuts statue in back, we get our beers, I flirt with the bar tender and a creepy, dirty old man starts flirting with Derek and Ron. He says to the boys: How about I suck your c*ck, I bet i could suck it better than she can (motions toward me) Ron flat out tells the guy no, no way, I'm straight. Derek makes the mistake of trying to break this guy's balls back... which of course the creepy guy takes as flirting. (now this guy was a dirty old man, gay or straight, he was creepy, in any other bar, he would have been hitting on me.. I should make it clear that I have nothing against gay men... i have a lot against dirty old men, regardless of their sexual orientation).

Derek finishes he beer really fast and wants to leave. Ron and I (assholes that we are, are taking our sweet time). Finally we all finish our beer, Ron and I go to say goodbye to Raymond and thank him for the drinks (which is implied that Derek comes with us, however he is cut off by another creepy dirty old man). We go to say thanks to Raymond, but he is doing a shot of tequilla (during the song teqilla) so we have to wait until the tequillaness is done.

Ron and I say our goodbyes to 'Everybody Loves Raymond' who was very understanding when we told him we were sorry to leave but had to go rescue our friend from the creepy guy. We did run into Marilyn on the way out...who was a drag queen with a much nicer rack than me. I was a little jealous, no lies.

Outside the bar, halfway down the street Ron and I are laughing so hard the locals hanging out on the street are giving us weird looks, and Derek is walking about 10 ft behind head down, muttering, When I stop being creeped out, I'm gonna punch you both in the head. we're all so nice to each other.

Poor Derek. His manhood took a serious blow. And he still has not heard the end of it... ahahahaha!

(the italics wont turn off...please mind the annoyance)