On the Road ... Tour de France

I just earned another travelers badge of courage.

You know, the one you receive for spending the night in an airport/train station. Never heard of it? Well neither had I until my friends and I created these new badges of courage that will, for now on, be awarded to those of the traveling community for accomplishing various tasks. We'll give them out for such things as visiting somewhere that requires a tourist visa, sleeping somewhere that has bed bugs and eating something without really being sure what it is.

But back to my point, we spent our first night in Europe trying to sleep in the Dublin airport. When you consider that we only got about one hour of sleep the night before we left, another two hours or so on the plane ride and managed to squeeze out another hour or so in a park, we are currently working on about five or six hours worth of sleep over the past three days.

Good times, but at least I can count on that merit badge arriving in the mail anytime now.

Here I go again, throwing myself a pity party. I really hope I'm not coming off as some thin-skilled complainer. Really, I'm enjoying myself regardless of the circumstances.

Even though we spent our first day in Europe in a sleep-deprived haze, we made the most out of the 12 or so hours we got to spend in Dublin.

We sat down at Mulligans -- reportedly home of Dublin's best pint of Guinness -- just in time to catch the beginning of the England-Paraguay match, hoping to bear witness to some good ol' fashioned British bashing. As it turned out, though, the surprisingly subdued crowd was a mixture of English fans and oddly indifferent Irishmen. We had been told by our cabdriver most Irish would be rooting for the ABE team -- anyone but England -- since Ireland's team failed to qualify. Maybe it was England's early lead or Paraguay's inability to really pose any kind of challenge, but the only time anyone made much noise was to cheer on England.

The most interesting thing about the game was probably the commercials, one Coke ad in particular. The ad features several sensical, but odd enemies -- a lumberjack and a tree, a cactus and a balloon and a dog and a mailman -- that embrace upon hearing their team score a goal. The kicker, though, is the finale in which a man who is sleeping with his wife, jumps out of bed screaming with joy. It seems a particularly odd commentary until another man -- apparently the wife's lover -- jumps out of the closet prompting the two men to hug. Something tells me we won't be seeing that one in the States anytime soon.

A few other observations on the Irish: I've visited about 10 different European countries and am now convinced that the Irish are easily the most similar to Americans. Just like us, they love bad pop music, they seem to have an affinity for chain stores, their teens are just as rebellious, they seem to have the same questionable taste in clothing and, most importantly, have no problem making fools out of themselves in the name of a bachelor/bachelorette party. That's not to say I didn't like most of the Irish I met. In fact, I found them to be overwhelmingly helpful and genuinely nice. But let's be honest, I was here for 12 hours and had hardly slept. I'm sure I'll be able to report on more of their positive traits once I return to the island in a couple of weeks -- when I'll be better rested.

posted by FreeSanJose at 3:10 PM

On the Road ... Tour de France

Sleepy beginnings

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