Chapter 18: Guiness Times, Good Times

I awoke at 9:15 and went to shower, to discover that the hot water wasn't working and was forced to take a very unsatisfying cold shower. I went down to breakfast and ate amongst James, Ben and Fabio (yes, his real name) - another Italian. I made plans to meet with Fabio at 1pm at the hostel and went off to wander the city. As the James Joyce center was closed, along with the Bad Art gallery, I headed up to the Guiness Storehouse. The tour was interesting, and took us step by step through the history and brewing process of Guiness beer in Ireland - which included tasting a sample of the dried barley that goes into the beer. Up the many flights of stairs lay the advertising centre (containing all the old and new avertising material for Guiness), the tasting lab and finally the "Pour Your Own Guiness" table. I poured my own perfect stout and recieved a certificate to the effect. I sat at the nearby bar and drank my beer next to an American from Illinois and a Canadian from Newfoundland. We chatted briefly about why we were in Dubline and what we were doing in our lives before I came to a brief pause, "Now I think of it," I said, "I didn't eat anything except for pints of Guiness and an Irish stew yesterday." And I laughed.
"That's very Irish of you." She, the Canadian, said.
"Well, when in Rome...or...Dublin...: I said, smiling and raised my glass. I soon left them and went to the shop and got some tourist goods and began the trip home when I checked my watch - I was very late. After getting a little lost in downtown, I finally made it back to the hostel and Fabio was nowhere to be found. I waited and decided to get some eats and then returned and sat in the kitchen hall. I figured I wouldn't go out this afternoon and just kill some time until 7pm when I would go on the literary Pub Crawl of Dublin.
Decided not to hit the pub crawl and ended up drinking in the basement with French people - William and his siste Anne-Celine.
We soon left and hit the town at a pub called Sin-E where they were serving 3 Euro pints of Guiness. We sat at a small wooden table by candle light and chatted as the old school funk, blues, jazz and soul music got louder. In the empty dancebloor a girl - blonde wearing a blue dress and excessive neck jewellery - began dancing on her own, "Reckon I should go dance with her?" I asked, "I feel like dancing."
"You got nothing to lose." William said. So I walked over to her, "May I have this dance?" I asked.
"You may!" she said, extending her hand and I took it and we danced random improvised foot-tapping twirling side-stepping crazy dances to the music. She was one of those girls who spasms and moves all herself to the music crazily. Turns out she was from the Czech Republic and her friends are celebrating a wedding downstairs and her boyfriend doesn't dance, "My girlfriend does," I said, "I wish she was here." and she smiled, "That's sweet." When the music finished, the girl went to go join her friends again, "Thank you for the dance," she said, "You're the best improviser I've ever danced with, it was great!"
"It was my pleasure." and I sat back down. Pretty soon the whole floor erupted into dance as popular, classic songs like "Play that Funky Music White Boy" and "Hit the Road Jack" began to play and I hit the dancefloor again, dancing with anyone, from anywhere, male or female.
At around 1am I was tired and I decided to head back to the hostel.
Now I think about it, Anna used to say that a dance wasn't always sexual, and I thought I knew what she meant when I danced with that girl. Retrospectively, it was sexual and that's when I should've picked that something was wrong.
I fell into bed around 1:30am.

- from the Journal 28th December, 2008