"I used to smoke, drink, and dance the hoochie koo"

I can't believe I'm leaving the Emerald Isle tomorrow! Albeit hopefully briefly and not forever.

These days of "working on the road" leave less time for random meanderings than usual, but I still found occasion to work in some fun where I could!

As you do when you find a barber with your same first name, you have to go there to get a fresh cut, right?

Turns out, I can't get the "full irish" look (shaved on the sides, long on top) due to a mole on the side of my head. Good enough, I say!

Also got the straight razor shave-- I can't recommend this and this place highly enough. Not quite as enjoyable as this Dr. Evil-linked video (possibly NSFW), but hot/cold towels, burning aftershave, and being offered beers and other drinks repeatedly made it pretty grand.

Had a pretty unremarkable hamburger for an early lunch, but the ketchup below was quite remarkable.

wtf?

Turns out Ed Sheeran has a deal with Heinz for Ketchup... why this would be popular in Ireland, where some stores feature signs like the below, is beyond me. I was just grateful I didn't miss some secret Irish word for ketchup during my time here.

During the day, it's pretty much modified Jersey Shore for now... Work, Don't Tan, Laundry. I mean, I'll still need clean clothes when I get back.

After work, I had very modest goals for the day-- eat a nice meal and enjoy a Cuban cigar in St. Stephen's Green. I knew this would be a cool place to have a smoke because of all the reviews decrying smokers in it online! Thanks TripAdvisor!

First, I tried to go to Klaw, a tiny hole in the wall seafood joint, but it was too crowded, even by my lonesome. So I went to their other less cool restaurant Seafood Cafe nearby and had a chowder and some poke tacos. Delish!

tuna tacos, cockle and smoked pollock chowdah ftw

After that, it was off to the Cigar Shop, which has a great location right next to the Irish Whiskey Museum... it's like they efficiently planned this for fun activities.

Something unexpected about Ireland is how few tobacco shops there actually are to buy cigars. Vapes, ecigs, etc? No problem. Cigarette machines? Ubiquitous. But if you actually want to buy a cigar-- which as an American trying to get a Cuban cigar before returning home seemed like a good idea-- not so many places.

Anyhow, picked up a "Short Churchill" Romeo y Julieta, and it was off to the park for me.

I wonder how short Churchill actually was. Wait, just googled it, he was under 5'5". An apt cigar!

What's great about St. Stephen's Green is, although it's not wild and forested like many of the places I've been to in Ireland, it does preserve a lovely silence about it, at least on a Wednesday night. What it didn't provide though, was a shelter from the wind... making lighting this thing an ordeal. Practice makes perfect though, and eventually yielded this selfie.

#classyaf

I'm not gonna lie, it's been a minute since my last stogie, and halfway through, I was really feeling it. So I got up and took a walk to the Oscar Wilde statue nearby.

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"up at the stars"

Speaking of mind in the gutter, I will actually not repeat the local nicknames for this statue... but just know that like Molly Malone's moniker of"tart with the cart", there are similar ones for Mr. Wilde.

Something cool nearby the statue is that people just write their favorite Wilde quotes on nearby pillars. My fav there was "I have nothing to declare except my own genius", of course.

After this tiny bit of culture, I was feeling a bit out of it, so retreated to the safety of the apartment for the evening.

Part Deux

Another day, another opportunity to take a quick tour before the work day began!

Despite all logic, I decided to go to the Leprechaun Museum here. Hear me out, I figured it would be Irish, and at least have cool looking things inside!

No, it didn't augur well when I got in the cab and the cabbie gave me the third degree on why I, as a single, 30-something adult male, would want to go there. "Go anywhere else!", he said... "go to the GPO [General Post Office], the National Gallery, anything!". When his phone wasn't working for directions, he even cried "see, even the machine doesn't want to go there!". (Side note: To be fair, his selling of the GPO involved him describing how it was about "all the people who died, you know... niceties like that." Niceties.)

Perhaps I should have heeded his warning, but I was determined and on a time crunch. Here are 5 key takeaways from this museum:

1) Don't go. Maybe if you have kids go. But still, don't.

2) Best part is when the tour guide said "the best part of telling people leprechaun stories is seeing their disappointment when the story is over"

3) Fairies hate dirt. And spit. That's why if you spit on your hand before shaking, like before a deal, it's to ensure the other person isn't a fairy. Not my explanation.

4) Horseshoes are good luck because they repel fairies since they're made of iron. Iron is in human blood, and fairies hate humans.

5) The leprechaun as we know it was invented by Walt Disney. They were actually not cute in the original folklore.

All that being said, here's some pics.

Yes, there's a fake pot of gold. Not pictured here are a fake rainbow and fake large furniture to make you, yourself, feel like a leprecaun like Seamus here.

Rush back, work for the day, then boom! More plans. Bought a ticket to a pub crawl through my apartment place. We went to a few pubs then a club, I met people from all over-- Belgium, Italy, Spain, Brazil and more-- and had a pretty good time. Even cut a rug at the club, as the picture reminds me. I don't remember taking these pictures, but hey, I've got to preserve this for posterity, right?

Look, the nice gentlemen in the background on the right are doing what every other tourist does to that statue, and sadly, that is my best picture by Molly. Successfully winged for the Belgian dude in the middle of that club picture! So... there's that.

After that it was an Uber ride home, which was great, because I had no idea where this Club was. Last day coming up here now, will try and make the most out of it!

Random Things:

-Apparently, Finland has the 2nd most written folklore of any country, according to my tour guide. In her exact words, "Screw Finland!". There were no Finns on the tour.

I don't get the lack of confidence in this place's advertising. Or honestly, why they chose the Sun Bear as their mascot.

-Banshee literally means "faerie woman". They scream when someone's about to die. You know, the name "leprechaun museum" may be a misleading name for something that focused a lot on other folklore.

Not 100% that a chalk sign will convince the LV buyer to atone, but it's a nice try

Moment of Zen: