AUSSIFIED PART 2

I left the tropical climes of the Rebel County to grapple with the Arctic Circle that lies within the M50. Dublin has suddenly become so frigid that you can't lick your lips for fear of them fusing together. Turning onto that wind tunnel that is O'Connell street, I felt my groin recoil in terror, and attempt to ingest itself within my body. Not only that, but I felt my nippular area elongate ansd stick out suggestively. In other words, Dublin weather turned me into a woman.
I wormed my way through the throngs of other cold-induced recent post-op transexuals to collect Clara from the Avalon house. We cheekily started having a vodka-flavoured diet cokes in the hostel foyer, and then - like a pair of knackers - took out innocent-looking beverages down towards the Mezz in Temple Bar. Waiting outside to finish our illicit cocktails, a homeless man approached us.
"Sorry mate" I said, giving him a sympathetic fob-off, "we're back-packers (a half-truth), ye know, we haven't a penny ourselves..."
It was then that Clara exclaimed in in loud and proud voice:
"Aw man, I gotta go to the bank!!"
I half expected her to continue with: "... thank you mr. homeless man for reminding me of all my worldly riches, I'm off now to spend all my money on booze! Sucka!"

So began our "Goodbye Kerry" weekend. Sniffety sniff, the expletive-spouting Aussie was departing Cork much to our collective despair. I had missed out on sharing the coach ride up with them, in which I gather there was an incident with one of our companions (who shall be very grateful if she remains nameless), a Pringles box and a full bladder. No more needs to be said there I think.
After The Mezz, we took ourselves onto Whelan's then, in which another onslaught of bevvies were consumed. Clara was so untidy towards the end she very admirably achieved the skill of dancing and sleeping at the same time, a strange sleepwalking boogie Intersparsed with a trip to the loo every five minutes or so. I should've just given her a Pringles box and been done with it.

To the Turk's Head the next night, for more of the same shenanigans, merriment tinged with a slight air of sadness, knowing that very shortly Kezza would be flying away. The fact that we ended in the night in that fine establishment Zaytoons was more than fitting. It has been the rounder of so many good nights.

The next morning, my Dad drove me into the airport. Half panicked, I said "Her flight leaves in half-an-hour", to which he responded that there was a lot of building going on there, and wasn't that a grand garden there, and they've dug a ditch there all along, and wasn't the traffic heavy for this time on a Sunday, and sure would you look at that, a big tree lying across the road well I'll have to go around the long way I s'pose. I responded to his carefully slow Sunday driving with quiet (very quiet) gratitude. He did finally say, "sure, it'd be a pity if you missed her all the same"
No shit Dad.
But all was well, we watched her wiggada wiggida (some sort of traditional Aussie dance) through departutes, moaned and shed some tears.
"F*ck off ya c*nt" I said, and I could see that she was touched.

When the lads all went back down to Cork, I took Clara to see the book of Kells.
"How old is it in relation to the pyramids?" she said, as all historical events must be referenced with the age of the pyramids for Clara. Which is strange, considering she doesn't actually know the age of the pyramids. She read a display which stated: "Peacocks were associated with Christ and the Resurrection, as it was believed that Peacock flesh did not decompose."
"Man," she said, "they musta been pretty dumb, I mean if I saw a dead peacock, I'd say 'hey look, it's decomposing'."
She had a point I guess, but thank God she was never in any of my medieval tutorials, I would've been stumped!
She found the Book of Kells pretty underwhelming actually; mind you they did have the book turned onto one of the few pages of the book without a single illustration. That's Trinity for you. F*ckin c*nts.

I dropped her home then, and feeling a bit peckish, I bought myself a small packet of pringles.
For some reason, they didn't have the same appeal they used to. I suddenly imagined I smelled piss, but that just might have been O'Connell street.