July 16-Pub Crawl...Sort of

As expected, there were a lot of plans to go out tonight since we'd finished with our papers, but with a large group of people trying to organize, things got pulled together at the last minute, and unfortunately, the final plan was released after Liz and I had left to get dinner in town. To make a long story short, Liz and I ended up doing our own pub crawl. Here's the breakdown:

1) The Salthouse--The last plan we'd heard was to meet at the Salthouse around 7:30 or 8, so Liz and I walked in at around 8 to a practically empty bar. But no worries, our love of the Salthouse stems from a very wide and interesting selection of drinks and board games, so our first stop included games of Timberrr (aka Jenga) and Scrabble, accompanied by banana bread beer for Liz (it actually tastes like banana) and Savana Dry cider for moi (from South Africa, cue the vuvuzelas). After we finished our drinks and determined that our group had probably changed the plan, we headed out for our next stop of the night.

2) Supermac's--The Irish fast food craze. Liz had the munchies, so we stopped briefly for some chips. They were good.

3) The King's Head-- We really just stopped here to see if anyone else was there. It was pretty crowded, since it's a pretty popular pub and it was a Friday night. After a quick look around, we left for a less crowded venue.

4) Hole in the Wall-- Hole in the Wall is always good for a drink or two. We ran into a couple people in our program, but not really anyone we knew very well. We stopped here for a while so Liz could get a drink, but then we pressed onward again.

5) McSwiggan's-- We heard music from McSwiggan's so we stopped in to listen. The band was pretty good; they were playing a bunch of blues songs. We hung out for the music, but then Liz suddenly got the idea to find a karaoke place, so we were on our way again!

6) Some pub in Eyre Square-- No luck finding the karaoke, but we did find a pub in Eyre Square with Irish music. It was a really great pub: not too crowded and plenty of tables. We made friends with a small group of Canadians and even joined in for a few choruses of Irish folk songs. It was all good fun. We even made friends with an older Irishman who was quite a few sheets to the wind. He asked us "Are you enjoying the craic?" We assured him that we were, to which he asked, "You know what the craic is, right?" We assured him again, yes, we know the craic, we love the craic. It was quite an interesting conversation, and by the time he left, we decided that it was time to make the final journey home.