Dublin: January 3 - 6

This is me, tapping into my miniscule amount of Irish heritage.

Ciara and I arrived in Dublin sometime around 5:30, but it was already starting to get dark when we stepped off the bus from the airport so it was lucky that our hostel was about a five minute walk from the very center of downtown where the bus dropped us off. After the nightmare hostel in London, the Abigail Hostel in Dublin seemed like a dream, despite the fact that we were on the top floor, and the elevator was broken. We checked in and walked into our four person room, only to discover that our two roommates were already asleep... at 6 o'clock. Upon walking in, I could only tell that they were both terrifyingly burly guys, and that the only things on the table were a bunch of chocolate bars and some half-empty bottles of booze. The guys heard us come in, but pretended to still be asleep until we started fumbling around in the dark because we couldn't find the lightswitch - then they gave up the charade and just woke up. When they started talking to each other, we figured out that they were Russian and spoke very little English, so during the rest of the stay, it was an awkward situation where we didn't interact with them hardly at all. The one interaction I had with one of the guys was when I was laying in bed reading "The Audacity of Hope" and one of the guys caught my attention over the top of my bunk bed and held up a book and said "Same book." Sure enough, Barack Obama was on the cover, the only difference between his and mine was that the title on his book was printed in big, golden Russian lettering. That's about as far as that conversation went.

Other than that one run-in, there wasn't much interacting with our mysterious Russian roommates. Turns out that when we walked in, they were just napping before going out, so we had completely conflicting schedules with them, but we didn't get in each others' ways too much.

The color-changing Christmas Tree on O'Connell Street where the bus dropped us off.

The River Liffey, which splits Dublin right down the middle.

We were only in Dublin for three days total, which is a little bit sad considering that Dublin is the one place on this trip that I'd never been before. Our first two days in Dublin sort of blend together, since we didn't do too much other than wander around and try to see a few sights that we had circled on our map. We went shopping downtown but didn't really buy anything. At this point, both Ciara and I were exhausted from traveling, and it was absolutely freezing in Dublin, so must of our time was spent hopping from warm spot to warm spot. On the second day, we wandered around for longer than necessary trying to find Oscar Wilde's birthplace, but apparently we walked right by it and ended up by a house that he lived at for a while, which is probably just as cool. Right across the street from where Oscar Wilde lived, there was a memorial statue built for him, but unfortunately it was inside a fence that was locked by the time we got there. So I stood on my tippy toes and took a horribly blurry picture, and that's as close as I got.

I couldn't resist a picture of the Heineken building...

Our last full day there, we had The Mighty Boosh Live show later on in the day, so we only had a few hours to wander around, but I decided that I desperately needed a haircut, since I'm still afraid to try and describe a non-horrific hairstyle in French. I was going to get my hair cut on Fleet Street in London, just for the irony of it, but we gave up and assumed that it would be too expensive. Turns out, however, that all of the salons in Dublin were pretty pricey too, so there was really no getting around it. We tried a bunch of different salons, and not a whole lot of them took walk-ins because apparently New Years hits the hair-care industry hard, and all the salons were basically empty. The one we finally settled on had only one stylist working that day, and therefore when I showed up early for my appointment, the receptionist made me leave and told me to come back at exactly my appointment time. When I came back 5 minute beforehand, she looked mad at me. I finally did get my haircut, though, and I must say that I am quite satisfied with it - all my damaged hair is gone for good, and I've got my bangs back. But for sure, next time I'm just going to brave a French salon.

Oscar Wilde lived here!

Really cool graffiti we saw when we were thrown out of the salon for being early.

Let's be honest, though. The ONLY reason I really went to Dublin was to see The Mighty Boosh Live. For those of you who aren't aware of the phenomena of The Mighty Boosh, it is a comedy show that is fairly popular in England, but you'd be hard pressed to find people who know of it in the US, unless they're a friend of mine whom I've forced to watch and episode or two with me. Thanks to my dad, I was raised on a healthy comedic diet of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, so The Mighty Boosh is right up my alley. It's completely absurd and creative, like if Monty Python were to time-travel to the present and then take a bunch of hallucinogens and wear amazing costumes.

The show basically revolves around two main characters, Howard and Vince, played by Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. In the first season, they work at a zoo and have crazy adventures, in the second season they live in an apartment with a shaman (Naboo, played by Noel's brother Mike Fielding) and a talking gorilla named Bollo (played by Dave Brown), and then in the third season they work in a store underneath the aforementioned apartment, with the same aforementioned characters. There's also a hilarious American actor, Rich Fulcher, who plays a lot of interesting characters including the zoo manager, Bob Fossil. I actually saw him do standup at the Sasquatch Festival last year, but I wasn't fully acquainted with the awesome power of the Boosh yet, so I didn't handle the occasion with the reverence it deserved. It's been my favorite show for quite a long time now, and I truly think that it will be very fundamental in the shaping of my future humor. But I know that different people have different tastes, so if you want to find out for yourself, I highly recommend watching a few episodes with your own eyes, and see what you think. You can find all the episodes of seasons 1-3 right here. If you decide to journey through time and space to the world of The Mighty Boosh, please get back to me and let me know what you think!

From left to right: Naboo (Mike Fielding), Vince Noir (Noel Fielding), Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) and Bob Fossil (Rich Fulcher).

So, since I'm so clearly obsessed with The Boosh, of course I nearly jumped out of my skin when I found out that they would be doing a tour of the UK when I was so relatively close and not tied down by the obligations of school. It turns out that our travel schedule would make us miss all the tour dates in England itself, but there was a date on the 5th in Dublin that worked out just fine, so I dragged Ciara to Ireland with me to see my heroes on stage. I spent our whole time in Dublin wondering where The Boosh was at and imagining running into them, and anticipating the feats of comedy that I would surely see at the O2 Arena. So you can imagine my surprise when, walking down a random Dublin street the day of the show, I looked up to see none other than Noel and Mike Fielding from the Mighty Boosh walking right towards us. They were accompanied by a man who I could only assume was a bodyguard, based on his terrifying stature. My jaw dropped and I could do nothing but stare and watch them walk by me. As soon as they passed by us, Ciara's head whipped around and she mouthed the words "WAS THAT...?" and I just nodded. Now let me just clarify: if you've never seen The Mighty Boosh, and you didn't get a good enough view from the picture above, here is what Noel Fielding looks like:

This is Noel Fielding. I saw him. In person.

In my opinion, he is gorgeous. Not that his looks even matter when added with the fact that he's a main star in my favorite comedy show, and a brilliant stand-up artist. So needless to say, I was a little bit flabbergasted to be looking him in the face when I least expected it. I stood rooted to the spot and Ciara and I stared at each other until I started yelling "OH MY GOD. WHAT DO I DO?' over and over again. My brain flashed back to the Sasquatch Festival in May when I stood and watched Michael Showalter, another comedic genius, walk past me a few feet away and didn't say anything. I still regret that to this day. So, I decided that I at least needed to try to talk to Noel Fielding or else I would kick myself for the rest of my life. So I started speed walking in pursuit of the illusive Boosh. I could easily see them about 3/4 of a block ahead of me, since Noel was wearing a bright green leather coat, and despite my speediest effort, they were slowly pulling further and further ahead. They seemed to gain relatively little attention from everyone else on the street, I only heard one other girl mutter some recognition as I pushed past her, she said "hey, that was The Mighty Boosh!" and her friends asked "What's a Mighty Boosh?" We kept up our tireless pursuit until the trio disappeared around a corner behind the pillars of some building, but just as Ciara and I approached the corner, out pop Noel, Mike and bodyguard from behind the pillars - they had obviously decided to change direction. I almost ran right into Noel Fielding, and decided it was the time to act. I cleared my throat, and Noel Fielding's ice blue eyes met mine, and we had a conversation. It went like this:

Katina: "Excuse me, are you guys in The Mighty Boosh?"

Noel, Mike & Bodyguard: "No." (all three walk past without a further look in my direction)

Katina: "Yeah, well... we're coming to your show tonight so... good luck!"

I wish I could say that our interaction went differently. I wish I could say that Noel Fielding somehow heard the inflection in how I asked him such an awkward and stupid question and said "My god! You are made to be a comedy prodigy! Come with me, and we shall be best friends, and you shall enjoy a life of stand-up comedy and constant hilarity and riches!" This, however, did not happen. Even my new hair-do did not impress the fashionable funny-man, and I stood on the corner of a random Dublin street feeling extremely shot down, but still somehow exhilarated at the same time. My heart beat fast for a very long time afterwards, and I couldn't think properly.

So, mildly disheartened but still looking forward to the night of comedy ahead, Ciara and I killed a few more hours shopping and drinking hot chocolate before heading to the O2 Arena at an obscenely early hour to wait in the cold for the box office to open. We stood in line admiring the various costumes that some die-hard fans were wearing, and then finally after about an hour waiting in line, we went to the box office, got our tickets and made our way to our seats, just to wait about another hour and a half for the actual show to start. That's how early we were. Our seats were actually very far away from the stage, but I didn't think that it diluted the comedy any, I still had a great time. The two girls sitting directly behind us were unnecessarily drunk and obnoxious, and Ciara was tensed up and reading to murder one of them for kicking the back of her chair. They left a few times, though, and eventually they drank so much that they were too tired to annoy anyone else, so that was pleasant.

This is how far we were from the stage. Hmmm.

Me and my new hair waiting for the show to start. Oh, and Ciara was there too.

AHH! IT'S THEM! Howard is on the left and Vince is on the right. I think my camera got a hernia from zooming so far.

The encore concert included songs like "Nanageddon" and "Charlie"

Going into details about the show would probably be useless, since I have a feeling that it would be tedious for those who don't religiously watch the show. I can say that, as a great fan of The Boosh, I was extremely satisfied. There was a perfect mixture of new material, old material, audience participation, singing, dancing and wonderful costumes. This, added to the perks of a live show, like prop mishaps and slip ups, made the show every bith worth the effort and traveling. And the whole thing was topped off with a crimp medley and a mini-concert of some of the songs from the show. Despite being shunned by the main actor, I left The Mighty Boosh Live with a huge grin on my face, and some lovely merchandise to cherish forever. Now all I have to do is formulate a plan to become rich and famous, and then make Noel Fielding feel bad about shunning me, and then use that guilt to convince him that we should be best friends.


We got back to our hostel pretty late that night to find that both keys (yes, two keys for a four person room) were already up in the room, so we had to hammer on the door to get someone to answer. Since our Russian comrades had left that morning, it was two new guys the last night, and when one guy answered, the lights were all off and he was in his underwear with a headband that had a flashlight attached to his head. The other one was already asleep. Ciara and I had already packed our stuff, so we just got into bed, and the guy with the flashlight on his head kept it on his head the whole night, and then used it to get dressed and leave "discreetly" at about four in the morning. It turns out that the other person left at about 5, so by the time we woke up at about 7, both of our new roommates were already gone. We ate a quick complimentary breakfast before catching our bus back to the airport to start our homeward journey through London and then from London to Nantes.

Our last picture in Dublin, on the bus on the way to the airport. (Blurry, sorry.)

Well, that wraps it up for my trip, folks. Thank you very much for caring enough to read my inane babblings, I really do appreciate it. Feel free to leave comments if you have questions, suggestions or remarks, you don't have to have a blogspot account to do it! Hopefully entries will be more frequent, now that I have this giant block of entries out of my way.

I didn't take many pictures in Dublin, but if you want to see the rest of them anyway, you can see the slideshow if you click here.

Catch ya on the flip side, xoxo