Ireland – Dublin & The Worst Fart You’ve Ever Smelt

The windows are loaded with condensation.

Cars pass us every other second.

We know we should have got up ages ago, but right now, we are loving just having a damn good snuggle in bed.

My arm crosses over Bec, and runs up to the underside of her neck, while my other arm lays under her “pillow” (or depending on the time of the day, her pillow is also known as her jumper).

It feels like a Saturday.

The names of days really haven’t applied to us for the last nearly two months, so this is kinda odd how we suddenly feel as though it is a Saturday. Its the kinda day that I would just love to sit on the lounge and watch movies with Bec all day.

But, today, we have to return the van, so we don’t have an option, but to get the day going.

We get un-naked, eat brekky and get going through the Wicklows, to reach Dublin. We decide that we should head to this really old monastery on our way through, since it is kinda on the way, and everything. By this point, Bec is hanging for the toilet.

I’m very much a “I won’t dob, if you just go over in that bush” kinda guy.

Bec is very much a “That’s disgusting” kinda girl.

We arrive at the monastery, and I highlight a few options for places for Bec to pee, with which, she replies, “Billy… This is a monastery and a graveyard. I am not peeing here”
“Fair enough”

I mean, she raises a valid point.

You can’t morally sleep at night having taken a slash on some dude’s resting place. Thats a tad rough. She opts to hold her bladder, I keep driving. We continue through the mountains and decided that we should stop at a spot for a nice photo. Without even knowing it, we photographed Guinness lake. Not because that is where Guinness get their water from, but just because the water is black, like guinness.

At this height, the road actually has snow on it.

Last night, just half an hour back or so, where we parked up, it began snowing too. It was quite cool. Almost every country we have been in, it has snowed. It’s pretty awesome. We follow the path through the mountains, which look kinda similar, but a little barren, like this area in the Scottish highlands that we passed through the other week.

The Irish must love the Wicklows, because there are runners, cyclists and even people who looked like they were out on a group dog excursion. There was like 10-15 owners with dogs, just casually talking them for a walk through the mountains.

I still don’t get it.

We kept moving, and we realised how close we really were to Dublin. It only took us just over an hour to reach Dublin. Thats a bit mental. I think greater Dublin is only around 1m people. I guess, relative size makes it a big city, but still, inner Dublin is only 500k people. Pretty small lil city, but with so much character.

We head to the wicked spot, and struggle to find a car wash.

This involved finding two locations that were out of order, and missing the turn off for the one that wasn’t out of order. We told Jy, the Wicked manager here, that we may be dropping it back really early. It was around 1pm when we dropped it off. Just in case you were wondering, that is not really early.

We jump back on the bus, and head toward the bar where our Couchsurfing hosts are watching Ireland give Italy a good flogging. For the past week, my farts have been absolutely disgustingly hideous, and I mean seriously rank. The sorta thing where you need to get some fresh air immediately.

So get this right, we are on the bus, and I have moved with our bags, to allow this lady in a wheelchair on the bus. I have moved to the area where the second set of doors open. The back of the bus is pretty much fully loaded. My ass it pressed up between the hand rail and the perspex petition.

I can feel this fart coming.

I know it will be bad.

None of them have been loud, and this one was as silent as all it’s predecessors.

I slowly let is seep, I honestly just can’t keep holding these in, and I know we are only 1 or 2 stops away from our get off, so I’ll let it out, let it gather it’s smell, then we will get off and we’ll be good. No more than 30 seconds after I had passed wind, I hear people behind me beginning to ask what that smell was.

As the question keeps being repeated, I hear people’s voices being muffled my what is obviously clothing in front of their mouths. The smell gathers more and more momentum, and I cannot turn around to catch Bec’s eye, because I know I will burst out laughing, and from the sounds of things, these Irish people are gonna give me a flogging if they find out that it was me.

People just keep repeating “I don’t know what that smell is”, “Is that a fart?” and “Where is that coming from”, as it lingers in the carriage slowly choking out the inhabitants of the bus. I begin to snort here and there as I begin to start laughing, but I just kinda tuck my face down into my chest, regain my composure, and stand back tall, only to snort again.

I am about to burst out laughing, and it wont end well.

We get off, and Bec asks me “Was that you?”

I know I don’t have to answer, but I do her the honour anyway, “Ha! Yeah…”

I’m still 12, and I’m ok with it.

By the time we get to the bar, they’re already in the second half of the game, and what we didn’t know is that this bar is one of the best bars to be watching sports, and it is also known as an Aussie bar. Conveniently named, The Woolshed.

We very quickly learn from the bouncer and the manager that there is absolutely no way that we would be able to take our bags up there with us. So, I message Fadwa, our host to let her know that we’re just gonna kick it down here till the game is done. I mean, we can still see, and we have heaters. The only down side is that we are gonna be hanging out with the smokers.

We just have to be selective as to when we should take a deep breath.

I get talking with the bouncer, and turns out that he knows Jy, from Wicked. Super small world… We hang around and Fadwa and Maxim come down to meet us. They seem like pretty nice people. We get the formalities, like “What do you do for work?”, “How long you been in Dublin” etc. out the way and drop our stuff to their place. We get talking with them pretty much about everything hey. She is from Morocco and he is from New Caledonia.

They are a pretty cool couple.

Fadwa is quite full of expression and is animated, while Maxim is more constant with his facial expressions. This makes it hard to read what’s going on, mix this with a few minor language barriers, and the conversation moves a touch slower than I had anticipated. A few minutes in, and we’re good though. I’ll use terms that I don’t even think twice about, like “Arvo”, forgetting that pretty much nobody else uses that term. I then have to clarify, and I should just start speaking proper english again.

He is a software engineer for Havoc, who develop physics engines for games. Pretty much, it just means that when your character bumps something in the game, that whatever it touches, reacts how it is meant to in real life. Pretty hectic. And Fadwa is a procure manager for Vodafone. She pretty much looks after 100 million euro. Pretty massive.

Anyways, they are going to be Couchsurfing for nearly a year, pretty much just to see where they want to move to next.

Pretty much sounds like the best idea on the planet.

They have to head out, so we get the low down from them on the bar situation, and head to see where we wanna tuck in for a few ales. We head to this place called O’Neill’s. This is where Maxim has gone after work for the past 4 years. You walk inside, and you can see why. There are stairs and nooks literally everywhere. Anywhere you look, there is another spot to go and drink. Its actually crazy town.

The place is a labyrinth. Its actually unreal.

It’s such a pain in the ass to navigate, that one of his IT mates made an app, where people could log into the bar and tell everyone else where they were drinking.

Genius.

The atmosphere is amazing. So vastly different to that of the Aussie pubs. Everyone just goes there to make mates. No real concern as to who they hang out with, and no worry as to what they talk about. Its just that everyone wants to be at the bar having a good time, and everyone is having a good time.

We head back home, and the guys are still out, so we just head to bed. Soon enough, Fadwa comes back home, but Maxim, being the lad he is, just decides to stay out a bit later. I’m headed back to sleep, and then the door opens again, and Fadwa comes out to grab a chair. I think nothing of it. Turns out that when Maxim got home Fadwa went to drop the keys down to him, but they got caught on a ledge, so she had to take a chair down to him, so that he could stand on the chair and get the keys from down on the street.

All this is happening at 12am.

These things always make for good stories.

We head to sleep, tucked away in the top floor of the apartment building.

Its a good night.

Come back for the next story,

Billy