Why I love Irish People, the sequel

After work on Sunday we were sitting having a pint, when an Irish couple we’d served during the day came back in. They bought us a pint, and then another one, and then invited us out for dinner. We declined on the meal, but suggested we keep drinking at the pub around the corner.

When we asked where they were from, Emma drew a circle on a piece of paper.

“This is Ireland, and this”, she said, drawing a dot in the middle, “is where we live.”

“It looks like a boob,” Jase deftly observed.

“That’s right,” she replied, “We’re the nipple of Ireland.”

A few more pints later, Emma and Monty were insisting that we stay with them forever.

“Seriously,” she said, “you have to come stay in Ireland. I’ll give you a place to stay for like a few days or five years. And I’ll drive you any where in the country you want to go, any time.”

Done and done.

Berlin, Berlin, Berlin

I do love Berlin. I maybe wouldn’t love it quite as much if it weren’t home of Andrea The Fabulous, who speaks German and enthusiastically takes us to all the best bits, but still.

(The two circles under the bridge have flourescent lights in them, in the shape of Rock Paper Scissors hands. The bridge seperates East and West Berlin, and when it gets dark the two sides Rock Paper Scissors all night long).

I’m big on walking tours in Europe, but Jenny and I had successfully missed most of the ones we wanted to take, including one in Dublin because I led us in exactly the wrong direction. Jenny kept missing the Edinburgh one as well, I think because of sleep.

In Berlin we managed to get to the starting place for the Red Berlin tour in time, and were shown Cold War era bits of the city, like former Stasi interrogation centres that are now government offices…

and a section of the “Death Strip” that’s been preserved:

The Death Strip was a open section between the two bits of The Wall – if you managed to get over the wall you had to contend with armed guards and land mines and barbed wire before you got to the other side.

The East Side Gallery, a section of the wall that was perserved and covered in art, is being redone by the original artists for the 20th anniversary of the wall falling. I got to see it a year ago on my first trip, but much of it was white washed over when we got there this time.

We spent much time taking pictures of Guinness in Ireland (it’s pretty, admit it), but felt German beer deserved the same treatment. We sat at a floating pub on a river, watching an amusing duck for at least part of one sunny afternoon.

I do love that city.