Irish

Adam's one of the quieter and less permanently-drunk Irishmen I've met over the past year. Nevertheless, he's still a right good ambassador of his booze-loving homeland: he can down his buckets all night with the best of 'em. Adam's been in my Open Water course since Friday; although somehow, I managed to avoid meeting him properly until today. Once we met, it didn't take long for us to click — or for the glasses to clink.

After dinner at the Aquario barbeque tonight — when we followed dinner with more than a few drinks — we were joined by a pair of absolutely plastered, absolutely insane Irish chicks. Can't remember their names (perhaps they couldn't, either!), but they were one of the funniest pair of people I've met on this whole trip: they were cracking us up for hours on end! Between extensive slurps of beer, these girls were recounting to us the joys of Ireland, the benefits of not giving a f$#% about anything much, and their love of the chicken dance. Insert raised eyebrow here.

Most of the Irish lads that I've met on my trip have been too unfathomably blind drunk to really make a proper acquaintance with. Tom is one of the exceptions to this, being one of those rare Irish people who's only blind drunk for about half of his waking life. I met Tom on the way to Ilha Grande today, and I hung out with him on the island a fair bit, for most of my time here over the week. A fairly quiet and reserved guy, but good fun to be around nonetheless. And yet another of my fellow round-the-world-ers. G-d bless us.

Ahhh, the Oiyrish — gotta love 'em after the first few beers, gotta be ready to catch 'em after a few more. Ed's no exception: he's just like the rest of his kinfolk. Ed's part of the Patanuk crew for this week, and he's a really fun mix in the collection. Always got a joke or two up his sleeve; always got room for another beverage in that Irish stomach of his; and occasionally got the capacity to get up of a morning, and to go snowboarding. A great ambassador of his fine nation.

Therese is one of the many seldom-sober Irish girls that are staying at Loki. Therese has been here for about a month, she's starting work at the hostel, and she has no immediate plans to leave. Tonight, when we took Therese to Uptown for a big night, she kept going until 6am. The staff had to kick us out of the club, because we were the last ones there. We ended up virtually carrying Therese back to Loki.