Great Day for a Guinness

Happy St Patrick's Day!!!!!

You gotta love the Irish! I do, anyways... fun lot, they are! I am typing on my dissertation proposal, bouncing on my bed along to The Pogues who are hollering "Whiskey in a Jar" and "Token Celtic Drinking Song" from the speakers in a wicked Irish accent. Damn, I wish I could fake an Irish accent - I just love it.
It makes me "homesick" for my pub in Berlin that I used to haunt with Sabrina, my cousin. That place will be bursting out of its seams in about 3 hours. What can I say: stocked with wicked funny Irish Barmen
(hello Terry and Mick! FREEDOM FIGHTERS!!!! MISS YOU GUYS!), filled with mad British and Irish, rivers of Guinness, Kilkenny and Strongbow a-flowing, this place is just one big party.

In the past years, I haven't really been doing much for St Paddy's. When I still lived in cowtown, our gang contemplated catching a RyanAir flight to Dublin and do a pub crawl, but somehow, as most of our projects, that didn't work out.
Last time I went to a SP party (and first time I really experienced it), I was at the Oscar Wilde pub in Berlin with Sabrina. That was in 2000. Holy Cow, that's a long time ago. We got there early cause we knew it was gonna be packed. Early, that is, 5pm... just to get a table, and we were not a minute too early. On the next table sat a bunch of Americans - and they were already drunk as hell. We hung out with them, cause they were quite funny. One of them was John, the token football player. He had had 12 pints of Guinness since 2pm, and he could not talk straight anymore. Another guy I remember was this photographer, I forgot his name. Such a nice chap. I just remember he looked like that 80s actor Keith Gordon (who played Arnie in "Christine") - just with no hair. Hella cute. And not to forget, crazy Scotsman Freddy (who soon after decided to adopt me) and his French chick Chantal who sounded like (and probably was) a chainsmoker and kept telling us, completely unrelated to our conversations, that she loved deserts. You know, after the 6th pint, it is only half as bizarre.
Anyways, the place was so packed, men who were in the front part of the pub could actually not get to the back of it (where the men's loos are) if they had to wee. But it was fantastic.
Very late that night we also met a guy called Dennis... there is another story to that. You want to hear the story? Yes? No?

Well, sod you! I am gonna tell it, cos this is my effin diary!
My mate Adam's b-day is mid-June, and he had a party starting at his place. I remember it was quite a few people for his tiny apartment. I remember Zac and his mates, and that I dragged my sandbox buddy Dave along, who didn't really know anyone but Ad, and he had just met him once before, I think. Well, I'll just copy and paste the original diary entry from then... there you go:

People trickled in by and by, and David liked everyone, and everyone liked David, cos he's so funny. We had punch and all that. Zac gave me some of it, he said the best stuff is at the bottom, as all the fruits are soaked with alcohol.
"Booze fruits!" I said happily, and he laughed. Zac is such a fantastic guy, he is too sweet and nice for words! People like him are gold... and rare enough. We talked a lot that night, he told me of his cat Purrpuss (purpose...because they got her on purpose cos they wanted a cat) and how it once chased his rabbit Patch...we always tell each other childhood stories, and he told me of his trip to Budapest.
It was really hot and humid that night, we were sweating like pigs...always looking for a cool place, which only was the staircase outside, so we escaped there quite often. The street where Adam and Pete live, is a lovely place. Pete's house is my haven. You walk through the front house to the back house, and there is a little courtyard, and Adam's window always seems to be open, with music floating out, or you hear him play guitar and sing...and when you walk up the stairs, his door is open almost all the time... It is such a welcoming, warm place...

It was so nice and cosy, we sat on the couch and talked and were so chilled out...nice music playing, the air coming in from outside was fragrant and like damp silk. "Nightswimming" played at one point, and Zac said how much he connects to it, it reminds him of friends and home and makes him feel all nostalgic, until David complained how depressing it is, and kind of acted a parody of a crying guy playing guitar. Everyone cracked up, and Adam grabbed his guitar and sang for us, a regular concert.

The plan was to go to the Cox Orange bar at Hackescher Markt later, but then Zac suggested that instead, we could go to a party he was invited to by his former roommate. There were about 200 people invited, and even more would come because everyone was going to bring friends.
It was gonna be in two big apartments. We went there, and as we arrived, we could already see people in the street in front of the apartment house, and bottles of beer everywhere, and we went up, and the place was packed!!! I have never seen so many people at a party. The two apartments were on the same floor, opposite of each other, and the doors were left open so you could sort of commute between the two. There were people drunk, people stoned, people snogging, and we didn't know anyone, we felt totally lost and alone there. But then Zac found his friends Caroline and Rachel and Marianne and this Canadian called Scott they had met in Budapest, who had come up to Berlin afterwards.

There was a DJ in each apartment, and music blared, and people danced, and we finally found a more quiet corner with a couch. The air was thick with the sweet incense smell of weed. I remember someone had a video projector running which caused the weirdest light effects in the smoke, and the wall was decorated with posters of James Bond and Trainspotting (the picture where Ewan McGregor dives out of the filthiest toilet in Scotland, his mouth wide open as if he is screaming - I swear to jove that every student flat I had been in in Berlin featured a Trainspotting poster)...all in all it gave the place a very strange atmosphere.

It was too hot to sit on a couch all the time, so Adam and I looked for a cooler place, and found this conservatory kind of balcony that had a couple of windows open, which didn't make it much better, but at least a little bit. On the floor sat a French couple, smoking weed and talking. In the semi-dark corner next to an open window sat a guy all by himself, in deep thought. So we squished in, Konstanze with a bottle of wine, the old boozer ;), and Adam and I with a beer, and the guy looked up at him and asked him for a fag, and they got talking. I sat down at the feet of the guy, and some time later I looked up at him, and I could not help it, he reminded me of someone, he looked so familiar. It drove me nuts, I knew I had met him before, but I didn't want to say anything cos it would have sounded like me hitting on him or so. Adam finally introduced us, and the chap looked at me, and suddenly screamed: "PATTY! The Patty from the Irish pub, St. Patrick's Day!!! You sat next to that crazy American with your cousin! I'm Dennis, remember?"
I fell out of my shoes, of course!!! I have just been so drunk at the time then, that he totally vanished from my mind. I never expected we would ever see him again, and I meet him again at this party!!! How amazing, the world is so small.
Another weird coincidence was that even though David and Zac had never met and Dave normally doesn't hang out in student circles, so had no connection to the lot here - even Dave met people he knew at this party. The whole bloody town seemed to be there!!!

How's that for a coincidence?

What still creeps me out though, is that this was only 5 days before my life completely fell to pieces. I think I still haven't recovered from that shock. I was perfectly happy then. My friends were my family, and I felt secure and comfortable and happy and loved around them. Life was fantastic. But then, literally in a matter of minutes, it shattered. It is that suddenness that sometimes makes me paranoid and fearful... I have not written about it till today.. there is a gap in my diary lasting a month or so, between this and long after my dad's accident. It makes me want to scream when I think about it too much... it gives me flashbacks. Perhaps I am terrified to enjoy life to the fullest... because the beautiful moments could end any second. If you are on a high, coming crashing down hurts like hell. The nightmare is out of sight still, but it is closer than you think... [Oh shut up bitch! >:( ]

Anyways, tonite we're gonna go to the Moon (in the Square, a Wetherspoons pub in B'mouth) and meet a few people. Should be fun. I'll take pictures :D.

Grab a Guinness, mates, and enjoy the day! Happy St Patty's Day (teehee!)
I shall leave you with this:

"Some may say the glass is half empty,
Some may say the glass is half full,
But the Irish will forever say
"Are you gonna drink that?"

Sláinte!