Power of Erasmus (and the mind-blowing Dublin)

Crawlin'

On our second day in Dublin we decided to go to the center in the afternoon and stay there as long as possible. After some nice burgers and cafe con leche, we went to the pub crawl which we were looking forward to for days.

This pub crawl is incredible. You pay only 12 euros for a bracelet which you can you use for the rest of the year. It gives you discounts and free shots in four pubs and a free entrance to Coppers club which usually costs 10 euros. It's a pretty good deal. First pub Bad Bob's had this amazing live performance with just a singer and his guitar and I kind of fell in love with his indie ways. The pub was enormous - I think the bathroom was as big as my first apartment. 

Fast-forward to the fourth bar - it was pretty much half empty but we loved it because we could enter the DJ booth and play our own music (reggaeton). We were dancing with other pub crawlers and met some people from all over Europe.

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you

Finally, Coppers. I think this is the most famous club in Dublin, which as I found out later, earned about a quarter million euros in one year only on their coat room. So you can imagine how popular it is. We were there dancing all night until the club got packed with people. There was this unusual thing there; they have a lot of staff members standing around and every time anyone would spill even a drop of drink on the floor, the staff would immediately use a mop to clean it up, which gets kind of weird after some time. Turns out that one time someone sued them for slipping and falling on the floor so now they are very careful about it. 

The four of them left the club while FeeFee and I stayed because we were having one of those epic nights out you know you will remember forever. The DJ started playing Toto by Africa, Wonderwall and Don't stop believing by Journey and I was extremely happy because I never hear these songs outside. Anyway, let's just leave the details to us and move on to:

Adam

 

Our guide's name was Adam. He was this Irish guy who I rate an absolute 10/10. Usually, free tours have the best guides since their earnings depend on how funny and interesting they are. Some of the things Adam told us were just mind-blowing and hilarious and I will mention just a few:

 

Erection in the Intersection

Dublin's center has a statue which looks like a huge needle called Spire of Dublin and its construction cost 4 million euros. Its height reminded me of one of the Lord of the Rings towers. But what my mature mind found most interesting about it were its different hilarious nicknames: The Stiletto in the Ghetto, the Stiffy by the Liffey and the Erection in the Intersection. Imagine going to meet your friends and being like: OK. meet you in 5 minutes at the erection! (I am a 25 year-old woman with a Masters' degree, why is this so funny to me)

Trinity College

The gorgeous Trinity College in Dublin is the most prestigious Irish college. Once upon a time there was this dude George Salmon there who said that women can enter the college and study there only "over his dead body". Sounds like a nice guy. Anyway immediately after he died the College allowed female students to study there which was one of the first colleges in Britain and Ireland to do so.

Salmon also left money in his will for the people to build his statue (so modest). So now there is a statue at the college of him sitting down, and after graduation, women sit on his lap and take pictures with their diplomas. Bless you karma. 

Trinity College

There were also many famous students there in the past - Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, the guy who played King Joffrey in Game of Thrones and many many others including Courtney Love. She actually went there because her biological father lived in Dublin and told her he is a professor. When she arrived she realized he is actually a drug dealer. Her fellow students said that she was an introvert, shy girl. So I guess if you are shy now, don't worry, you can still become a famous singer with a drug problem and marry a  legendary band leader!

 

Molly Malone - my second favorite Malone

Dublin has a statue of Molly Malone who wasn't actually a real person, but a character from their famous song. So now there is a statue of a girl with HUGE BOOBS there and the tour guide told us that for good luck you need to rub them. He actually used the words: "you can go molest the statue for good luck." So you are allowed to climb on the statue, rub some statue boobs and feel lucky. What a wonderful country. 

Everyone touching statue boobs; me - a lady, never does these things; Fauna being like: oh please Molly, my boobs have brought me luck all my life so Imma touch my own

Barack Obama is Irish? 

There is a small village in Ireland called Moneygall where apparently Barack's great-great-great grandfather was from. So in 2011. the Obama's paid a visit to this place. Now the population of Moneygall is like 300 people so you can imagine the size of it. Basically, a crowd awaited and greeted them, they went to visit his relatives' house and later have a drink in the local pub. After that Moneygall decided to make some money out of it so they built a huge banner that says "Moneygall - home of Barack Obama", they made a visitors center of Obama's where they have the glass Michelle was drinking from and built a 7 million euro plaza of Barack Obama which opened in 2014. 

See this is how you do tourism, amazing. 

There were so many other amazing stories on this 2-hour tour so I highly recommend you go there in any city you can.

 

My friend, where are you from, you are so very welcome

Later on, we went to the Irish whiskey museum for 16 euros. We wanted to go to the Guinness and Jameson factories but the tour guide recommended we go here because it's cheaper and you get cool authentic stories. 

There isn't really much to see in the museum. It has only three rooms and all the stuff there seems unauthentic. BUT. The stories this guy told us were epic. There were about 27 of us there so he started the tour with asking EVERYONE where are they from, do they drink whiskey - Irish, American or Scotch. DO NOT say Scotch. If you do you will clearly see the strong disappointment in his eyes as well as a little piece of him dying inside. 

 

Saved by the bell

In the beginning, whiskey contained ethanol and methanol and as we all know methanol can be dangerous (OK I didn't really know this, I used to play Temple run in chemistry class, don't judge me I was more of a languages and math girl). So people were drinking this whiskey, having a good time and suddenly they died. Can't wake them up, not even a move out of them. So, of course, they buried them. Now at that time, there were a lot of grave robbers because people would be buried with gold and precious stuff. When they opened the coffins they saw scratch marks on the lid and they realized they were burying people alive. Because methanol didn't kill them all, it just kind of put them in a 3-day alcohol coma. 

They started burying people and tying ropes to their hands which were connected to a bell placed on the ground outside, so if you were buried and you wake up with the worst hangover of your life in a coffin, you can ring the bell (saved by the bell) and someone would dig you up so you can continue the party. 

Imagine you got drunk and woke up in a coffin and you're like oh fuck, AGAIN? And then you gotta ring a bell and hope someone hears it. He said at some funerals people would just wake up, get out of the coffin and continue drinking with their family. Not dying is a pretty good reason to party. It's also cool because you can  actually see who came to your funeral.

"GUESS, GUESS MY FRIENDS"

Another thing, out of all the whiskeys they produced, why did Ireland decide to sell Jameson worldwide? 

I mean the tour guide built up a lot of expectations and drama over this question but it's a pretty simple answer. Because the bottle is green and it's the color that represents Ireland. Cool. 

Later we tested three kinds of whiskey. All of them were way too strong for me because I'm not a whiskey girl so I gave the rest to Emzie, my Irish, who pretty much drinks it like it's water. 

Power of Erasmus

 

We went home around 1 am at and 4 am me and Fee had to go to the airport for our early flights. I arrived home after 28 hours of not sleeping, so that was a pretty hardcore day.

I had tears in my eyes saying goodbye, not because we won't see each other (because we know we will), but because I will have to wait for some time to get this feeling I had here, same as the one I had on Erasmus.

I'm glad that even after three years we can relive these moments and feelings of being Erasmus students, wild, hungry for traveling, addicted to laughter, in love with the unknown. And I like to believe we are still all of that, minus the student part.

For me, this is what life is all about. When you start adulting and really working you realize this is why you work hard, go through Mondays, routines and all the other not so extraordinary day-to-day stuff. 
So that you can get these perfect moments in a different country, feeling the sun shining, wind blowing or rain pouring, surrounded by people who love you and who you love, carefree, listening to a great song and catching yourself randomly smiling because you feel - this is life. There is no place you would rather be than here. You need nothing, you want nothing, nothing bothers you, you are just purely happy. 

That stillness is rare today. These days we are always waiting for something or thinking about the past and future.

These perfect moments are pure love. Whether you are in love with traveling, your friends, your stupid inside jokes, your holidays, even when you love your job and enjoy it so much that you forget you're working or if you are laying down with your special someone and you want time to stop - it's all the same feeling. All love. Being present and happy, in need of nothing. And it's wonderful to know that I can always find these moments with them, anywhere.

We already started planning the next reunion and even said that when we will be old, married and with kids, we will probably ditch them to reunite for a week because our connection and experience is something only people who went through Erasmus together can understand. 

This is the power of Erasmus - friendships that surpass all restrictions of time and distance and form the magic moments, the highlights of your life - and I will always be grateful for mine.

Until next time 😊

To the Knuuvers fam