Friday, April 21, 2006
Flanagan's and feeling foreign
We found this restaurant on O'Connell street the first night. We had a long and leisurely supper there. We later learned that Flanagan's is mentioned in the book "Patriot Games" by Tom Clancy. At the end of our meal we encountered our first "foreigner" panic when we realized no one knew how to tip in Ireland. We fudged it and ran ;) It turns out that the books recommend 10% so we were very close, if not too generous. After supper we went back to our hotel and back to our rooms. There we learned that Irish television kinda sucks. They're really big on people sitting on couches and talking. And they watch old U.S. movies that sucked. But they did have a channel that was only in the gaelic language, so that was kind of cool.

That night I also discovered another oddity of Ireland (Europe?) They don't have wash cloths. At first I wasn't sure if it was an oversight by the maid, or if they just really don't use them. I thought, what the hell? How do I get my makeup off? How do I scrub my body? I called the front desk and asked about wash cloths.

"What?"

"Wash cloths, you know, what you use to scrub your body?"

"What?"

"Nevermind."

So the next morning I made due with a hand towel. That evening we stopped by a 1 Euro store and I bought a 3-pack of "face flannels." You know...wash cloths.