Drinking Soup in Carlingford

Carlingford Town
Originally uploaded by di_juice.

Hi All,

Spent the weekend in Carlingford which was good times. It was absolutely beautiful, the pics just don't do it justice - kinda like the Green Mountains if they met the sea. As is the way 'round these parts, spent a good deal of time at the pub - but still managed to get outside some and explore. Also went to, "the dogs" (The Dundalk Greyhound track) and my first two bets won! Course, being the, throw caution to the wind type person that I am, I only bet a couple of euros but hey, I won a whole 9 euros... That'll buy me at least one drink in Rip-off Dublin...haha.

Got slagged off all weekend for my American accent by Dominick, Ciaran (Helen's boyfriend) and this guy called, Beefy who hails from the Northernest Northerm Ireland. Was actually pretty funny to hear them, "speak American," or purposefully mispronounce Irish words/places...Don-eagle (Donegal) is awesome... ;) For some reason, they were particularly enamored with, "I have no clue." Who knew that that was particularly American? I had no clue...

Couldn't just lie down and take such abuse ;) so here's a list of my new favorite and strange Irishisms:

"I couldn't drink soup." Translation: I am pathetically unable to hold my liquor and would get pissed (drunk) by drinking my granny's broth... (Dominick said this to me after an afternoon of drinking.)

"Wind yer neck in." American: Get off it, get over yerself, get off yer high-horse...

"It's nine o'clock and not a wee-un washed." Subsititute whatever time you like and it means, the day is passed and we've accomplished "fuck-all" (nothing, not a thing.) Strangely, when Beefy said this, I thought he was saying, not a Wayne washed and couldn't figure out what on earth Wayne had to do with anything... Thought it was maybe some obscure reference to Wayne's world...haha.

"Well, there's fuck-all else to do." Tom's expression of choice when he was eighteen and on holiday with his friends. Translation: Let's get pissed cuz we've already shagged all the sheep in town...;)

Nouns of the Day (Sponsored by the letter S): Spide / Skanger (or Skanger Bird for the female variety) /Steeko / Skiprat: They all mean basically the same thing and refer to the peculiarly Irish/UK phenomenon of young guys in track suits with bum-fluff mustaches and thick regional accents smoking cheap fags (smokes) outside their council house or local Spar. If you live in Dublin yer a Skanger or a Steeko (some reference to the name Steven). If you live in Belfast yer a Spide or a Skiprat. Feel the regional love. Lest, you think I'm being sexist, women can also be skangers etc... but they have to have a lot of back fat hanging out of their pink trackys or maybe a shirt that says, "hot babe," in rhinestones while screaming at full volume at one of several children who are trying to run into traffic.

Example: Yesterday I was in Spar in North Dublin and two dudes came in of the skiprat variety and hassled the eastern euro behind the counter who was clearly new and took a while to pick out the kind of smokes they wanted. Then they tried to tell him that they gave him a €20 when they actually gave him a tenner...

Well, there's yer English lesson for the day...Hope you've learned something. I would give you more definitions but I've been un-pc enough for one day...

On other fronts, you'll be glad to know that I am very well hydrated these days as I've started drinking pints o' water at the pub cuz you know, I couldn't drink soup, like.