Ireland and me: part 2

So on Saturday we went to Super Hot Irish Girlfriend's nephew's First Communion. Until a few weeks ago, I didn't know there was such a thing as a First Communion, but I gather it's kind of a big thing for Catholics, maybe especially Irish Catholics. SO ANYWAY we all go to the church around 11:30 (or "half-eleven," as they say here) and there is an interminable Mass with lots of standing and sitting and kneeling and stuff. But the kids did little readings and sang songs and it was all cute as it could be. They're all about 8 or 9 years old.

So afterwards, there's a little party at a hotel for some of the kids and their parents, who tend generally to be in their mid-20's. The parents, not the kids. Two things initially surprise me about this party: (1) it's a drinking event (again, for the parents, not the kids), and (2) there's a DJ, even though this party is at 2:30 p.m. and, incredibly, the first song the DJ plays is "My Humps," which seems wildly inappropriate for a gathering dedicated to 8-year-olds.

The big rugby match between Munster and Toulouse started while we were at the party. When we got back to town, we went into downtown to meet some friends at a bar. Everyone downtown was wearing Munster gear and was horribly drunk. The bar, Michael Martin's, has a nice little outside area in the alley where it's located and it was packed. I'm not really the big-crowd type, and this crowd was fucking wasted, so I was happy to leave and go back to Sorcha and Phil's house. We had some pizza and beer and just hung out and chatted and that was great.

Yesterday we drove out to Garrykennedy, a little town right on Lough Derg. Beautiful drive through the Irish countryside. Had a huge lunch/dinner here:

I know, how fucking quaint can you get? It was like being in a movie, for real.

Then last night - you guessed it, more drinking. Phil was DJ'ing at the bar, so we had to go there, and then to another bar, and then to a club downstairs where they were playing dance music at jet-taking-off-volumes and people were dancing and I'm not sure what happened after that.

Today's goal: Not drinking.