April 29 Belfast to Dublin

Well I didn't write yesterday or the day before. Not much is going on, Bryce and I started working at Vagabonds, and thus had to move into the staff quarters while Cam stayed in the dorms. The staff rooms are at the very top, about 5 flights of stairs into the attic. The ceiling in our room is incredibly low, I don't know how Ty our fellow employee and roommate has spent three years living here. Bryce and I are also a little hesitant to sleep in the beds after the stories we've been about our fellow employees conquests. The work is easy though, Saturday I vacuumed and Sunday I changed sheets on beds. Free room and board for only an hour or two of work in the morning is a good trade.

We met some people from Vancouver and a trio of friends from Glasgow. Vagabonds is the best hostel for meeting people so far. We started playing sociables as a precursor to the night out, I guess sociables is universally known, the Scots called it ring of death, while our old Aussie roommates Kat and Steph referred to it as kings something? I don't entirely remember. It quickly turned into an awesome game, everyone had their own rules and meanings for each card so I wrote down a bunch. The best part was when the younger girl from Vancouver, after pulling out a number 4 card, proclaimed no one was allowed to speak in their native accent. This became a horrendous mix of culturally insensitive drunk ramblings from a group of 20 something's from all over the western world. Ty arrived home from his shift at the restaurant he works at, and after hearing our brutal accents began to catch up with vodka and coke.

We went back to Laverys but this time to the upper levels. The main floor is a typical sports bar, and during the day the upper levels are a giant pool hall. At night they stash the billiards tables (God knows where) and it turns into a night club. It was filled with beautiful girls and the liquor wasn't too expensive, but I already had 11 beers back at the hostel so I was ok. I left the club early after Bryce and I were separated, he came back to the hostel much later while I was passed out in the attic.

Sunday morning after doing our share of the work everyone went out for Irish Fry, which is traditional Irish breakfast. Consisting of bacon, eggs, sausage, fried tomato, mushrooms, potato and soda bread, and black pudding. Black pudding is blood with spices pressed into a circle. It looks like a small hockey puck, Bryce didn't care for his and Chandra one of the Aussies refused to try it. I loved it. It didn't taste like blood at all, it's not like you stab it and it comes pouring out. It just tasted like sausage to me. We traded stories about the previous night and talked about our future travels. We went back to the hostel, grabbed our shit and said goodbye. It was an awesome experience and Vagabonds has been the best hostel we've stayed at yet. We thought we'd only stay for three days, but after doing 3 pub crawls in a row and drinking for another 2 more nights we extended our stay.

The bus to Dublin was pretty uneventful, rainy and shit. Dublin is much busier than Belfast and seemingly more modern. I'll write more about it tomorrow. Right now my stomach is filled with Apple Pie, Lamb Stew and Guinness and I need to sleep.
Here's some drunken photos.