A Tale of Two Daves

On Saturday, I sallied forth in search of some craic, and found it, albeit in a most surprising shape and form. The night started out with a nice dinner at The Larder, a restaurant on Parliament St. Roasted Barbary Duck followed by a light salad and a glass of wine, and by 9 I was full of beans and ready to hit the town. At 10, I met some friends at the Luas stop by St. Stephen’s Green and we headed out to Dundrum for a house party. I know, who goes out into the sticks on a Saturday night, but sometimes these things have to be done. On the way there, I was repeatedly warned that the people there were artists and bohemian and I should be prepared for anything. However, the party got off to a slow start and there was a lot of mingling with the locals. I met some interesting people, including a guy who went on about how Vancouver was held up as a champion of urbanization but what did I really think of that? I was about to answer when he continued on again. He wandered off and someone else came up to me and said, “Don’t worry, that’s Droning Dave, these artist types really go on forever about anything and everything. What is art? What is not art?”. I chuckled and sipped my drink.

The lights got dim and the ladies started dancing and we got a text about another party a few blocks away. On our way out the door, we were invited to go clubbing at The Globe downtown, but we refused and headed to the other party. We rendezvoused with the host of the other party at the 24-hour Tesco at Dundrum, under the disapproving glare of the security guard, though I’m sure he’s seen a lot worse. We made it to the house party after a few twists and turns through some parks, even meeting an old couple out for a stroll through the park at 2 AM. That’s one huge difference between Dublin and Vancouver. No one in their right mind would enter a park in Vancouver after dark, unless for the most nefarious purposes, and here we had the stereotypical geriatric couple ambling along beatifically.

The other house party started off with a bang, since we were greeted by this:

And this:

Keeping in mind the old nautical adage about women and children going first, we shoved the women in front towards the gaping crack that was visible in the raucous gloom. They looked less than impressed, but we were chivalrous and persisted. It wasn’t quite as bad as it looked. We were in the confines of a typical suburban Dublin house and the inhabitants were just drunk and having a good time. They were musicians too, though seemingly a lot less pretentious than the ones from the house we’d just been in. The guy clad in the boxers, Drunk Dave, was entertaining in what I’ve been told is a typically Irish brand of humour, combining slagging others with intervals of good cheer sprinkled throughout his hour-long monologue. At 3, we called it a night and cabbed home, and another night of meeting the locals ended, this one undoubtedly a success.