Guinn€$$

The trip from Bremen to Dublin was extraordinarily unpleasant, as a German passport agent decided to cause trouble over my passport, delaying my departure a full day. There was no valid problem with my passport, and the passport bitch lectured me on how “this is what your country does to people all the time.” This cost me about €150 that I will never get reimbursed due to the mystifying mess of the Bremen reimbursal process. I could go on about it, but most of it is beyond my control. I try to extract one key lesson: earn more money. You cannot avoid such harassment, but you can reduce the economic stress it produces.

Thus I arrived in Dublin around 11 PM, exhausted, poor, annoyed, and thoroughly ill suited to the drinking madness that would surely have ensued had I arrived as planned, a day earlier in early evening. I tried anyway, but the added dagger twist was the fact that Dublin now holds the record as the most expensive city to go out drinking I have yet encountered. I went to Temple Bar and was having a good time until learning that my Guinness cost €5,70. Other bars were similar; the minimum was €4,80. Another reminder to make more money, since again greed trumps tradition. Dubliners, aren’t you supposed to be the ambassadors of your fine and famous black velvet elixir? Don’t you want tourists to go away with positive associations of Guinness? Or do you just want us to go away? What’s wrong with you people? Who the hell would think that a pint of Guinness is worth over eight bucks? Oh, yeah. The Irish.