17th March
Ah St Patrick’s day: that one special day of there year, no matter where you are from, you turn Irish. Sales of Guinness rocket, singing along to the Pogues becomes acceptable and the world turns green. The thing that always amazes me about Ireland and the Irish becomes most apparent on St Patrick’s day: The nations ability to infiltrate every corner of the globe with a wealth of crap exports (principally shit Irish chain pubs and crazy hats). Hoedspruit was not to miss out either some one somewhere would end up in one of those Guinness hats and very drunk. That person was to be me, after all why change the habit of a life time
The plan was simple, get to an Irish bar, drink Guinness until blindness set in then challenge a Hippo to a fight.
On arrival I was disappointed to see 2 car loads of English girls just leaving the pub. They had obviously put in the effort to gain an assortment of crazy Guinness hats, badges and other marketing crap too numerous to mention. I got in to a conversation with one of them who was trying to negotiate starting her pick up truck by posting her car keys into her dashboard – If you ask me not a good state to be driving in but this is Africa. I had to admire her audacity, I mean it is not as if the police are likely to pull over a woman swerving down the street sporting a 2 foot high Guinness hat.
“O’ Hagans” did not disappoint. The owner greeted us as we entered, he was already plastered sporting the obligatory Guinness paraphernalia. His drunken appearance was not helped by his bong eye stubbornly fixated on his own nose.
“Welcome!”
“How do we I win those hats?” the three of us said in unison.
“Ah you must drink 5 pints of Guinness” replied the owner.
“5 pints of Guinness please.”
The drinking started in earnest. My memory is a little hazy from there on in, but I’m pleased to report a good 6 hours of drinking in which time we drank the bar dry of Guinness (quite an achievement in an Irish bar on St Patrick’s day I feel) and were reward with several hats and a suitable rewarding collection of crap. Later in the evening the entertainment arrived in the form of 2 South African DJ’s. they both had very impressive tashes and to my horror they proceeded to play shite Afrikaans music. I stumbled over to demand they play some Irish music.
“Great tashes you gentlemen. Do you have an Irish Music?”
“What is Irish Music? Came the response.
“erm how about U2?”
“No”
“The Corrs?”
“No”
“The pogues?”
Nothing but blank moustachioed faces stared back at me.
“So just to clarify. You two get a job DJing in the Only Irish bar for 400 miles, on St Patrick’s day and you have no Irish Music. Hmm. That just about says it all. But Great Moustaches though.”
Thailand gap year | Kenya gap year | Brazil gap year | Tanzania gap year | Mozambique gap year | Ecuador gap year | Namibia gap year | Brazil gap year | Tanzania gap year | Mozambique gap year | Ecuador gap year | Venezuela gap year | | south africa gap year | | australia gap year | | africa gap year | | asia gap year | | Fiji gap year | | New Zealand gap year | fitness holiday | Gap Year Diving
