Made in Eastern Europe

[trinityofone]

In the last three days, I've:

1) Drunk absinthe;
2) Watched Boa vs. Python;
and 3) Gotten violently ill.

Not in that order. *g*

What happened was this: Friday I woke up with positively the worst case of food poisoning I--or, I am still somewhat convinced, anyone has ever had. I had to cancel my plans with jarsy, and spent the entire day unable to get out of bed except for when I was dragging my sorry self to the bathroom. What a perfect farewell gift from 2005! Finally, a little after 10 p.m. I made one last stumble across the room to turn out the light, then collapsed back into my bed and slept for over 12 hours.

I woke up feeling, if not Magically All Better, then much less likely to pass out when I tried to take a shower, which was one of Friday's more entertaining interludes. When jarsy texted me to make sure I wasn't dead before inviting my reanimated corpse to a New Year's party with her, I decided I was well enough to go based on the fact that I was really, really bored. I got the DART out to Glenageary and met up with jarsy, who fed me yummy Malaysian food--the first thing I'd been able to keep down in almost two days. Then we watched part of The African Queen (a McKay/Sheppard fic absolutely needs to be written with the line, "I pronounce you husband and husband. Proceed with the execution"), raided her parents' liquor cabinet, and walked down to Dun Laoghaire for the party.


jarsy raiding her parents' liquor cabinet.

At this party, there were lots of people I didn't know:


They all looked cooler and moodier when I took the flash off.


There was also lots of food, as jarsy was kind enough to point out.



jarsy demonstrates her love for the food, and, in fact, the entire kitchen table.

Early in the evening, Andie saw fit to protect herself...

...by applying Care Bears Band-Aids to her nipples.

Emma and Liam were (I think) two of our hosts.

Here they demonstrate the dangers of having an evil hand.


A still life: gift bag, plant, lava lamp, Coke bottle. I am an artisté!

And look! It's my...

...knees. Pervs. (This joke is much funnier after you've had a few. Trust me.)

Luckily, there were plenty of other things to keep my eyes occupied:


Pretty gay girls!


Pretty gay boys!


Andie's true love was her blender.


jarsy salutes it! Well, she's saluting something.

At some point in the evening, I stole jarsy's jumper.


Andie and I say, "Gay porn owns us!"


jarsy and I say, "Aliens made them do it!" (You think I'm kidding? We were really saying these things. jarsy, tell 'em!)

Less than three minutes to midnight!

Forget Dick Clark; we got a Scottish anchor in a kilt!

After the fireworks at the London Eye and a raucous round of Auld Lang Syne right in our own living room, it was time to meet...

...the Green Fairy!


We poured different-sized shots into this spinny thing; only FATE could decide if you got a big shot or a little one. (Mine was medium-sized.)


The guy on the right is the one who smuggled in the absinthe in a cognac bottle. Supposedly, it hailed from the Czech Republic. (Zelenka squee!) I think our benefactor's name was something like Pentergrass; I miss-heard it as Pederast. (By the way, the red eyes are not a photographic glitch--that is the Green Fairy at work!)


Pederast: Hm, how does it go again? Wine before beer, you'll feel a bit queer; beer before absinthe, you...I can never remember!


Action shot!

So I, too, knocked mine back. And actually...well, it tasted like ass, but it really didn't do much for me. Maybe you actually have to prepare it properly, as opposed to smuggling it into a New Year's party in a cognac bottle and then doing spinner shots, or maybe I was already too wasted on food poisoning, wine, and Andie's blender babies, but I didn't get noticeably drunker, I didn't see Kylie Minogue slapping her ass, and I didn't randomly sleep with some guy, get tuberculosis, and waste away in a Parisian garret. (I'd already done that Friday.) Instead I stumbled home with jarsy--pausing to randomly embrace a drunken man who claimed to be from Cork but sounded like he was from Bulgaria and looked like Viktor Krum to boot--changed into my new flannel PJs and cuddled up in jarsy's guest room, where we made it our mission to watch 'Aurora' drunk. This proved to be remarkably like watching 'Aurora' sober: it's crack no matter what your blood-alcohol level. I was more than usually fascinated by John's hair, however.

The next morning, we summarily flipped off the entire concept New Year's resolutions by lounging around in our pajamas for hours. We watched the copy of Where the Heart Is that I had on my computer and cooed at David Hewlett in all his blond, babyish, bewinged glory; then jarsy finally got to see 'The Tower,' and our cooing turned to mockage. Eventually we decided we needed some fresh air, so we walked over to Dalkey, which is an adorable little town with a good bookstore and a nice, big pub. (If they built a movie theater, I could just about live there.)

I took some pictures of Coliemore Harbour:








This is one of the Martello Towers, which were built between 1805 and 1812 to ward off a potential invasion by Napoleon. Joyce Tower in Sandycove, the tower at the opening of Ulysses, was one of these fortifications.


I love the combination of palm trees, we-wish-we-were-Mediterranean-villas, and lobster traps.




I think this little inlet is really pretty.


So's jarsy.

Once we had proved that we were Good People, At One With Nature, we went back to jarsy's house and ate some cheese. jarsy's mom was making liver, so I tried some. I can now say with certainty what I once only assumed: liver is disgusting. Then it was back to the guest room for several more episodes of SGA. We watched 'Duet' and 'Grace Under Pressure'--a hell of a one-two punch, that. Then we decided that we needed some variety, so we walked over to jarsy's local DVD rental shop. We were browsing and--I swear to God--looking for a nice screwball comedy like The Awful Truth when, lo and behold, what did my little eye spy? Yes, indeed: Boa vs. Python! jarsy was almost too embarrassed to rent it, but how could she--or any sane person--resist such a blatant show of fate, not to mention the lure of teh Hewlett? So out we waltzed, meeting the delivery man on the way and thus arming ourselves with curry as we prepared to watch the fakest snakes ever poorly animated.

I have nothing new to say about this movie. It's really, really bad. I'm so glad I watched it with jarsy and not alone, because I had her to stop me from falling face-first into my naan when there were lines of exposition like, "I would think someone would have to have pretty serious personal reasons for investing their lives in snakes," or whatever the fuck it was. Also, without jarsy there to um, encourage me, I never would have rewound to see if Hewlett was really wearing a leather body suit in that last scene. (I think it was actually rubber or latex. A wet suit? Seriously, WTF?) Also, I'm pretty sure the movie was shot in Bulgaria. *blames YOU, intoxicated, oddly-accented man*

ETA: Look! I'm not making it up!

Eventually, I had to bid jarsy and the House of Hewlett Worship goodbye. I took the bus back into central Dublin, reading The Thorn Birds on the way. This was the last paragraph I read before I got off:

Naked, Father Ralph stepped off the veranda to stand on the barbed lawn with his arms raised above his head, eyes closed; he let the rain pour over him in warm, probing, spearing runnels, an exquisite sensation on bare skin. It was very dark. But he was still flaccid.

Er, the bus. Before I got off the bus. *eg*

Anyway, it's been a pretty good resurrection so far. Happy New Year, all!

Comments

[whiskeypants.livejournal.com]

the next time you try absinthe, get the good stuff, prepare it correctly, and then give it a taste. it's very different.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Best NYE post ever. I really enjoyed it, especially the pictures. I would say it's because you and your friends are so cute, but the truth is that I have a weakness for old forts.

[slodwick.livejournal.com]

Oh, GOD. BvP is HORRIBLE. I couldn't... I couldn't even watch it. I did all my squealing in fast-forward, with only one lengthy pause for wet!Hewlett, but wow. WOW. So, so, so bad.

[leech.livejournal.com]

http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/absinthe.html

[airinshaw.livejournal.com]

Absinthe is gross. And disgusting. But that may be because I'm not a fan of aniseed. Makes me gip. But on the other hand absinthe is a little like tequila in that one drink passes you by but more makes your knees break.

BTW - I don't know if you remember a LJ conv that also involved Bunny a wee while ago where a suggestion of a fic came up that I said I'd write? About John being left? I didn't steal the title but I did write something and just wanted to check if you were going to write something similar. If so then I'll not post mine, or not for a while at least, because to be fair the idea was yours! Email me at airin_uk(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk maybe and let me know? Muchos gracias!

Andie's True Love

[(Anonymous)]

I completely resent the fact that you have stated that my True Love was my blender. That is a pretty strong statement to make, and completely false. For future reference, please note that I have only ONE TRUE LOVE and that is VODKA!!! -Andie xxx

[aurora]

Absinthe! I still have to try it. We have an absinthe bar here in Antwerp, but I haven't dragged my ass there yet. :D It has a pretty colour, though.

Your party looks so cool. Me and my friends hit the Irish Pub for the New Year and stumbled upon lots of drunk/stoned Irish and Dutch blokes. Good times!

Also, this --pausing to randomly embrace a drunken man who claimed to be from Cork but sounded like he was from Bulgaria and looked like Viktor Krum to boot-- and this Also, I'm pretty sure the movie was shot in Bulgaria cracks me up beyond words, since I'm from Bulgaria myself. =))

And I can't bring myself to watch Boa vs. Python due the fact that snakes scare me to death. Not even DH can help me there.

xxx

[dizzyditz.livejournal.com]

Yay for pictures and New Year's fun!

By the way, absinthe always tastes like ass: I think it is a rule.

[wychwood]

Wow, that sounds bad. I'm glad your food-poisoning escapades are over! And you should think of it as research for future fics in which John and/or Rodney pass out in the shower. The New Year party sounds fun, though.

And yay fandom! Watching dreadful films is no fun without people to heckle with. I need more local fans. The only one I've converted so far is good fun, but totally fails to appreciate the glory which is David Hewlett, so we can only bond over Joe Flanigan's bad films.

Andrew Marr! Heh. During the General Election, the BBC website had a competition and one of the prizes was a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Andrew Marr. I have no idea what you could use it for, but still.

Also, speaking of really bad films, I can't help feeling that you will appreciate this piece of, uh, cinema. I haven't seen it, but the synopsis on the first site is just crying out to be used as a fic summary at some point. Go on, you know it's true. This is what happens when you spend too much time Googling things like "John and Rodney" ;)

[randomeliza.livejournal.com]

Okay, that's just strange. I also rang in the new year by getting food poisoning (or something that made my stomach hurt like hell) and spent the end of 2005/beginning of 2006 in the emergency room getting intubated and drugged up with painkillers and de-nauseafiers. I'm hoping that this is not an omen for the new year and instead a point from which all things will be better.

But it looks like the party was fun! And I dig jarsy's hair. Oh, how I wish I had the guts to cut mine off and dye it a cool colour, but alas I do not. Also, that absinthe is really, really quite green. Ick.

Glad your New Year's Eve was fun!

[nenar.livejournal.com]

Happy New Year!!!

College is almost over! It's flown by too fast. Miss you

[stellahobbit.livejournal.com]

I love 'The Thorn Birds.' It's the first bit of porn I remember reading.

Thanks for all the photos - looks like a lovely place and a great party.