Cisco, Dixon, and the Crawl

Our first morning in Galway was the only day with company visits.  We had to be on the bus by 9:30, and even though breakfast was being served down stairs, I only grabbed some orange juice to take my vitamins before getting on the bus.  While we were traveling to Galway, I had asked Gabriel if he knew anyone's name on the trip.  He said that no, he was good with face not names.  I told him my name was Sierra, and he thought of the GMC Sierra, and thus, mnemonic device, and now I am the only person beside Leta who's name he actually knows.  So now, whenever I get on the bus, Gabriel asks me, "how are we today, Sierra?"  I love it so much!!!

Our first visit was with Cisco, the tech company.  They really went above and beyond with this visit.  I didn't realize how integral Cisco is in leading the curve on technology improvements.  They are working on little bluetooth devices that will communicate with people's smartphones as they search for wifi, and provide information directly to your phone, like a map to the bathroom, or a video about the art piece you are looking at, or a discount for the product you are looking at in the store.  They also have mastered the full immersion board room, and have worked on all these improvements on cameras to make the digital board room seem more realistic.  They spent quite a bit of time with us, and we got to talk to executives in London and Oslo as well during the demonstration of the immersion boardroom.  They certainly brought out all the big toys, and aimed to impress.

The visit went over time a little, so we had a mere 20 minutes to get food.  My usual bunch and several others bee-lined it for the Burger King in the mall.  Interestingly, it was very much the same as Burger King at home.  Tanner, who has also eaten at McDonald's while in Ireland, says that Burger King is more like the American version, but that McDonald's is better tasting in Ireland than America.  Very interesting.

Upon returning to the bus just in the knick of time, we were immediately guilt tripped, because none of us thought to get anything for Gabriel.  I felt bad, because the poor dude does so much for us, and we completely forgot.  But we only had 20 minutes!  We all just completely forgot.

Our next stop was the Dixon Carpet company, which primarily does very expensive custom carpeting for yachts, private planes, and other very posh places.  Honestly, it was a remarkably interesting trip.  Much like the Clonakilty trip, it is surprising how much more impressive the cottage industry visits are than the big international companies.  They make all the carpets by hand, aided only by a yarn gun, which is hardly an improvement over the wooden hand devices that they used to use.  They make so many gorgeous carpets, and it was really impressive.  They dye their own yarn, and mix the luxurious merino yarns or silks with the tougher, more resilient Irish and Scottish yarns.  The level of intricacy is incredible.

Gabriel took us home, with very specific instructions to meet him at Murty Rabbitt's for dinner.  We were going on a pub crawl, and Lauren and I agreed to make an appearance, and a dignified exit at 11.  Dinner took forever, because food kept coming out one piece at a time.  I had a half pint, and ended up drinking nearly all of it, and eating almost all of everyone's chips because my chicken came out absolutely last.  Unfortunately, from the moment I finished my chicken, I felt weird.  Like, mildly upset stomach weird.  Well, I didn't want to be a poor sport, so I stayed out, but decided not to drink.  Funnily enough, even though Lauren, Marnie and I bought half price pub crawl wristbands (to not drink) we were offered drinks by the people who operated the crawl, at literally every single bar we went to.  Doubly funny, I tasted the "free shots" which were just sour apple mixer.  Literally just food dye and apple flavor.

The pub crawl started at Murty Rabbitt's, where Marnie, Lauren and I chatted up this kiwi.  His name was Simon, and he was here in Dublin on his whirl wind tour of the northern hemisphere, and has already visited several countries, and worked in London for three months when he ran out of money, and is in Dublin before he heads to Norway.  Over the course of the night, I found out that he was only 23.  The beard he had made him look much older.  He was pretty cool, and we flirted a bit.

Between the first and second pub, a poker chip game was added to the festivities, and we had to buddy up.  Well I wasn't near anyone I knew, so I ended up buddies with a stranger.  His name was Alex, and he was from D. C., here for the Penn State/UCF game that was last Saturday.  Interestingly, or rather, completely and utterly unsurprisingly, the vast majority of pub crawlers were not only tourists, but predominantly American.  So much for meeting locals.

We roamed across a total of four pubs before I lost interest.  Corbin almost got in a fight with the kiwi, but I don't think it was really going to be a fight.  He stomped over there to talk to Simon, but then they proceeded to talk about ways to get me drunk and into bed, which is rich, since that would never happen.  Simon had made a joke earlier about my shoes (ok, so those shoes I bought at Penney's were the only sandals that they had, which we gigantic four inch espadrils.  So I'm like 6 feet tall in these shoes.  And no road in Ireland is less than 100 years old, so I was a bit wobbly, and hence, the source of a few jokes from a lot of people.) about how if I fell and broke my ankle, he would gladly carry me home, over his shoulder, as a kiwi would do.  Corbin and Simon had a good little talk about the logistics of that, and the fight I was certain was imminent was, in fact, just a very slurred discussion about my fondness for Irish whiskey.

At the final pub, where they actually had music, Lauren, Marnie, Dale and I left for home.  This is where the story kind of turns, I went to be around midnight, after some facebook messaging with the boyfriend.  I ended up waking up at about 4 am feeling absolutely terrible, and when I got up to pee, I ended up chundering.  It was the most horrible kind of heaving too, because I was definitely food poisoned, not from alcohol.  To further corroborate this, Evalina, who also had the chicken, also felt sick the next morning.  But, yeah, that was not the way I wanted to spend 15 minutes at 4 am.