By Brooke Exler

I have not even been here for a full three weeks but already I am learning so much from the Irish.  Here are a few quick Irish survival phrases that will help any American out who is lost in translation:

If you “fancy a ride” your not asking to hop in a car with a fellow.  Instead, you’re telling him you want to go back to his place and, well, you know… actually ride him.

When you hear the phrase “good crack,” they are not referring to the dangerous form of cocaine you smoke.  Instead “good craic” is just plain ‘ole good fun!

Oh, and my favorite, a “wanker” is someone who wanks off, or, in American terms, jerks off, therefore, making him a masturbater.

I have also learned there is a common misconception with the Irish and redheads.  Only the foreigners like them, NOT the actual Irish.  I met a nice ginger who informed me of this telling me he could only land himself an Irish girl for about five days before she dumped him.  Poor lad.

There are no Blackberrys over here unless you are an American girl like myself that needs to be constantly bbm-ing friends back at school.  However, it did not take long for my Irish housemate, Rob, to take my phone and message my bbm contact Mike “eat my vagina.”  Turns out, Mike is my dad and he cannot wait to have a little chat with Rob, who he now calls “Vagina Boy,” when he comes here later in the semester.  That should be interesting.

My friend Laurie and I also had quite the hostel experience when we traveled to Dublin last weekend.  We had booked two beds in a six female bedroom on hostelworld.com at a place called Abigails that looked decent enough.  We missed our initial 6:30 bus at the Limerick bus station and had to catch the 7:30, so we did not even arrive in Dublin till close to 11 o’clock at night.  Once there we got a ride to Abigails from a nice Irish girl’s father and everything was going great … that is until we actually walked inside.  The place was an absolute dump!  We were prepared to overlook the unexpected griminess until the guy at the front desk rudely informed us we had paid the ten dollar online reservation fee only to reserve beds in SEPARATE rooms.  That was just not going to fly.  We offered to share one bed instead refusing to be seperated at this sketchy place.  We did not think sharing one bed would be that big of a deal, that is until we walked into our actual room.  We were to share a bed the size of my finger… on the top of a bunk bed.  Yeah right! Oh it gets better.  The women we were sharing the room with were from Barcelona and did not speak one word of English.  The minute we walked in they began talking about us in Spanish, (from the little bit my friend and I could understand) making us feel extremely uncomfortable and scared for our safety.  After buying a locker and locking up every last bit of stuff we brought with us besides the actual suitcase itself, we decided to explore a little of the city.  Where do we end up?  McDonalds of course to get the 2 euro McNuggets and blow off a little steam.  After downing some much needed American fast food we still were not prepared to go back to the Abigails dump hostel so we continued to walk around.  It was not even a second later when my friend and I attempted to cross the street, looking left instead of right (yes, they drive on the opposite side of the road here, duh) and nearly got hit by a truck right there!  Thank God for other silly Americans who make the same mistake because we were suddenly halted by the guy’s arm next to us to hold us back.  We quickly learned he was from Iowa and could not wait to tell him this horrific hostel experience as we still did not know what to do.  Turns out he was with nineteen other Americans on a trip and they were staying at the nicest of nice hostels (breakfast included) that would only cost us about 20 euro more.  Bottom line of the story, if you go to Dublin, follow the Americans to the nice hostels.

Stay tuned for more crazy adventures next week.