"... I guess I could we saw pubs"

After a long night of partying we wake up Saturday morning feeling a bit rough. We get up anyways because it was really important to my mom that we see Howth, (a coastline city just north of Dublin). Let me preface this story with telling you many of our original plans went awry during our stay in Ireland. My mom had planned a day trip to West Ireland to see Galloway and the Cliffs of Moher. We had to cancel this adventure when we found out the driving out there was treacherous. Considering how our first experience with driving went, we decided we shouldn't try to drive out there ourselves. With that being said we were planning on driving to Howth so we could see the coastline a little bit. We got in the car and it just went downhill from there. The GPS we had started freaking out. "Turn left then turn left ... Recalculating .... Turn left .... Recalculating... turn left then turn right ... Recalculating". Compile that with my brother freaking out thinking my mom was going to kill him in a car wreck and my mom decided to just give up and go back to the hotel. When we got back to the hotel my mom had a little breakdown. She said "I can't believe we came to Ireland and I didn't even get to see any of the scenery ... I mean that's why it's called the Emerald Island ... What am I gonna tell people that we saw. ... I guess I could say we saw pubs." Needless to say, my brother and I felt horrible and like a bunch of alcoholics so we started looking at other means of transportation to Howth. Luckily, we found a train up to there and I'm glad we did because it was gorgeous. It had a very Cape Cod feel to it. We got back to the hotel before the storm started. As exhausted as we were, we decided to take a nap before our guided pub crawl. When we got to the place we were supposed to go to for the pub crawl it looked like it was just gonna be us and one other girl. Finally, they said they couldn't go out that night cause there wasn't enough people. We started talking to the girl, Brittany, and she's probably the coolest person ever. She is about to be an E6 in the US army and she decided to take this vacation on her own. Before that night, she had travelled through Southern and Western Ireland by herself, driving on the opposite side of the rode, with a manual car. She's really brave lol. Anyways, my mom left us some money and strict instructions to "be home at midnight!!". Let's just say, that didn't happen. Brett, Brittany, and I had quite the night. We went on our own pub crawl. At one point, we were talking to a stag party on the street, when Brittany got hit by taxi. She bounced right off, completely unphased. It was pretty funny the Irish men insisted that, "if you were in America you'd be rich now!" Later that night I met some French guys, Antoine and Bernard. Bernard looked like a skinnier version of Zach Galifinakis and was insistent that I kiss him. His reasoning "you can't come to Europe and not French kiss a French man. And I've never kissed an American girl." Despite his amazing persuasion skills, that did not happen. I don't know what it is about Dublin bars but, I swear time moves faster. Next thing we know, the bars are closing. We ran into Antoine again on the street and my brother asked him if he could borrow his nice jacket. Antoine was my size if not smaller, so my brother started doing the "fast guy in a little coat" bit which was lost on most of the people on the street. Antoine finally got his jacket back and invited us to a house party with them. House parties are sketchy enough already, but a French house party in Dublin, no thank you! Brittany, Brett, and I decided to go get pizza. Next thing I know, my knows ringing. I answer and it is my mom hysterically crying. I thought something horrible had happened. Brett and I ran home. Apparently, it was 4 in the morning and mom thought we were kidnapped and/or murdered. We finally got her calmed down and went to sleep with the sunrising for the second night in a row.