Temple Bar Drama: The Broken Headband

The June Bank Holiday was this weekend so the Temple Bar was packed Sunday afternoon with locals and tourists alike. The Auld Dubliner has large windows overlooking the street, so we found a perch next to a young Welsh couple, bought a few beers and settled in to watch the crowds. Many a drama unfolded on the corner as hen and stag (bachelorette and bachelor) parties poured out of the bars, teenagers tried to get into the pubs and drunken flirtations went awry. We watched a young girl with a yellow headband and tight clothes try desperately to woo the bouncer into letting her in the pub across the street. She tried flirting, running in when he wasn't looking and begging. Nothing was working, so she stood on the corner with him, ignoring him and flirting with guys passing by. In one particularly dramatic encounter she met a guy, they hit it off, his girlfriend came looking for him, she stormed off mad, then his friend came to find him, they fought over the girl and somehow cracked her yellow headband in half. She moved on sometime later, but as we left the pub I got a photo of the headband with the bouncer beyond. He is looking longingly at the broken headband...

The Broken Headband and Forlorn Bouncer

Hen Party

Hamburg (Lübeck) Airport

We are back in Dublin after a lovely time in Germany aside from a little airport confusion. We spent our last night in Travemünde on the North Sea just outside of Lübeck. Our flight was out of Hamburg (Lübeck) at 3pm so we got up early, had some breakfast and started the journey to Hamburg which took about 2 hours. Ian was being very conservative about allowing enough time so we got a pastry and hopped on the bus to the Hamburg Airport which took half an hour. We arrived at the airport around 12:30 thinking we would just relax in the airport until our flight boarded, but there was no RyanAir terminal and after Ian spoke with the woman at the information desk we realized we were in the wrong airport! We had 2.5 hours to get back to Lübeck and to the airport there....we would only make it if we caught every train and bus at just the right time...so we ran. We got on a bus back to the train station, quickly realized it was the wrong one, got off, got on another, stood impatiently for the half hour back to the train station, ran in and down onto a platform which happened to have a train leaving for Lübeck, jumped on the train, sat impatiently for the hour ride back to Lübeck, ran out of the station and found the bus to the Lübeck Airport and arrived at 2:30pm, just in time to check in for our flight. I don't know if I have ever seen Ian so stressed out, he felt responsible as he had made the reservation. I just had to laugh because Lübeck Airport was nowhere near Hamburg and because we had stayed half an hour away the night before...it all seemed so silly. Ian calmed down once we made it to the Lübeck Airport which was a temporary structure, much like a giant shed or trailer. We sat down by our gate and glanced over at the wall to find a nice graphic description of our confusion. so I snapped a photo...don't be fooled by the large type! Luckily we ended up back in Dublin and not some smaller city an hour away.