Neither hotel we've stayed in in Europe - not the present budget one in Ireland nor the suite in the four star airport hotel we inhabited for a night when our Berlin apartment's real tenants came home early (nor, come to think of it, any of the bedrooms of our apartment) - has had clock in the bedroom. Aside from being a general inconvenience and allowing us to keep very irregular hours, since wakeup times now depend solely on whether or not I actually get out of bed at 9am when I'm first woken up by the noisy people in the room next door who seem to like to have sex early in the morning (or they've discovered a swinging Dublin nightlife we haven't - more later), I wonder if this might be taken as some commentary on the ever-popular "difference between here and there."
The first inclination is to say they're more laid back, and if we were in the Caribbean that would probably be valid - remember those Malibu commercials about what life would be like if islanders acted, explicitly, like people in the States, and implicitly, like New Yorkers? - but since we're in Ireland, and since David probably wouldn't be here if it were the Caribbean, I'm more interested in reading this clockless state as a desire for the natural to trump ruthless progress/ Take, for a global example, the EU's reactionary opposition to GMOs, and for a local example, the bartender at a place called the Porterhouse where the Boy Wonder and I got drunk yesterday afternoon, who first mocked a customer for ordering Guinness in a brewery bar ("piss"), then mocked us for drinking Bulmer's cider ("piss"), then mocked me for not drinking beer (clearly), then gave us lots of free samples, and then alternated between telling us dirty jokes and espousing the chemical-free beer they brewed in house. Aside from a slight shock at encountering an Irish person who didn't treat Guinness like mother's milk (pretty much everywhere else has forced it upon us, though I should add that we both agreed - despite my beer aversion - that the Porterhouse's Oyster Stout was way better than Guinness, and David even went so fr as to say that his Guinness tasted watered down later that night), items 1 through 3 are pretty standard barman behavior - and 4, free samples, and part of 5, jokey bartender, would seem standard if Irish bartenders worked for or received tips, which they don't - but the love affair with organic beer came across as a little surprising.
Seeing as it was located in Temple Bar - which, as far as i can tell, is where the chamber of commerce or some similarly empowered body has decided to keep all the tourists, so they can't get lost or bother the locals - this wasn't a particularly rough locale, but I feel like, in the States, it's a fairly frou-frou New-Agey Blue State concept to equate "organic" with "quality" or - better yet - "healthy" or "tasty."
Brief Additions:
1- The fact that bartenders don't wake tips make me feel a little more awkward about the whole interaction, because it's like sitting across the bar from someone who desperately wants to be your friend, and is acting out this desire by providing you with alcohol.
2 - David left his wallet on a city bus, and in less than twelve hour it was located at the depot, short 100 Euro, but still with $20 American and all his IDs and cards. Per my father: "That's the Irish - too damn honest."
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