We purchased our 40cl ‘pints’ and settled in against a car that was parked right in front of the bar. I worried at first that we shouldn’t lean on someone’s car but as the night wore on and others leaned on, climbed over, stacked drinks and empties (and peed on) this car, I relaxed a bit. I began to think that maybe if you park in front of an Irish pub on St. Patrick’s Day you’re just asking for trouble.
Mags came out, between serving drinks, to become the social director for the evening. She first introduced us to Claire and her husband José. I’d met Claire before at an ImpaQt lunch. She is great and I can understand her French perfectly. José speaks English though and so we were able to converse easily with him. He works in marketing for an aeronautics company. They have traveled to the US several times and they really like the Miami area.
People just kept on coming the whole time and before long, the road in front of the bar was jam- packed with people. There was lots of English being spoken around us; British, Irish, South African and American accents. When a car came down the street, it had quite the time, as first it had to get the attention of the ‘street people’ and then everyone had to squish up against the walls and cars and each other to make room for said car.
Around 10:00, pretty early in the festivities, Mags, who was helping out in the bar, came out and announced loudly “We’re out of glasses lads” so everyone banded together to scrounge for all the empties so they could be washed and redistributed. Actually we were all hoping they’d be washed before being redistributed, but what the heck after a couple of beers who cares.
One oddity for the evening was that there seemed to be something intriguing down the street; I observed many men going down in small groups or alone. They seemed to be quite interested in the corner of two buildings and seemed to be closely examining the brick work there; I mean really closely examining the brick work. It was hard to see from where I was what they were looking at because it was a pretty shadowy corner but there also seemed to be quite a bit of water draining from that corner into the street. Hmm.
There was an Irish sounding band playing inside the pub, not that I ever actually saw them. We could hear it quite well at first but after some time their music was drowned out. The funniest thing was watching the door to the pub. 3 people would come out and 5 people would go in, 5 people would go out 9 people would go in. At that rate don’t you reach a point of maximum saturation pretty quickly? Could there possibly be any breathing room in there? It was a bit chilly outside but all you had to do was stand near the door to the bar, that was being propped open by a barstool, to benefit from the waves of heat pouring out of there. Maggie didn’t seem to have a problem coming and going from inside though; she kept the group outside well supplied with beer and sandwiches. S tried to reach the interior bar at one point but had to turn back after only a few meters. Too many sweaty bodies (or was that beer soaked) and too little oxygen. It was truly impressive watching Mags negotiate that bar with a tray full of drinks; with those skills she doesn’t need a day job.
We were then introduced to some ImpaQt ‘graduates’ Sylvie and her husband Wilfried. Sylvie works for Pierre Farbe (?) which is a large company in Toulouse that does, I don’t know what, but I’ve met a lot of people who work there through ImpaQt. I don’t think I caught were Wilfried worked; only that he had had the presence of mind to take Thursday morning off. Smart man.
We also met Marie, who along with her husband Roger, own The Killarney Bar. She also spoke perfect English and was telling us about how cheap it really is to fly to Dublin. It’s one of those must do type of things for this adventure, S being Irish and all. We were informed Aer Lingus now has 4 direct flights a week from Toulouse to Dublin.
We also got to meet Mags other half, Vincent. He’s a tall, broad shouldered gent that would be right at home on a rugby field, oh wait, he is right at home on a rugby field. Quite good looking too in that big, manly, rugged sort of way (if you like that sort of thing I mean ;) )
It was suggested by Sylvie, just before we left, to try and make Maggie have a dinner party or something for all of us. So we could have a bit more conversation time in a more conversation conducive environment.
We knew it was time to leave when a very drunk, very young Irish lad stood on the barstool that was propping the door open, sloshing stout on everyone within 3 feet of said stool from the two glasses he was holding, and shouted with deepest and most heart felt conviction “I fucking love you!” It would have been very sweet if he had been aiming the comment at a girlfriend or something but he seemed to be adressing no one and everyone and got the rowdiest response from a group of guys across the street. It was 11:00 pm and the night was young, I hope he found a girl to go home with.
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I post below the two best pictures of the evening. Rule number one of celebratory picture taking is – Don’t ask drunken strangers to take pictures of the group for you. Hence out of the 7 pictures taken only these two are good.
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Friends of Mags, José and
Claire and a happy Sean |
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Claire, Mags and Missy |
