Who Says You Can't Go Home ?

I was pretty adamant during the planning process of Friendcation 2018 about returning to one place in particular in Ireland .

Was it the majestic Cliffs of Moher?

The moon-like surfaces of The Burren?

The astonishing beaches of Keem Strand?

Nope.

It was a clurb I had really liked partying in circa 2010.

I had been talking up this spectacular club from my original journey across the pond to my friends as we pinpointed our "must-see / do places".

Like constantly.

For example, a planning conversation might have gone something like...

Friend: "I want to see some of the World Heritage sites and trace my ancestors"

Me: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can go see where Saint Patrick drove out the snakes.

...But more importantly, can we make sure we definitely go to the Queens in Ennis?"

---

Please give me a slight pass for being such a brat, though.

You gotta understand that the Queens was the place back in the day. The one establishment I had frequented the most in Ennis, when I lived there for my short stint.

I had so many great Queens memories...or as I like to call memories that involve adult beverages:

fuzzy-warm-half-remembrances-that-appear-in-my-memory-on-occasion.

These fuzzy-warm-half-remembrances-that-appear-in-my-memory-on-occasion at the Queens include, but are not limited to:

- dancing into the wee hours of the morning - sometimes shoeless

- wearing pretty dresses and feeling as pretty as the dress (this barely happens these days)

- feeling invincible in the overwhelmingly large dance hall with miles of space to sit, dance, and drink

- cool blue dranks that can only be found outside of the USA - don't ask me what they're called. They're blue, okay?

- awesome company to hang out with (my host brother and his friends who were all still living in Ennis at the time, as well as the two Germans)

- losing and finding friends with equal intensity of opposite emotions

- the best beats my ears have ever consumed (can you say "mmcha mmcha" music)

- an egg DJ booth...

...I joke you not. It was amazing. I will never forget it. It was shaped like an egg and smoke billowed from it. A true unicorn of a sight to a girl from Jersey.

---

Yeah, The Queens was amazing. And I had to have my friends experience the same joy I had once felt eight years ago as a newly minted 21-year old in a foreign land.

What could change in 8 years?

Oh girl, everything.

In fact, let me count the ways:

1. I was / am not 21 anymore. Drinking too much has lost its luster. Clear eyes, full hearts... you definitely lose ... you see things for what they actually are because you can actually see.

(naht)

2. This time I was with people not from Ennis.

Not that this would have mattered much, but back in the day, going out with locals to the club was different because they knew the "ins and outs". Like, where the coat check was and what bartenders would actually serve you quickly.

*Also, back in the day, since I had a host brother, we went with his friends, so it was a bit less expensive (thank you guys!)

3. You can drink when you're 18 over there.

Back when I was 21, 18 didn't feel so young or noticeable at all.

Cut to this past vacation as a 29 year old... people who are 18 look like they are in middle school.

We lined up outside the Queens with a bunch of 18 year olds who were super nice and told us it would be super fun inside and to hang with them.

We politely declined, but that didn't stop them from talking to us about their super thoughts on Trump and how their parents felt about the USA whilst we waited for the bouncer to let in our eclectic clique of youth and wisdom ( we were the latter)

They also continued to assure us that we weren't that old. Like . . . we were gonna have the best time...as if we'd never been out before.

4. The final straw of this whole ordeal was realizing that it was "Back to Uni (College) Night", so they had closed down the main part of the club . . . the expansive, football-field sized dance floor with the egg DJ booth!!!!!!!!! What was even the point now?!

We were left to our dancing devices in a room no larger than the basement of a church where you go to vote on Election Day.

Doesn't leave much room to get down with my bad self, now does it?

The whole thing was like someone had woken me abruptly from a terrific dream

by hitting me in the face and turning on the flood lights.

I was left frantically trying to explain to my friends that this was NOT the Queens I remembered.

What was once this :

Turned out to actually be a mix of this:

And this:

---

It just goes to show that you can't meet your heroes... or is it ... you can't go home?

Or something that has been sung by AWOLNATION or Bon Jovi. I don't know.

Either way, the story of the Queens has shown me that you have to live in the moment.

Enjoy the here and now. Don't try to duplicate. Let it be.

That dance floor with the egg-shaped DJ booth may not have manifested itself that visit, but it shall always live in my mind... or in my fuzzy-warm-half-remembrances-that-appear-in-my-memory-on-occasion ... as the best place to dance and have a grand 'ol time. . .

...as a 21-year old.

skålxx

update (11/18)

a photo of Queens circa 2010