5/29/10
“This hotel’s a fuckin’ shithole,” according to the checker at the D4Store.
It’s Saturday night, and a bunch of little girls are dressed up like hoochie mamas. This is the second weekend in a row where the hotel is full of little girl dancers. A lot of people in my class wrote about this in an earlier journal last week, so I must’ve skipped it to avoid the repetition. Seeing it for the second time now, I can’t avoid writing about this anymore.
I would love to provide pictures, but apparently some people tried to take them last weekend and they’re a lot more concerned about their picture consent law for minors over here. Some officials with the dance crew or some parents made sure those people deleted all of their pictures from their cameras.
Lots of vibrant colors make up the costumes – oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and pinks. The girls are typically wearing headdresses or have their hair done up so much a hooker would be jealous. To round out the costume, they have eyelashes beaming an inch out from their eyeballs. Most of the girls are practicing their moves in the hallway, presumably to perform for competition in the dance hall further down the lobby. As I was walking in from the bus back from O’Connell Street, I noticed a girl whip her leg behind her and grab it with her arms to stretch out.
I had to tell all of that to get to this.
A few of us came down to get some sweets in the D4Store. I asked the checker if this dance competition was commonplace here when he tore in on the dozens of dancers practicing between the store and the pub. He relegated the dancers to “what you Americans call hillbillies.”
I told him I was under the impression that D4 was one of the nicer areas of Dublin. After all, the Israeli and American embassies are within earshot, as well as a number of pubs and bistros, the Royal Dublin Society, and even Georgian housing. He agreed with my assertion, but said the hotel is crap. I told him about some of the problems we had upon our arrival – the trash can lid that fell off, the missing light bulbs – before he shook his head like he’d heard it all before. He then said that when he knew was going to come to work and the dancers were in town, he’d be better off drinking before coming in. This guy really hates the dancers.
Dylan asked him what accommodations he would recommend if we were to come back again.
“You’d probably be better off staying at a fuckin’ bus stop…any place but here.”
