Horses for courses

A fortnight after me actually turning 27 years old (only the second time I’ve had my birthday abroad – many more to come!) I was to receive my birthday present yesterday from the Ms. It had been a well hidden secret up and till June 17^th when she revealed we’d be going to the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby horse races in Curragh. New = always better and this was certainly something I had never come across before; a ‘main street’ fanfare that you wouldn’t see in the Netherlands in a hundred years. The horse races are the classy version of the dog races but in the end the same principle applies; you get your race book and your returns per horse and off you go betting away. After my disastrous track record with the greyhounds (pure random chance would have granted me returns at least twice as high) I wasn’t going down Curragh for the betting but rather for the experience of watching the Irish experience something profoundly classy.

There are basically two ways of getting to the courses; by car or by designated bus. As we don’t have the former Bo arranged for the latter and a good two hours after leaving the house we crawled out of a muggy, sweaty, overloaded bus, glad to be walking the last 500 meters to the entrance. The sight was quite remarkable. It has to be said that Irish ladies dress up more and better than their Dutch counterparts; a regular Saturday evening features high heels, fancy dresses, and loads of make-up. Sparse cloth wrapped tightly around a voluminous torso is not in all cases for the better but at least they make the effort here and going out in Dublin does indeed feel more like a ‘night out’ than back home. Well, those slick Saturday night dresses are dwarfed by what the ladies don for something as fancy as the horse races; dresses from Disney movies, heels that make them all of a sudden able to look me in the eye, and elegant hats that would make the Dutch queen turn her head. That the awkward drunken stumbling on sprained ankles and sagged faces staring bewildered at the queues for the ladies’ toilets as the afternoon progresses takes away a bit of this magic ought to be said but in all honesty only adds to the experience of how the Irish celebrate their weekend. And the contrast with the lads is stark. Where ladies in Ireland seem to be able to drown in closets full of fancy dresses the average lad goes out in a rugby jersey or lumberjack’s shirt. Apparently also for them the races demand an alteration in style and the alternative to the earlier described set of clothes is… a suit. An odd mix is the result, with ladies dressed up for a prom mixed and matched with a bunch of lads who looked like the average civil servant from the ministry of agriculture taking their after-lunch stroll. Tight fitting gowns versus sloppy oversized blazers, feet cramped into high heels against dusty black shoes. Quite the sight, and Bo and I were watching our fellow visitors as much as the much celebrated horses.

 Busy but not too overcrowded, great tasty burgers, cold overpriced bottles of Heineken, lovely weather, muscular yet elegant horses and their tiny jockeys, and of course the above described circus all made for a lovely afternoon. Races finished around seven pm whereas our bus wasn’t scheduled to leave until nine, and by six the uninterrupted flow of alcohol was already having its impact on the initially oh so classy scene. Spilled ice-cream on the floor made an entertaining blend with beer and streaks of vomit, with the ladies finding it all the more challenging to parade on their feet extensions and the lads becoming more and more vocal and rowdy. Waiting another two hours in what promised to become an avalanche of human disorder only to be cramped in a tight bus –short of oxygen but oversupplied with beer, sweat, vomit, raucous shrieking and drunken laughter wasn’t exactly the most appealing end of an entertaining afternoon. Sure, from afar, I would have loved to gaze over such scene, but to be in the middle of it, I’d rather pass. And so was Bo. Hence we left the festival at around half six and after an awkward twenty-odd minutes on the parking lot we had secured a ride home. Or well, Bo had:

·        *  Bo: “Hey there. Would you by any chance be driving to Dublin?”

·        *  Three lads (enthusiastically): “Yeah we are! How so?”

·         * Bo: “Could you give us a ride?”

·         * (lads looking confused.. ‘us’? … ): “Yeah eh well… (looking over their shoulder, hopeful-faced tall Dutch lad, too big for their car).. well ehmm Ooowkeee”

And off we went, beating the traffic, back in Dublin by 8 pm. Their initial reluctance of taking us along was well founded, as their BMW sports car wasn’t exactly designed for 5 people, especially if two of them are of the tallest race in the world. Let’s say I’ve been through worse, having been folded up more than once on Indian busses in New Delhi, a world away in terms of time and distance. Yet our bold approach getting us the desired ride made any uncomfortable position perfectly bearable as I was happy and content all the way back home, letting my thoughts drift out of the window and into the passing green countryside. Out of the car, somewhere in the northern suburbs, chop chop onto a bus as Bo thought she recognised the area and I did, off we went to Dublin city centre. I hadn’t run out of birthday present yet as Bo’s parents had given me an add-on to the day-out by giving us a dinner-voucher and that’s how we found ourselves at a classy Thai restaurant, gorging on tasty white wine and spicy but delicious Thai curries. Another great place for food and drinks in Dublin; the small city centre seems to hold an infinite supply of potentially favourite restaurants and bars.

Another event secured, another look into the Irish culture that I’m getting more and more familiar with, and another great weekend!!