Magical

My friend Laura and I spent last weekend on a whirlwind somewhat random holiday to Dublin and Edinburgh and we had an amazing time. I honestly thought before leaving my favorite part of the trip would be visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral (Jonathon Swift is buried there!) and while I did love that (did I mention Swift?) the best thing that happened to us was also one of the worst, so I thought.
The night that we arrived in Dublin, after being in a train for 3 hours and then a plane for an additional hour we missed our bus stop on our way to our hostel, which was no big thing except for the fact that I was already tired and cranky and now forced to pay for a taxi to get back to our hostel. I decided to shake it off though because I knew that Laura had planned for us to go to a pub and experience Irish folk tales and live music. Sounds great, right?
Unbeknownst to me Laura is one of those people that loves to wander through new cities to find her way around, as opposed to my more controlling version in which one gets specific directions and takes the most direct route possible to everywhere they go.
We took off from our hostel in a "sort of south" direction because apparently if we just kept walking that way, we couldn't miss it. An hour later after winding all through the Temple Bar area, circling the medieval district, and bouncing around the river just for the fun of it, we actually managed to find the pub. Only to discover that in order to do the dinner and show bit, you have to have reservations. Which I assumed, but I also assumed we had them. We did not.
Laura, the forever optimist when "figuring it out" said we could just go ahead and eat here and then hear the regular performers who would play at 9:30, it was only 7:00.
I was about ready to blow, but I was also too hungry to argue so I sucked it up and got ready to awkwardly sit next to someone that I liked to much to be rude to, but was to angry at to be nice to for a couple of hours.
What happened next shocked me.
I had an amazing time! We sat in a weirdly dingy but twinkling pub that was established in 1198 for almost 4 hours and I was never bored, I never noticed that time passed at all. The Brazen Head is Dublin's oldest pub and is honestly the most magical place I have ever been.
We sat in a cramped little room with random strangers seared just inches away and we just chatted. We people watched, we had Guinness (and Harps, and Jameson, and Baileys) we ate Irish stew and we were completely sucked in to a world where the people next to us could have been there for 50 years or 5 minutes and we would have never known the difference.
It was like being taken hostage by benevolent Lotus Eaters. I was so amazed. When I went in I was angry, cold, hungry, and ready to sleep for about a year. But I left energized and just in love with life! I can't explain it but something about that pub made me feel... I don't even know the word; amazing, astounding, exhilarated, alive, beautiful, healed, happy, joyful, content. All of these are woefully inadequate, the closest I can get is magical, and even that is just too hokey for the genuine amazement that I felt.
I will owe Laura forever for dragging my whiny butt through Dublin and into the heart of what every other pub in the world wishes it could be.
Cheers.