Evacuate the Dance Floor

Clubs. Dance Halls.

If you were to look at me, big-time techno/dance/trance/house music-lover is probably not what comes to mind. Instead, I like to describe my appearance as a librarian-chíc. A girl who probably enjoys some Shania Twain, and if she's feeling spontaneous and moody, she'd play some Three Doors Down...

So for reference:

What I should look like.

What I actually look like.

But alas, I love dance and electro music. Always have.

When I was younger, I used to take old cassette tapes and record dance music off the radio so that I could save it and listen to it over and over again. True 90s / early 2000s problems.

The worst was trying to explain it to my parents. They would always think my CD player was broken when they passed my room until I educated them about how techno/dance music works: lots of repetition and mechanical sounds that all work together to build up and then drop (was that not the most helpful definition of this genre of music? someone hire me at Urban Dictionary)

So when I was going off to Europe for the first time as a college-aged student with an affinity for dropped beats...I was excited. I pictured myself hitting up the clubs every night and that they would be NOTHING like the bars and clubs I'd been to in central Pennsylvania.

...which was not a difficult dream to attain ...

I was happy to find that Ireland truly did have better clubs. I mean, there was an egg-like DJ booth in the middle of one dance club in Ennis. Egg-like DJ booths exude elite dance club status, FYI.

Anyway...

The lights! The dry-ice smoke! The music!

My life was complete.

Now I will be sprinkling some stories from the clubs and bars that I've been to, but to start this whole topic off... I must bring up the night Jessica Fletcher and I almost witnessed someone pretty much almost die on the dance floor.

If you think I am exaggerating, I ask you to take a look back at my Garth post ... I don't exaggerate very much.

So we were in my (second) favorite town in Ireland: Galway

(cue Gerard Butler)

I had read in my Frommer's Ireland guide book that there was a club to try called, Halo, which was apparently the place to go if you're young and fun, so obviously we were beyond qualified.

And it was a good time: They made decent drinks; the patrons were friendly enough, the DJ played mostly dance music; however both Jessica and I were shocked when Florence and the Machine's Dog Days Are Over came on, to which we interpretive-danced with abandon on the dance floor. It's honestly a top-10 memory that I hope to NEVER forget and it truly epitomizes what traveling is to me:

letting go... completely

Anyway, this story can't end that poetically.

This is about when things took a turn for the worst.

We were chatting with a guy in a pin-striped shirt about the wooden table topped counters and how the knots in the wood looked like the United States (don't roll your eyes, it was a riveting conversation) when the music ceased abruptly.

"Let's go see what's going on" exclaims pin-striped dude in an adorable Irish accent that I would never say no to.

So Jessica and I left our United States-esque table top and followed Pin-Stripe to the dance floor where people were making a wide circle around another pin-striped lad who was face down on the hard and unforgiving dance floor.

My immediate thoughts were:

Crap.

My college course never prepared me for what happens when someone dies via dancing abroad.

Does CPR work the same way in Ireland?

911 isn't the emergency number here... probably should have looked that up.

Did I dance too vigorously during the Florence and the Machine song, causing a shift in the oxygen levels that would have denied this poor soul his fair share of breath?!

Then, I calmed down and was relieved to see that the paramedics were already coming in through the front door. The lights came on and cast an unflattering glow upon all that seemed so magical a few minutes prior. Non-incapacitated Pin-Stripe guy didn't look as Gerard Butler-y, the space was much more cramped and average-looking than I had thought, and with closer examination, the United States-like knot on the wooden table looked more like Myanmar than anything.

It's amazing what a little light can do.

Anyway, to get back to the "dying" pin-stripe guy... he was fine.

I think they call his dilemma, "a little too much to drink".

Needless to say, I learned an important lesson that night: Don't glorify dance halls, they are only human.

Also, drink responsibly.

Halo dance floor during our second (less exciting) visit.

Until next dance floor confession...

Skål xx