Filed under: Peace Corps Romania | Tags: burger, Domn E, Guinness, Harlem, Irish Pub, McGowan's, Medias, Peace Corps, Romania, surprise
Harlem and I had planned to meet our students and Domn E in Medias, on Friday, April 9th. Thus would begin a three day trip with students and teachers from my general school, as well as from Harlem’s high school, in Petrosani.
Harlem and I rolled into the Medias train station a little while after noon. We sleepy-leg stepped out into some sunshine, and glanced about our surroundings.
We had a few hours to kill, and a couple empty stomachs to fill.
Instantly, our eyes fell on the same thing– directly across from the train station was a building with a large sign out front that read “McGowan’s Pub,” and an Irish flag swimming about the spring breeze. We both hooted and hollered, and gave each other those half ‘man-shoves,’ that symbolise mutual accord.
“We gotta!” Harlem laughed, and “we gotta!” he excitedly repeated.
Inside, we found a happy menu listing the long-lost beef-burger with fries. Happiest of all, were half pints of Guinness on tap.
As Harlem and I swigged contently, we looked about the place. The entire bar was filled with young hipsters smoking ciggarettes and downing espresso. Most of their eyes flicked across the flat-screen TVs with gold-leaf frames.
Like it'd all been transplated from a bar back home.
The waitresses were sweet and smiling, and the walls wore real-wood panelling, and all sorts of western-bar accoutrement. I saw the Beetles in one corner, flanked to a side by a print of Ali knocking out Foreman in Zaire. On the opposite end of the bar was Tyler Durden fully decked in his infamous red leather. Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe sat alongside him. Best of all was behind me– the duke and his dog, gazing off into some hazy blue sky in the American south-west.
All of these things were not so much authentic Irish as a strong testament to the cultures that flank either side of the north Atlantic. We, being good beggars, were able to forgive this mis-arranged hodgepodge of pop culture and focus instead on our burgers and beers.
A surprise of unimaginable proportions.
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