Around about 11 p.m., Andrew and I are starting to get tired. The Portuguese contingent are just getting rolling. They’ve moved from sitting on the cement curb of the Massacre Memorial Concert to dancing with the Timorese.
I yawn. “I’m getting tired,” I tell Andrew.
“Yeah, we can’t keep up with the Portuguese.” He says. “We need to employ the Irish Goodbye.”
I duck my head and hiss back at Andrew. “Seriously!?” Lord. I can’t believe he just said that in front of an Irish person.
“You know, in Ireland, we just call it a ‘goodbye.’” She laughs, and then she says, “You can't leave now, you just messed it up.”
In case you are not “in the know,” an Irish Goodbye is when you ghost away from a party. In other words, you grab your coat and your hat in the most inconspicuous way possible and leave without saying anything to anyone. The more stealth your exit, the better the execution.
“Is that really a thing in Ireland?” I ask, since we are now on the topic anyway.
“Oh, absolutely. It’s rude to leave a party any other way.”
“Really,” I say. “Andrew and I are the worst at it. We would much rather stay to the end of the party than break it up.”
“That’s the purpose of the Irish Goodbye! People are such assholes. As soon as one person makes a big thing about leaving, the whole party breaks up and everyone thinks its time to go. Ghosting, it’s just the polite thing to do.”
“Yeah, but…I feel like I need to say thank you to the host.” I say.
“Right. You are doing it wrong. As soon as you get to the party, you have to make your rounds with everyone. Tell them how great it is to see them, thank the host for inviting you to this lovely party, compliment the food and the decorations, the music, whatever. First thing! Then, you are free to ghost whenever you like.”
“AHHHHHH!!!!!!! That. Is. BRILLIANT!” I say. It all suddenly becomes clear to me, and then it becomes a problem. We haven’t said thanks to anyone tonight.
“Yes, and the fact that you just told me you are going to Irish-Goodbye means you are not by definition, completing an Irish-Goodbye.” Our Irish friend sips a beer, victorious that we must stay at least another hour.
I ponder this. What if you forget to say thanks the moment you walk through the door? Does that negate the possibility of an Irish Goodbye? Or can you recover by saying thank you at some random point in the middle of the event? Should I stand up and start doing that to all the ExPats we’ve been hanging out with all day, now, so we can leave in an hour? Then it seems sort of like the drunk "I love you, man!" Maybe we can say, "great party, huh?" while nodding a little bit and surveying the scene.
No matter what, I imagine the next response to be: “Are you leaving?”
We stay another hour, but feel too awkward to say thank you to anyone. Then, we are too tired to keep going.
We are heading out. We’ll do better tomorrow,” I tell our friend. She tips her head to the side, then shakes it in disappointment at our poor execution.
“Goodnight, guys!” we say as we wave to the Portuguese contingent. This starts a week long extravaganza of attempted (and failed) Irish Goodbyes on the part of the Godfreys.
We are invited for lunch espressos, to dinner at the Civil Engineers Compound, and to a bar where a 10 year old girl served us a well made Gin & Tonic.
We start reading books at the cafe on rainy days.
We enjoy pizza on the beach, and perfect our beer-advertisement-photographic skills.
We hike through the mountains, along rice paddies.
And, we walk the beautiful beach, and enjoy gorgeous sunsets.
Even Grin starts making friends; they tried to teach him karate.
“You aren’t ever going to leave, are you?” One of our friends ask after we’ve been in town about a week. “We need a brunch spot here. You should just stay and open a brunch bar.”
We laugh, but we know just the building we would love to take. “Waterfront property with views of the angel, ripe for renovation.” Just imagine.
Alas, this building is already spoken for by the tourism board, they wish to make it the new office of Oe Cusse Tourism. I guess we have to keep sailing.
On Friday night, we drink Expressos at 9:00 p.m., so we can keep up with the Portuguese/Irish. We go to a bar, where within the hour, they move all the tables aside and start dancing the Zumba. It’s a close knit group, the perfect size to make a bar fun but not crowded. They are already trying to make us promise to come to the Saturday night dance club for the all-night-dance-extravaganza-morning-beach-swim plan.
Around midnight, we say, “Sure! Maybe we can do that!” The Expressos still in our system. But, at 3:00 a.m., I yawn, then Andrew yawns. Our friends are still going strong.
“Don’t do….” our Irish friend starts to say, but before she can finish her sentence Andrew is off his bar stool shaking Miguel’s hand.
“Thanks, but we are turning in. Have a good night everyone!” Andrew says.
No Irish Goodbye tonight.
The next morning, I cuss the dancing Portuguese as I wake to an alarm. We have a morning Expresso and Market Hopping appointment with new Argentinian Friends.
Juan and Laura take us to the market to gather up some veggies for the next leg of our trip, and they host us for a lunch BBQ at their house.
The Irish contingent stops by to say hello. “You really are never leaving!” She laughs. “You can’t leave until you Zumba with everyone here at least once. Dance club tonight!” She says.
“I don’t know… we’ll see. Maybe…” The OddGodfreys are a sleepy, hem-hawing bunch. Then Andrew says, “Yeah, it’s been really fun. So, glad we got to meet everyone, thanks for everything!” I look at him with wide eyes….he’s done it! He’s actually done it, he set us up for our Irish Goodbye.
I don't think our Irish friend noticed, though.
Later that night, we are still hem-hawing. Our friends are so fun, and I love dancing. We could just go for a bit, but they don’t even get started until 1 or 2 a.m. Then we have to wake at 7 a.m. to get started on our sail? There is no Expresso powerful enough; and I get very grumpy without sleep. We enjoy one last dinner at Moxito. No one is around, yet. They are off at a goodbye dinner party for one of their fellows. We make our exit, Andrew sending a text:
“This is our Irish Goodbye! Goodbye, Irish!”
I still don’t think we did it quite right.