Irish quiz nights happen all over the world

When we were in Ireland for pre-xmas vacation, what I noticed was how everyone had a relative abroad. Like in the Philippines, this is the norm as the people rely on industry at home which ebbs and flows depending on how the economy is doing. However, unlike the Philippines, whose main people export are homecare workers and engineers to the middle east, Ireland's people abroad have a wide-range of skills. What the entire world benefits from is Ireland's greatest export: the establishment of the local irish pub.

Any small town in the corners of the world will likely have an irish pub which will play most sporting events in real-time, pour a good Guinness (which I can safely say, I have tried...more on that in our Ireland post), sell the best-priced beer in town, and host quiz nights.

The Irish Times is a pub that is about 3 minutes away from us. Probably 30 seconds if we run. It runs a weekly quiz night on Sundays that pack the bar so tight that if you don't get there well-before it starts, you are going to have to use people's backs as a surface to write your answers on the response sheet.

Ann-Sophie, a true Strasbourgeoisie, had met Doug, a fellow ISU student while he was needing a place to crash in Strasbourg while he waited for his apt to become available. (He used couchsurfing.net to find extremely good people who were willing to lend him space on their couch). This friendship has grown such that Ann-So and her friends have become the ISU students who don't go to ISU. They are the party coordinators and hosts of small gatherings and larger fetes, the oracles of all that is awesome in Strasbourg. AND the captains and leaders of the most kick-ass quiz team in the city.

Mathieu is the captain of the Markitoys, the ever-present team at the Irish Times quiz night. The Markitoys are usually in the top 4. Axel and I have joined them only a couple of times, but after last Sunday, I think we're hooked. We came in 2nd!! The last time they had a question about the doctor in South Africa who did the first successful heart transplant, and last Sunday they had Jean Chretien as a "guess who" and "name the 2nd most populated city in Canada" so I feel like as good Canadians with some science in our pockets, we have to represent.

Here we are trying to figure out a song while the "Born in January" pictures are almost all answered. Jean Chretien was number 3.





The other part of the quiz is that at the end, the best joke also wins a bottle of vodka. Yes, this is what we show up for every week. First prize is a bottle of vodka for # points. Second is for a whole bunch of vodka shots. And best joke also gets vodka.

This time, Axel was the only one with a joke. It was actually pretty good but as Mathieu stated, "The French were not ready for this one." I think the reason it bombed though, was because it was so freaking long.

Here we are, hiding our heads as to having the longest-written joke of the night.



And here we are enjoying our 2nd place win!




The funniest part of this whole thing is that it's not about the win. Mathieu, the captain of the team, doesn't drink. And that night Ann-So had to drive so could only have 1. Axel also doesn't drink, which left Brandon (the Trinidad scrabble champion - no joke), James (the Saskatoon genius), and I to down 9 shots a minute before the bar closed. Needless to say, it hit me pretty hard.