Poolside, at the mysterious mansion
In Dublin when it comes to Valentines Day the general rule is that all the lucky-in-love people make heart shaped pancakes in the morning and re-enact the Lady and The Tramp "Spaghetti Meatballs Scene" in the evening, whilst all the lamenting-in-love cretins spend the day spoon-feeding themselves kilos and kilos of hummus in between rounds of chest-beating and wailing out "“EROS, ANCIENT GREEK GOD OF LOVE, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!?” This is sometimes followed by a “F#@K VALENTINES” themed night out in town, where the aforementioned singletons are given the opportunity to aggressively dance off their newly conceived hummus-baby.
I love hummus, I really do, but you can understand my eagerness to escape the shackles of Dublin’s strict Valentine’s Day Code of Conduct and try something new whilst in Ubud on that fateful day. The criteria myself and Hayley set out was straightforward and comprised of just two essential components; the activity had to be 100% unromantic (I’ll remind you of the main concern in the last blog post) and it had to be in some way crazy.
What we found ourselves engaged in was better and weirder than anything we could have possibly hoped for. An "ecstatic dance" secret party with that same random crowd from New Years, only this time the setting was in a villa-mansion owned by a mysterious millionaire who had decided to open up his swish home to about 200 crystal-wearing, feeling-sharing, impromptu-massage-giving ecstatic dancers for the evening. And the invitation came by complete chance too when, in a Yoga class that morning, a passing compliment about a scrunchie led to a heated discussion on The Best Accent In The World, which led to the Irish accent being shortlisted to the "Top 3", which led to us suddenly being deemed worthy of an invitation to that evening’s secret party; “Tell NOONE; this is STRICTLY invitation only”.
Once we arrived at the mansion we immediately noticed two things:
It was definitely an "interesting" set-up and slowly but surely we were getting in the buzz of it all; engaging in bizarre conversations and dabbling in the smelly chocolates. We were actually enjoying ourselves - at least - until a fatal addition to the night’s activities sent things spiralling out of control...
This addition came in the form of a young hippy woman who was brought up to a little stage at the front of the centre room to lead us all in a "pre-dance, loving reflection”. Now, I knew from my past experiences that this was probably going to be a bit weird, but in my raw chocolate haze I completely forgot to warn poor Hayley… And so, the situation that subsequently unfolded was one I should have anticipated; here was a no-nonsense trainee solicitor from Cork standing directly in front of this woman who proceeded to give us a pretty intense set of instructions, something along the lines of:
I love hummus, I really do, but you can understand my eagerness to escape the shackles of Dublin’s strict Valentine’s Day Code of Conduct and try something new whilst in Ubud on that fateful day. The criteria myself and Hayley set out was straightforward and comprised of just two essential components; the activity had to be 100% unromantic (I’ll remind you of the main concern in the last blog post) and it had to be in some way crazy.
What we found ourselves engaged in was better and weirder than anything we could have possibly hoped for. An "ecstatic dance" secret party with that same random crowd from New Years, only this time the setting was in a villa-mansion owned by a mysterious millionaire who had decided to open up his swish home to about 200 crystal-wearing, feeling-sharing, impromptu-massage-giving ecstatic dancers for the evening. And the invitation came by complete chance too when, in a Yoga class that morning, a passing compliment about a scrunchie led to a heated discussion on The Best Accent In The World, which led to the Irish accent being shortlisted to the "Top 3", which led to us suddenly being deemed worthy of an invitation to that evening’s secret party; “Tell NOONE; this is STRICTLY invitation only”.
Once we arrived at the mansion we immediately noticed two things:
- The usual Valentines party refreshments of red punch, love heart sweets and and chips & dips were nowhere to be found, here they preferred goblets of coconut water and silver trays full of mysterious "raw chocolate"
- Instead of slurring, loveless drunks, we met what I can only describe as intensely sober eccentrics who appeared to be too elated in their own self-love (or potentially from the magic mushrooms which we suspected had been infused into the chocolate) to be perturbed by the lack of romance in their lives on this Day of St Valentine.
It was definitely an "interesting" set-up and slowly but surely we were getting in the buzz of it all; engaging in bizarre conversations and dabbling in the smelly chocolates. We were actually enjoying ourselves - at least - until a fatal addition to the night’s activities sent things spiralling out of control...
This addition came in the form of a young hippy woman who was brought up to a little stage at the front of the centre room to lead us all in a "pre-dance, loving reflection”. Now, I knew from my past experiences that this was probably going to be a bit weird, but in my raw chocolate haze I completely forgot to warn poor Hayley… And so, the situation that subsequently unfolded was one I should have anticipated; here was a no-nonsense trainee solicitor from Cork standing directly in front of this woman who proceeded to give us a pretty intense set of instructions, something along the lines of:
“Beautiful humans, I now invite you to turn to the person next to you, and look into their eyes. Yes, just look. Now, allow them to PENETRATE you. Allow their eyeballs to PENETRATE YOUR SOUL. Feel it. Accept it. And as both of your souls shed their layers, allow your NAKED essence to become comfortable with this PENETRATION”
You get the idea.
So of course, the only thing that was ever going to happen under the given circumstances did indeed happen. I’m talking about the deadly, the irreversible, the formidable**Forbidden Laugh**.
I didn't even realise what was happening at first, until what started off as an apparent cough beside me quickly developed into stifled whimpers, and then quite obvious muffled snorts. Once I copped what was happening I initially tried to remain quiet and direct my attention inward, hoping Hayley would pull herself together and prevent any further questioning stares from the surrounding yogis, but it wasn’t long before I had to succumb to the hilarious situation that was unfolding. With every repetition of the word PENETRATE Hayley was sent deeper into a fit of uncontrollable choked laughter, and it wasn’t long before it was accompanied by my own contorted whimpers, shaking shoulders and silent tears. The questionably-phrased speech went on for another few minutes, although it felt more like hours as the very people who had been spoon-feeding us raw chocolate with their bare hands only moments before were now glaring at us with the kind of intense anger that only the yogis who wear the least amount of clothes and most elaborate feather accessories seem to possess…
Why was nobody else finding this random speech as ridiculous and hilarious as we were?! Why had noone thrown a vegan, non-plastic, probably-made-from-compost sandal at her already?!?!!?! Where was the “AH HERE, LEAVE IT OUT!” woman when you needed her???
Eventually Hayley could hold back no more and with the final invitation of penetration she burst out into fits of uncontrollable, un-ignorable LOL-laughter. Oh god it was so terrible, like laughing out loud at the part of Mass when the priest announces the local deaths and anniversaries. So much disapproval coming from so many areas of the room. I genuinely can’t remember a time when I felt as relieved as I did when The Penetration Lady (btw, what a nickname!) finally said all she needed to say.
The music began promptly after the speech but we could only bear to stay for about 15 minutes of the actual dancing and then we had to leave - there were just too many people directing their most “enthusiastic” air punches and hair whips in our particular direction and frankly, I felt unsafe.