One of the strangest experiences of Damien Glynn's life was when a Tenerife prostitute hoping to drum up business asked him how he got on in his Leaving Cert.
Damien (19) went to Playa de Las Americas last year to celebrate finishing his exams and, despite getting into a few scrapes, survived to tell the tale. It was his first holiday without his parents, but he wasn't alone. He travelled with 94 other boys from his school year.
"I'll never forget it. It was just magic. I was leaving everyone in my school. It was the last time I was going to see them all together, so we just went for it," he says.
The Terenure youth spent £1,350 on the holiday but enjoyed it so much he's going back to the same resort this year. This time, older and wiser, Damien says he will know what to expect after being shocked by some of his experiences in summer 2000.
One night Damien and two friends were approached by men offering to bring them to a "free club" which, much to their surprise, turned out to be a brothel.
"We followed them in and sat down. We started to feel a bit iffy. Then three women approached us. They were beautiful. They were chatting away, asking what we got in our Leaving Cert and so on." The boys were asked to buy the women champagne, at £25 a glass, and told they would then be offered a "price list".
"We just left," says Damien.
On another night out he shook hands with a man peddling jewellery in the street. The man slipped a bracelet over Damien's wrist and demanded money for it. When Damien threw the bracelet on the ground, the man pulled a knife.
Once again, he had to make a speedy exit. "It can be a dangerous place to go, but you won't get trouble if you keep your head low," he says.
Damien said Irish people were generally popular with other nationalities and the only scuffles he witnessed were between boys from rival Dublin schools.
However, he was surprised at the way Irish girls let their hair down away from home. His advice to them would be to "relax on the drink and cover up a bit more . . . but I wish I could find some of them over here!"