Welcome Back old Friend

First off esteemed friends, I must apologise for my lack of correspondence on this blog for the past Months. For answers to this literary absence you could blame lack of inspiration, but that would be untrue. Perhaps lack of imagination, but for I have plenty. Even boredom hold no sway, No my friends the answer to this rather mundane mystery……is…well….buggered if I know! I’ve been busy?

We are in count down mode over here currently, T minus…about 3 weeks. You see people our most important asset while travelling is running low. VISA. With no real way of overstaying, and the unappealing thought of dodging immigration again, the chaps are looking yonder for our thrills. With this in mind we have been trying to squeeze as much out of, and into our stay in Ireland as possible over past 6 weeks. Its been some of the best in the last few months, with summer winding doen the Irish try and get every dam ounce of fun out it, and as guests its our duty to make sure we full our boots! And believe me folks we certainly grabbed it by the ears and gave a dam good shake. So set the phaser to Stun feed the cat, check the roast and sit back for the highlights package of the best bits (in no particular order)!

MUSIC

Lets kick off with the Music round up, which as you know has been really kicking along over here. We headed to Billy Joel @ Croke Park a few weeks back, fantastic concert.

I won’t bore you all with the details, but listening to Piano Man live will be a highlight in my years to come – Surprisingly one of the enduring memories was not of Billy, but one of his roadies. He was given the mic at the break, and decided to belt out AC/DC’s highway to hell! Classic stuff. And his name….Chainsaw! Just about brought the dam place down.

Also caught up with Jimmy Barnes. The old Aussie crooner was in particularly good ear drum shattering form. Headed along with my Dublin Convict connections and Jimmy didn’t disappoint. He really is a throw back to the old days, when a man could just grab the nearest mic and scream (LOUD)! Ears were dead set bleeding within 10min. He played most of the Cold Chisel classics, which was good because I couldn’t tell you any of his new shit! See Khe Sanh Below..special

But the Real Musical highlight of the past few months was the Oxegen Festival. Harbott, Tok’s and myself headed along to Punchers town, to experience this 2 day riot of sound! And what a weekend it was. Some of the acts included: The Red Hot Chillies, The Who, James Brown (My black father), Artic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs, Strokes, Ben Harper, Pharrell Williams, Franz Ferdinand, Eric Morillo some DJ’s…over 120 acts. You get the picture. The weekend is really like back to back Big Day Outs with a sleep over in the middle. This part of the world is mad on these things, there must be about 20 big festivals over the summer period, so the choice is maddening, as anyone that has lived in Europe can say.

See some of our mate Matt's photos - Oxegen

Paddy Wagon Tour - Tour Pics

So in between the musical interludes we have managed a few weekends out of Dublin. Prob the only one to talk about was the Paddy Wagon tour with the 6 lads. The Paddy Wagon tour is a Contiki of sorts, but with added Irish Charm, which in our case was Trooper. If this prick was on the brochure the owners would be singing for there supper. He was a true classic, I lost count of his swearing the F word by the time the bust hit the first set of lights.

Anyway, the tour was for 3 days to the Irelands lovely West Coast. Taking in the seaside town of Galway and the idyllic country village of Killarney. This is quite a hike, but was well worth it. Check out a map, basically the bottom left hand chunk was to be our stomping ground for 3 days.

We all meet at around 8am, sprightly and alert from a quiet Friday night spent at home. Well one of us anyway, with all the lads out on the gas in Dublin. Twats! As with any transport in Ireland ours was 60min late, and not a Paddy Wagon bus…top start! Making a bee line for the back seat the lads took up residence for the ride. Seamus, Sam, Manu, Tok’s, Troy and yours truly. Trooper laid down the rules, well I think they were. And we were off. I won’t bore you with sightseeing updates, these were the historical highlights – Castle, cemetery, castle, shrine, castle, bridge, peat, cliff, river, castle.

We all had to introduce ourselves to the rest of the bus, Trooper asked the ‘Kiwi’ lads to go first. After much haggling I decided to kick proceedings of, regaling the bus with some old Nam stories, my troubled childhood and my repugnance towards pigmy’s. But the real star of the show was Tok’s, this his speech in full:

Hi, my names Aaron Tapsil, I’m from New Zealand, I’m an All Black and I came to Ireland to make Love…that hasn’t worked so I thought I would take a Paddy Wagon Tour!

We all thought the poor Portuguese bastard to follow was going to have a hard time beating that, until he said:

My name is Ricardo, I’m from Portugal. I was meant to be on the Belfast tour, but it was full…so I had to come on this one! - All said in broken English, dead serious. Just about pissed my pants laughing! (Maybe you had to be there). So with Ricardo as our new reluctant best-friend we trucked onto Galway, City by the Sea.

We had a plan for the night; the plan was simple, like my brother Tom. But unlike Tom, this plan just might work. The lads had all decided to don the Dead Man suits. You might recall the last outing for these bad boys was on St Pats day back in march. I also believe that was the last time they were actually cleaned. Anyway, the chaps all looked super sharp as we hit Galway’s night life. As luck would have it Galway Race week was in full swing, so the place was packed tighter than a coat rack at an RSA on ANZAC day!

The actual dynamics of the night are some what muddled. We all headed for Dinner with the Paddy crowd, then broke ranks and headed for Galway central, which was actually only a 30 Step stroll! Having experienced some rather large gatherings in recent times, I really think Galway was hitting above its weight, similar to watching Andy Waite chatting up a super model. We knew getting thru this crowd was going to be a challenge. Galway’s centre is basically in the shape of the letter A, which as luck would have it was our letter of the day along, with T and the number 5.

The brilliant thing about Galway during the Festival and Race weeks, is drinking on the streets. In any other town around, you would be asked to pour out the pint, but in this place they actually give the option of a plastic pint! After doing a lap of dis-honour, and actually running into people we knew (Which was rather a few people, we is very popular over here), finding a good place to settle in, or more precisely a line of sight to the bar, was essential. The suits proved to be a smash hit again, some locals actually thinking we had been at the races, others thinking we were just wankers, and who am i to argue with logic. All the lads eventually went there separate ways, all convening at the hostel in the morning, well that was the plan. Upon emerging in the morning, all sporting fresh and rather painful hangovers, we discovered one of the group had not quite made it the required 400m back to the hostel. Instead, deciding on ‘Alternative’ accommodation across town! Now, this under usual circumstances is all good, but with a feisty bus driver and 9am kick off, he was fucked. As the bus pulled out (No metaphor), we all bid farewell to Galway and also to a lost comrade! They say in War that you should never leave a man down…..well fuck him, this isn’t war. So we packed his bags and left him to fend for himself…..which I’d imagine was rather tough, having to spend the rest of his weekend wearing one suit, 70’s style.

For those struggling to spot the missing man, just see the photos…clearly obvious who is missing! Filthy Filthy swine of a man!

So it was off to Killarney in Co. Kerry, via the Cliffs of Moher. These puppies stand at 700m High! So after peaking over the edge and grabbing a fresh set of underwear, it was across the Shannon river to our destination for the night. I really have little to say about Killarney, due to the fact that we arrived in at 6pm, had quick shower and were straight out on the gas. But it looked really nice! (Heathen).

We ended up heading to a restaurant with the paddy crew, nice place. As most nights do this one started slow, mainly due to the large night before and still having vertigo from those fuckin cliffs. Incidentally we worked out that it takes a rock about 7-8 sec to hit the water, its amazing how far NZ maths can take a group of 6! I also believe they loose a few plucky tourists every year (Prob the Eastern Europeans), unfortunately we weren’t lucky enough to time one of them falling but suspect they wouldn’t beat a rock!

Sorry, I digress. At the restaurant shots were had –

Also a Haka was requested, so 3 of the lads got up and belted one out. 2 Maoris and a whitey, so I didn’t think they would need my talents. We headed to a mint cocktail bar and dived right into the 4 Euro drinks (This was a bargain), after an hour or 2 the tour leader Trooper announced we were heading to another bar, which he assured us was ‘The Best Bar’ in town! Riiigggghhht!

So we all left the cheap drinks and talent to find ourselves in the d arkest dingiest bingo hall in Ireland. We walked in to be greeted with 70+ Blue rise gangs, local council looking types and a freakish amount of hippies. WTF. This place had all the promise of the Ivory Coast Ice hockey team. Reassured by Trooper that the band was going to go off, we grabbed a pint. Then the Band hit the stage, your traditional Irish rock band. The age range must have been 50 years, with the Drummer being well into his 70’s, must have been his fan club we passed at the door. Well, then they started to play, and that was that. We did not leave the room all night, absolutely brilliant. I never had much respect for the piano accordion, but this dude made the thing sound awsome, such an under rated instrument. As for the lead singer, he was just the business, played the Tin of his whislte! Ended the night discovering there was a night club down the back of the joint, full of the ‘locals’….ah no bother.

Finished the night with a 400m sprint back to the hostel before curfew, which is perfect because that’s about the limit to my running abilities at the moment. Good work Killarney, recommend a visit.

Not to much else to report from that tour, headed back to Dublin the next day in bits, but well worth it. Hard to try and remember the dam thing, being over 6 weeks ago.

So I wouldn't say that is the latest, i'll be back next week with some kind of run down.