FIGJAM'S Epic Adventure: Getting Smashed In Galway!

21/11/09

2000 (local time)

When I was in Cork, I asked Eoghen if he knew anyone in Galway that I could crash on their couch... fortunately he knew of a few dudes, so on arrival to Galway at least I had a place to stay... well I thought so anyway. What I didn’t realise is, that I was going to be staying in the local University owned flats. There were going to be some good party’s so I hoped. So when I got off the bus, it was pouring with rain, so heavy and I had no wet weather gear, so walking to the place was totally out of the question, busses had stopped a long time ago, so my only option was to fork out 9 Euro for a taxi to take me to the location.

When I finally arrived, I was greeted at the front door by two young girls, who were obviously a little unsure about what was happening and who I was but I was able to explain to them that I was planning to sleep on their couch, because I know Craig... Unfortunately Craig wasn’t home at the moment because he was coming home from Dublin from a University excursion, but not too worry, so I watch T.V with Craig’s house mates and tried convincing them that Home and Away wasn’t actually filmed in Australia and instead was filmed in California, America and they were American actors trying to put on an Aussie accent. Quite amusing for me really...

Eventually Craig arrived home, and after a couple of hours of chat, everyone went too bed whilst I slept on the couch. It wasn’t the best sleep that I've ever had, but I'm not complaining.

The next day, I had a bit of a sleep in and eventually got my act together and headed into town to check it all out, after wandering around for a while I went to a bus station and bought a ticket too Spiddle, which is a little down that is set next to the coast.

As soon as I had hopped on the bus, the skys opened up and it just poured down with rain... So obviously on arrival to Spiddle it was still raining so I thought, what would an Irishman do in this situation... Go To The Pub! So I found a nice little place that was close to the water, and sat in the pub drinking beers and listening to music for 2 hours until my bus picked me up. When the bus did arrived, I was a little bit drunk, which was good because I had a lovely sleep on the trip home.

That night, a few of the other boys in the house were planning a bit of a night so I was all geared up to do that... but in reality it all came down to how Ireland performed against French in the qualifying rounds of the world cup.

A week before, the French played Ireland in Ireland and won 1-0 to the French, so now it was Irelands turn to play the French in France.

So going into the game, the French had a 1-0 lead on the Irish, but that changed in the 36^th minute where the legend known as Robby Keene slotted a perfect goal! The score was tied at 1-1.

There were plenty of scoring opportunities from both sides in the second half, but no goals were scored so it went to overtime.

I'm not too sure about what has been heard in Aus about this game, but what happened in overtime was truly a disappointing time in Soccer, the captain of French deliberately handed the ball onto his foot as he passed it too his team mate who scored the winning goal for the French. There was a massive uproar from the Irish team trying to convince the Ref that he handed the ball, but the Ref wanted nothing of it.

This event put a massive downer on the night, so we didn’t end up going out, I wasn’t too fussed as I was fairly tired.

The next day was an early start as I was heading out west again to a little town called Clifden where most of the people spoke Irish as opposed to English. I was here for 2.5 hours with no idea what to do, so I put my head phones in and just walked around the entire day, looking at all the different church’s and cathedrals, I then walked down to the local sailing club, that didn’t exist anymore and before I knew my time was up and I was heading back to Galway for Craig’s 20^th birthday... it was going to be a big one.

Before I left, I bought a muffin and some pink candles for his birthday for a bit of a laugh, I was prepared.

On arrival, I stopped at the local super market and bought 4 litres of beers and some mince and spaghetti... Cooked a really nice meal for myself and then was straight away on the beers. It wasn’t long, until we were at one of the boys houses playing “Kings” which is a harsh drinking game... photos explain the story for the rest of the night really. All I know is that I got to bed by about 4ish and had to be up so I could catch the horrendously long bus to Belfast the next day.

I eventually woke, got all my stuff together and started the walk into town Belfast was my next destination. YOU BEAUTY!

Clifden