Pretty Keen for Aberdeen!

30/11/09

2024 (local time)

Aberdeen... Crikey, a big weekend!

Didn’t see much of Aberdeen in the day, but saw the insides to a few pubs at night time though. It was a messy night from Day 1.

I was picked up at the train station by my couch surfer in Aberdeen called Matt!...

Right, firstly ill tell you about my epic train journey! So I thought I booked a train for the 27^th for 1427... well I didn’t realise that the train station was a bit further away than I thought, so unfortunately I missed that train by not much more than 10 seconds, but not too worry the next one was in about 40 minutes, but my problem is that I will probably have to try and convince the conductor to let me on this train even though I didn’t really have the correct ticket... But I was quietly confident!

So! The next train pulled up, I explained to the conductor what happened and with a smile on her face she let me on board! So I took a seat and got out my laptop so I could watch some windsurfing movies, she asked to see my ticket, so I happily handed it over, she was then alarmed by the fact that I had bought the ticket for the completely incorrect day. I thought I bought a ticket for the 27^th, but infact so how I bought a ticket for the 28^th!

And it wasn’t until I was on the train and heading to Aberdeen until we noticed it! The main worry for the conductor was that it was going to be difficult for me to get out of the train station as you need to flash your ticket to get out!

I wasn’t too fussed though, I knew I was going to make up some rubbish story and blag my way out of there.

So I arrived at the train station, made up a rubbish story and made it out of the airport, called up Matt (my couch surfer in Aberdeen) who picked me up in his Blue Van and took me to his apartment in the ‘rougher’ part of Aberdeen!

Now from here on in, I was handed beer after beer until we went out on the town.

Now, I was in a slightly reckless mood so I walked off on the boys and ended up doing my own thing... Now I'm not exactly sure what went down but this is my recollection of what happened on Friday night...

So I abandon the boys to look for a bit of fun for the night. I ended up walking the streets for a bit until I saw a queue of people waiting to get into the club. So I started to line up, but then realised that I will probably have to pay to get in, I asked the guy next to me how much it would cost, according to him it would cost around about 6-8 Pounds ($12-$14AUD).. Now I have a bit of a problem with this, as I don't enjoy spending money to enter a club if I'm going to spend money on drinks... So I said to the guy next to me, “mate do ya reckon you could sneak me in?” So we both gave it a red hot shot, but I failed miserably, and I was caught by the bouncer... after trying to explain my case to him, he had no sympathy for me and said that I was going to have to pay...

So I thought to myself ‘This joke isn’t over yet!’ So I lined up in another queue and started to get chatty with a girl, when it was her turn to pay, she paid for herself and then took me by the arm and we walked in super casual! I WAS IN! But its not over yet!

After walking around the place for about 10 minutes I realised that this club is terrible... underage people and terrible music... You have got to be joking! People actually pay to enter this rubbish! Not to worry, I went up to he bar to get a drink and again there were rows of people waiting so I leant over the bar and poured myself a drink... I got away with it the first time, but when I went back for seconds, the bar tender spotted me... so I legged it and hid hanging out with some other guys who bought some shots... eventually the bouncer spotted me and said “Right mate, its time for you to leave” I replied “that’s fair enough pal, I've been stealing drinks all night” He laughed, so I took a photo of him, quite amusing actually.

For the next few days it involved us doing nothing, apart from chatting, keeping warm and knocking back some beers...

On the Saturday night, I crashed on Matt’s (my couch surfers) sister comfy floor, the funny thing was that I had the spare key that Matt’s housemate (Chris) normally has... so when Chris arrived back to his home in Aberdeen, he couldn’t get home, so he tried to brake in without causing to much damage... Instead he ended up ripping half the frame off his window and then breaking the window... so he didn’t really succeed in breaking in successfully!

But, all in all the weekend was a success I had fun, the boys had fun, I didn’t really see much of Aberdeen but what I did see was O.K... it wasn’t great but in reality it was just a nice city with nice buildings that was close to the pretty beach!

Next Stop! Edinburgh!

Be Prepared!

The Bouncer That Kicked Me Out!

The beautiful river that runs into the Ocean!

Artistic Shot!

The wonders of 'Self-Timer' on my camera!

Pre-Session!

THE END!

Doing Bel-Fast!

25/11/09

1752 (local time)

Ill start this next blog where I left off... I was hung over, tired and just sick of sitting on a bus for 10 hours... But when I finally made it to Belfast it was a relief. I had hooked up a couch surfing host in Belfast called Killian, so this was my first destination. On arrival I dumped my bags, and was then told that himself and another couch surfer at the time were heading out to a salsa night and I was invited to come along... to be honest I would have loved to have just chilled out for a while, but I thought why not... So off we went, to salsa it up.

I was starving, so I got some lovely fish and chips and then headed into the pub. I really wasn’t in the mood for ripping it up on the salsa floor I was more in the mood for a chat, I ended up just chatting to a whole bunch of people and then we headed home. Even though I slept on the floor that night, it was still a good nights sleep. The next day we woke fairly early because one of the main couch surfing hosts in Belfast was taking a bunch of couch surfers on a walking tour of all the murals of Belfast.

Even though it was bucketing down with rain, and I was absolutely freezing to death because it was blowing a gale and everyone umbrellas were getting blown to bits it was extremely interesting and I'm glad that I did it.

That night I was planning on heading to a preppie club but instead I was taken to the girl that did the walking tour, as she was having a get together so that they could go to a funk night that was just down the road at the local pub.

On arrival was I little bit drunk a I had smashed all my beers and then was onto someone else’s cider, when we got there, no one was there so I sat at the bar drinking. By 11.30 there was still no body around so went exploring down stairs and listened to a rock band play for 20 minutes until I then headed back upstarts again to the funk night. When I got back upstairs the place had filled up and was starting to get good.

I was getting a bit sick of hanging with the local guys, so instead I started chatting to some girls, the night went on, beers were drunk, shots were had until eventually the funk band ended... I was still up for a party and so were a few others. One of the girls that I had been dancing with was heading too an Art Gallery where there were some live bands playing, I was in for that, so we all jumped in a cab, left half the dudes I was with back at the place and headed to the closest illegal bottle o. I was smashed already, but I was sure that I needed more beers, so we got some more drinks and headed to the art gallery. I had mixed feelings about this idea, but on my way up to the stairs they were playing a Ramones track, so I cracked open another beer and waited for the band to start up.

When they did I was rocking out, giving the band members drinks and telling them that Fosters was the shittest drink in history. So the singer pulled me out on stage and announced that I was Australian and everyone cheered, and then proceeded to dedicate a song to me! I was stoked!

Anyway, the rest of the night was history, my last photo was taken at 5.52am so it was a pretty late night.

The next morning, I went out to brunch with the girls from last night who were super cool and I ended up hanging out with one of them named Becky, for most of my time in Belfast. Who is an absolute legend of a chick! We had some good chat and funny times! ANYWAY!

That day I took really easy as I was nursing another hang over.

The next day it was again time to do something touristy (gah I'm so sick of it) so myself and an Australian girl called Wendy who was also couch surfing in the same house took a trip out to the Giant’s Causeway. It was really quite nice looking at all the beautiful scenery, but too be honest, I'm pretty sick and tired of doing all the touristy stuff that you ‘have to do’ whist in a city.

That night, went to a nice little pub with Becky where we listened to some awesome music and I ended up being given one of the DJ’s cd’s!

The next day I really wanted to head too Derry to look at some more murals and to get a bit more of an idea about the Catholics and the Protestants or the people fighting for a Republic and the peopled wanting Ireland to be a part of the United Kingdom .

Well, I saw some amazing murals and realised that the people in Derry were very angry with everything that has happened over the past 100 years but more importantly what occurred on the day of Bloody Sunday!

Wendy and I went to a museum that painted a pretty horrific picture about what occurred on that day... I'm glad I did it though, because otherwise I would have not known anything about it.

It was a really good day apart for the rain, as I came away with a lot more knowledge that I went there with.

Unfortunately this was my last day in the beautiful town of Belfast as the next day (today 25^th) I was enduring a 10 hour slog of travelling from Belfast to Stranraer via Ferry and then from Stranraer to Iverness via several busses, so I can look for the Loch Ness.

That’s it for me!

But thanks to everyone that made my time in Ireland, The Republic and Northern Ireland a fantastic time!

Belfast Murals

The biggest Mural for the Protestants!

The International Murals!

My favorite Mural!

Some amazing stencil graffiti!

More amazing Graffiti! "Singing Songs of Freedom"

The big fence on the right goes around the most of the city, separating to two party's!
Also note the fence on the back yard of the house! This stops people throwing bottles at the house to hurt people!

Some more Mural's on the Protestants side!

A Memorial...


Night Out In Belfast!

Karina and Becky!

My French friend...

After 1 beer too many!

We got ridiculous!

The band that dedicated a song too me!

All the girls! Sarah, Becky and Karina!

GREAT NIGHT!

Derry Mural's

Clearly a Protestant area!
Free Derry!

Amazing Murals!

More Murals!

A British Soldier smashing his way into a house!

Another one of my favorite murals!

Inside the 'Free Derry' Museum!

An amazing picture, taken on the day of Bloody Sunday!

THE END!

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

The City Centre of Clifden

Another city shot!

A nice cathedral on top of the hill

Watch out cars are sometimes inclined to fall in!

The local pub!

The Messy Night In Galway

We got heaps of balloons and put them in Craig's room!

Fargos (Argos) about to Spew!

FARGUS SPEWING!

OLD MATE SPEWING EWWWW!

A smashed Craig with two polish birds i was chattin too!

I got Craig a kiss!

Craig passing out in his room!

THE END!