Salzburg - October 2008 

As we’re about to emigrate to Canada, we decided to spend a couple of weeks travelling in Europe before we left.  Most of our destinations were very familiar and have been covered elsewhere on this site.  Salzburg was somewhere new, so here’s the good, bad and strange.

Conversation in a café in the old town (Altstadt)

“What language are they speaking?”

“Those old biddies over there, that just asked for a cup of coffee in a really loud and obnoxious fashion?”

“Yes.”

“English, with a very broad Irish accent.  They’ve been moaning about young people having no manners.”

Good Things

• The Altstadt – The old town has been tastefully preserved in its medieval form and is a nice place to stroll around.
  
  
• Mozart – This is where the great composer was born and grew up. The town obviously holds their favourite son in great esteem.
  
  
• Scenery – Salzburg is in a sub alpine area, so you can see fantastic mountain scenery without having to leave the centre of the town.  Although if you make your way up to the local palace (Schloss) the view is even better.
  
  
• Residence Galerie – The gallery  was showing a special exhibition on the nature of sin and its portrayal in paintings since the 1500’s.  It was thought provoking and well put together.
  
  
• Sacher Torte – The delicious chocolate covered cake is really from Vienna, but that doesn’t stop it being exceptionally tasty in Salzburg.
  
  
• Mirabell Gardens  - Cunningly cut out and planted, the local council buildings gardens are surprisingly nice. See the pictures in the album below.
  
  

Bad Things

• The Cathedral (Dom) -  Outside, a fairly pleasant if not great looking building. Inside a rather vulgar display of the affluence of the town.  I’m not a religious person, but that didn’t matter here. The Dom is set up as a tourist attraction, not a place of worship.  If you want one of those go to the Franziskaner church around the corner.
  
  
• Mozart – Favourite son he may be, but he’s also the favourite brand.  Mozart’s image adorns far too many things from restaurant frontages to chocolates and perfume.  We didn’t try Mozart flavoured liquor in a violin shaped bottle and if you did, or even worse, bought a bottle, you need a slapping.
  
  
• High on a hill, with a bloke pretending to herd goats - Possibly a worse rip off than Mozart liquor, the daily ‘Sound of Music’ tour offered a trip around the locations for the filming of the famous (and somewhat annoying) tale of the Von Trapp family.  Yes the Julie Andrews version, not the real story.
  
  
• Dodgy Busker – Yes, I can see you strumming a few dull chords while a marvellous melody comes out and if I look a little harder I can spot the speaker, half hidden by a blanket on your left leg, where the music is coming from, you nasty little fraud.
  
  
• No Kangaroos – A few years ago in Vienna we smiled when we saw a “No Kangaroos in Austria” t-shirt.  Sadly there were Australians in Salzburg, showing all the tact and understanding that we’ve come to expect from them when they leave their tiny little corner of the world.
  
  
• Red Bull – The bloke that invented it (Dietrich Mateschitz) is from Salzburg.  Sadly I didn’t now where he lived, otherwise I could’ve drank half a bottle of vodka with a couple of cans of his stinky, syrupy liquid.  Then I could’ve gone to his house and annoyed the hell out of him for hours before the caffeine high wore off, instead of just falling over and then asleep, which is what would’ve happened if I’d only drunk the vodka.

Strange Things

• Sat Nav Madness – Our satellite navigation system got very confused on the way in to Salzburg. As well as sending us around in concentric circles for nearly half an hour, it also managed to produce a route on its ‘short’ setting that was a longer distance than the ‘fast’ setting, which I thought was impossible.
  
  
• Open Lift – The hotel we chose had an old style lift where you open an outside door and then climb into the lift. Usually there is an inner door or at least a cage style metal sliding door.  In this instance there was only the outer door, which gave you the strange sensation that you weren’t really held in.  We used the stairs quite a lot after the first night.
  
  
• Plastic Pod Bathroom – We also tried to spend as little time in the bathroom as possibly, as it looked and felt like it had been stripped straight out of a cheap cruise ship and then inserted into our room.
  
  
• What are you looking at? – Outside McDonalds some of  the local Salzburg youth hung around making a bit of noise, in the manner of teenagers the world over.  The only difference was that they were all dressed in designer clothes and none of them looked like they’d ever need a job flipping burgers.  Salzburg really is a very affluent place.
  
  
• Horse shit shovelling man – Riding a bike with a cart on the front, Salzburg’s smelliest man stops regularly to get his shovel out and fill his cart with the copious droppings of Salzburg’s horses.  If you can stand the smell he’s a good man to follow through crowded areas.
  
  
• Tourist Tastes – Salzburg has restaurants that specialise in Austrian food, restaurants that specialise in Italian food and even the odd one or two that specialise in Indian food.  Sadly a couple of local proprietors have decided to specialise in all three.  So if you fancy a curried schnitzel pizza just head to one of the Austrian, Italian and Indian restaurants.
  
  
• Blaine? – In a Salzburg square a figure balances on a large golden ball.  Is it pretentious wanker David Blaine performing his latest dull stunt?  Probably not.  See the picture in the photo album below.
  
  
• Mozart’s Balls – With a picture of the ubiquitous  Mozart on the wrapper, this chocolate with a puréed nut filling was the size of a large testicle.  So like many visitors, we left Salzburg with one of Mozart’s balls in our mouths.  They were quite tasty.

Liam's Stag do – Cambridge and Newmarket  – July 2008  

This GBS is stitched together from the contributions of John W, Matt, Rich and Ali, with a few of my own added in. Pictures were kindly provided by John C.  Thanks for your efforts lads and for a great weekend for that matter. 

Having considered a variety of alternatives to celebrate my last weekend of freedom, I decided to forego Phnom Penh and Munich and settled for a day at the races at Newmarket and a couple of nights out in Cambridge. 

Conversation at Newmarket racecourse 1
Paul - "You really look like you fit in here Rory, with your brown jacket and your brown shoes and your, um, checked shirt."
Rory - "Hmm thanks." - Not sure if it was a compliment, slight tense feeling in the air.
John - "You see Rory, the thing you have to remember about Paul is that he's a twat." -  Easing the tension in an instant 

Conversation at Newmarket racecourse 2
"This place could do with some strippers." 

Conversation at Newmarket racecourse 3
"We're up here in the grandstand, just behind you."
"So is that you waving at me, or someone else."
"How the fuck would I know if anyone else was waving at you?" 

Repeated conversation at various places
"Ali, for the last fucking time - thanks for the offer, but no, I don't want a drink from your hip flask" 

Conversation in a Newmarket pub showing the calibre of woman that was prepared to talk to the group
"So what do you do then?"
"I'm a technical architect."
"Oh I love art."

Good Things  

• The Company – Every one a fine fellow. 

• Newmarket Races – The home of flat racing is a splendid course with great facilities and top class racing.

• The Females in Cambridge and Newmarket - Barely saw a minger all weekend, and most of them were dressed to impress. Ah, if only I was 20 years younger I’d move there tomorrow.

• Rickshaw ride on Saturday night - An excellent way to spend ten lazy minutes.

• Japanese Moon – The Teri Aki restaurant had fantastic food, friendly service, nice décor and sadly, the best man’s arse on show through the window when he went outside for a smoke.   

Bad Things  

• The Aftermath – When my hangover started on Sunday, it settled in and stayed for nearly a week, as my liver tried to recover form the kind of booze onslaught that I would've thought quite mild ten years ago.

• The Price of Beer - Just because Cambridge is slightly closer to London than my house it doesn’t mean that they have to charge 3 and half quid in some places for a pint, robbing bastards.

• The Hotel - You literally couldn’t swing a cat in the hotel rooms. I’m just glad I got there early and had a room to myself. At one point I was changing my trousers and broke the window with my arse - nearly. Last time I let Liam book a hotel for me. He just can’t cut it.

• Bad Last Pint - I was very unlucky that the last pint I drank on each night seemed to be a bad one. The 17 I had before that had all been ok, but it was that bad last pint each night that made my head hurt in the morning.

• Crap Trains – We waited for a train at Newmarket, only to find out that it had been randomly cancelled, which led directly to several pints in Newmarket, which would have been a good thing, except that I knackered my ankle leaving the pub and come midnight it hurt like fuck. I had to take Monday and Tuesday off, with my feet up. God knows how I drove back on Sunday.  

Strange Things

• Sorting the Wheat from the Chavs – Newmarket racecourse had several social layers to it.  There was an area for the general public, the premier enclosure, where smart dress was required and then several smaller, but successively more exclusive areas, depending on your social standing.  

• Drinks Rules at the Races – An extension of the idea above, in the premier enclosure you can buy any number or manner of drinks, but you can't take them into the grandstand or next to the course. Literally three feet away in the normal enclosure, you can rest your pint on the course railings.

• Newmarket pub – With our train cancelled, we went to a pub in Newmarket where the bar staff were dressed in all sorts of interesting outfits to celebrate a member of staff leaving.  Even stranger was a woman in a orange top, who features in the conversation above. Allegedly she was on the piss with her mate, brother, cousin, whatever. Great boobs, but as mad as a hatter and not a word of sense out of her trap. Things could’ve got stranger still, it’s a good job we left.

• “It’s Moyesee” – We were all relieved when Everton fan Rory embarrassingly threw himself at David Moyes and shook his hand. We all thought he was going to punch him and shout "That's for signing Phil Neville."

• Are you Dancing? - Matt trying to lift Ali in a ‘Dirty Dancing’ style, well past midnight in a dodgy Wetherspoons pub was a sight I won’t forget in a hurry.

• Hungry? – The hotel breakfast consisted of a selection of cereals, juices, cheese and ham rolls. It was so good for one guest, a nice older lady, that she decided to take several of the cheese rolls with here in her carrier bag.

• Trolleyed? - On Sunday morning as we sat having breakfast after a fairly long Saturday, a girl was pushed by in a shopping trolley after being out all night. We all looked at her and thought ‘That was how life used to be.’

• Stoned? – On Friday night we had a good laugh wandering around Cambridge city centre talking to random folk, including a stonemason who showed us all the rude gargoyles on the buildings.

• Drunk? - On the Friday night John and Paul had a  "How long can we get these twats to drink before they have to eat" competition, I think they could have lasted the whole weekend if we hadn't gone to the Japanese restaurant.

• Loaded? – At the races, four of us had winning placepot tickets, having picked a win or a place in each of the first six races.  Each of us expected a big win and some of us were banking on it.  Ali, who hadn’t had a placepot bet, told us wisely to cherish the moment, just in case it didn’t quite work out. We should have listened.  None of us won enough to cover our placepot stake.

• Pulled? - The nearest anyone got to pulling was when the two John's managed to strike up close relationships with strangers that led to a continuous stream of text messages that kept them busy all weekend. Unfortunately it was the car parking service.  

“Happy days,” as Ali kept telling us whenever he had the chance.

Brussels – June 2008  

Having visited six years ago, we decided it was time to get on the Eurostar and go back to Brussels for some beer, chocolate and chips with mayonnaise. Here’s the good, bad and strange. 

Conversation between an exasperated French train manager on the Eurostar and a military equestrian type who had decided to use Brasso to clean up some of his horse gear on the train. 
“Excuse me sir.  This is a carriage where people eat, could you put that away please?”
“Yes of course, if you’ve got a plastic bag.  I seem to have had a bit of an accident with it.”
Sadly the accident wasn’t swallowing the contents of the can. And we wonder why the rest of Europe see the English as pompous and ignorant.

Almost a Conversation between a restaurant hawker in Rue de Bouchers and Rebecca
“Excuse me madam, excuse me.” – smiling as Rebecca slowed to a halt.
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you one question?” – grinning wider as he got ready to reel in another customer.
“You just did.” – Rebecca moves quickly away, leaving the bloke looking rather forlorn and wondering if he actually wanted to ask two questions.  

Good Things

• Food – Especially, but not limited to, chocolate.  Just incredible from the tasty croque monsieur from the corner café, through the exquisite salads at lunch time, to dinners loaded with so much taste it was difficult not to smile while you were eating.  Then you get started on the deserts and the chocolate and everything beforehand seems likes what is, a bit of a warm up for the main event. 

• Beer – Belgium is justly famous for the quality of beer brewed there.  Rebecca particularly liked the fruit tinged varieties.

• Grand Place – The main square, while only a small place, is full of medieval character and after a certain point in the evening, plenty of interesting or at least fairly drunk, characters

• Compact capital of Europe – Brussels styles itself as the centre of Europe and with the Euro parliament in town there’s a real cosmopolitan feel to the place. The town is small enough to easily get around and it feels more like a comfy provincial town than a gigantic metropolis with no soul.

• Art Noveau – Brussels has a huge variety of impressive Art Noveau buildings, often nestled in between modern buildings.

• Eurostar – Aside from the annoying Brasso Brits travelling in our carriage, the Eurostar was a thoroughly pleasing experience, fast, clean and with great service onboard. 

Bad Things

• Prices, especially in and around the Grand Place – The capital of Europe attracts tourists.  The Grand Place provides a focus to the town.  Add one to the other and then double your price tags, especially in the outdoor bar areas in the Grand Place.

• Rue de Bouchers – Butchers Street is a narrow pedestrian street full of restaurants with tables outside.  At almost every door several men beckon you to come and try their food, or as the unfortunate man in the conversation above did, try to engage tourists in conversations.  This area should be in the good things section above, we ate there on our last visit and the food and atmosphere was great. This time we hated the place, it felt like the hawkers had taken over and were looking for the most drunken tourists to drag in and then overcharge.

• Midi station, and stations in general – Brussels isn’t a bad place, but if all you saw of it was its stations and especially Gare du Midi, the station that the Eurostar drops you at, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was miserable, dirty, piss smelling hovel.

• Vom man – On Sunday morning we walked slowly through the streets to the north of the centre, strolling past nice parks and pretty Art Noveau buildings.  By the botanical gardens we stopped to admire the view, the moment was spoiled slightly by a man in a suit standing a couple of metres from us vomiting copiously on the floor. 

Strange Things

• Mannekin Pis – The symbol of Brussels, a small naked boy constantly pissing into a fountain.  I hope the symbol of your home town is slightly more appealing.

• Enjoying Football in Public – As Belgium were as crap as England in qualifying, there were no local fans enjoying the Euro 2008 coverage. But as Brussels is the capital of Europe, in every restaurant, bar and café enthusiastic fans followed the games.  On Friday night Holland destroyed France, causing great celebration (everybody just loves beating the French) and there were flurries of orange everywhere.  The following day Spain beat Sweden and the red shirts happily danced in the Grand Place and drove around the centre with their horns blazing.  There was plenty of drinking, lots of noise and lots of smiles, but no trouble.  England fans please take note.

• Street Art – Most street art around the world is a bit on the odd side, Brussels is no exception.

• Manicured trees – That shape just isn’t natural, see the photo album below.

• Languages – Back on the capital of Europe theme again, it’s not enough to speak both official Belgian languages (French, Flemish), in Brussels you also need to converse in English, Spanish, German, and Russian.  Most locals can probably speak Welsh, Latin and Elvish too. 

• The Atomium – A strange looking thing.  Built for the 1958 Expo it’s a scale model of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times.  I like it, but looking at the pictures again, I can’t really explain why.

• Pavillion of Temporary Happiness – To mark the 50^th Anniversary of the Brussels Expo this pavilion was been built at the back of the Atomium.  It contains a really good film show about the 58 Expo and how Belgium and the world as a whole have changed since.  Why’s it strange?  Well if the name isn’t enough, it’s made entirely of plastic yellow beer crates.  Hence the happiness, albeit temporary. 

• Kebab Street – Rue de Bouchers is the home of loads of fabulous restaurants and hawkers galore.  Rue de Marches aux Fromages (Cheese Market Street) is the home of loads of Kebab restaurants. It’s strange to see so many doners spinning and  sizzling away so close to each other and while it’s a lot more downmarket than Rue De Bouchers, it’s a lot more relaxed and very tasty too. 

                                                                                                                     

Foo Fighters at Wembley – June 6^th 2008

Along with 80,000 others we made our way to the new(ish) Wembley stadium to see the Foo Fighters play on a Friday night.  Here’s the good, bad and strange.

Conversation between Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins during the Foo Fighters set:

“When you think of Wembley stadium, what do you think of first?”
"Freddie Mercury.”

Somehow I think most non-Americans would probably come up with the FA Cup or 1966 and “they think it’s all over”, but there you go.  

  Good Things

• The Setting – Wembley may be a dump of a London suburb that is horribly inaccessible, but the new stadium provides an excellent setting for events like this.

• The Stage – A vast revolving stage with a walkway that must have been fifty metres long at the front, complemented the vastness of the stadium and enabled Dave Grohl to wonder around stoking up the crowd like a loon during some of the longer instrumental breaks.

• The Set – Marvellous throughout, starting with “The Pretender”, passing through a clever acoustic reworking of “My Hero”, extra long twisted versions of “This is a Call” and “Stacked Actors,” before a cracking finish with “All my Life”.  Done, done and on to the next one indeed, or the encore at least.  The highlight for me was a more or less solo version of “Everlong” half way down the vast walkway.  Truly wonderful stuff.

• The Seats – Club Wembley is nicely set up with comfortable seats and good views, certainly not the Wembley I remember as a kid watching international football.   The price of beer was another welcome surprise, £3.50 a pint might sound a tad expensive, but it’s on par with London prices at the moment.  I’m told it costs a lot more to drink when England are playing there.

• The Spectators – Yes I know they are a crowd, but I’m working on a letter S to start each point theme here.  For the most part noisy, happy and good natured, with the exception of a few tossers in the section above us (see bad things below).

Bad Things

• Communication Breakdown – We had tickets that told us we should go through Entrance 4, which didn’t exist.  Several fairly helpful, but generally useless, stewards pointed us in varying directions after hastily referring to scraps of paper they had been given a few minutes before the crowds turned up.  Eventually, almost by accident, we found the right way in.

• Trampled Underfoot  – After the gig, we waited forty minutes to get into Wembley Park station, all the time corralled by miserable police officers on horseback.  You may be the law, but you can smile you know.  Eventually we got home, but by then, with the help of the police and Transport for London, the buzz of the evening had very definitely worn off.

• The Rain Song – The weather stayed good for the gig, but I still got quite wet as a result of the tossers in the tier above us chucking half finished pints on top of us every now and again.  

• What is and What Should Never Be - £50 for a gig.  Ok it was worth it, but that’s not the point, for £50 you should get a whole days entertainment, not just three bands, the first of which (Against Me) came on too early for anyone who was working that day to see.

• Rock and Roll – We turned up on the wrong night. Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones joined the band on stage the following night and played a couple of classics, the bastards.

Strange Things

• In-ger-lund, In-ger-lund, In-ger-lund – Didn’t hear it once, didn’t see anyone in a footie shirt, didn’t hear any talk of footie, couldn’t even see the pitch as it was boarded over, if you didn’t know it was one of the most famous football stadiums in the world, you certainly wouldn’t have guessed it that night.

• Supergrass  - A fine band reduced to a support slot.  Sad rather than strange really, we saw them at the Astoria a couple of months earlier and they played a fabulous set.  At Wembley, more or less the same set faded away on the breeze as they proved they’re not really a stadium band.

• Empty pint pot snake – During the Supergrass set an enterprising bunch of folks on the pitch decided to help recycle the plastic pint pots.  At first it looked like people had just picked on some poor bugger and decided to throw pint pots at him. It soon turned out to be a concerted effort to build the largest plastic pint pot snake ever.  By the time Supergrass had finished, at least twenty people were supporting it and several hundred pots had been stacked in a snake-like manner.

• Freddie Mercury – I know I mentioned this in the conversation above, but it was still strange, perhaps not as strange as the Mercury-esque sing-along that followed, with the crowd proving that any daft noise a performer can make (think a-ow-ee-a-ow) a crowd can make more loudly and a lot less tunefully.

• I’m forever blowing bubbles – Talking of singalongs, while I was getting rid of my first couple of pints in the cubicle based toilets in Club Wembley a tuneless git a few doors down starting warbling the West Ham song.  Not too strange really, until the end of the tune when two others joined in and we got three part cockney harmony.

• Triangle Solo – Well if you’re going to employ a bloke to play the triangle you may as well give him a solo spot, for thirty seconds, at Wembley, in front of 80,000 screaming fans.  It went down very well, strangely. 

Good Things

• The Runners – Over thirty thousand pounded their way through twenty six miles in various modes of dress and varying levels of comfort.  The elite men went past us at the seventeen mile mark at a quicker pace than I can sprint.

• Charity – The vast majority were running for charitable causes and huge sums were raised for good causes, very definitely a good thing.

• Support – In our area, support was undiscriminating, every runner was clapped, cheered and encouraged.  All along the route the locals came out and did their best to show that London can put on a decent sporting spectacle.

• Community – The level of support almost made me feel I was living in an active, lively community that really cared for the principles of sport and portraying London in the best light.  Later on I realised it was just an excuse for a piss up and the chance to get your face on the TV, but at the time I was quite impressed.  

Bad things

• Pain – Seventeen miles was too much for some of the runners we saw go past.  Dehydration and misery were etched on many faces and the occasional bloodied nipple was not a pleasant sight.

• Guilt – Thirty thousand ran, we didn’t.  Did I feel guilty?  For a  minute or two I might have.

• Tony Blackburn – BBC Radio London parked a crappy old Routemaster bus (yes they are crap – but that’s a different argument) in the park opposite Mudchute station and broadcast their anaemic drivel while the runners went past.  Apparently Tony Blackburn was on the bus, but fortunately we left before he got anywhere near a microphone.  If you live in London and listen to Radio London try switching to XFM – it’s so much better.  Mind you even Capital Radio is better than Radio London, but then that’s a bit like saying it’s better to eat dog shit than horse shit, at the end of the day they're both shit. 

Strange things

• Variety – Several Spidermen, Supermen, Fred Flinstones, rhinos, girls wearing tutus, blokes in drag and a bloke with a tree strapped to his back ran past us amongst the thousands.  It’s hard enough to run a marathon as it is, but plenty of people seem to want to make it more challenging by dressing up, which is one reason why London’s marathon is one of the strangest.

• Entertainment – Along the route as well as the BBC, several bands, DJs and other forms of entertainment were going on.  Next to Mudchute station a group that helps young people get involved in drama, sang and danced.  They were called Ten Sing and were involved in raising money for cystic fibrosis sufferers. They provided us with a lot of entertainment.  Their choice of songs was very apt for teenagers, (I Predict a Riot, So much for my Happy Ending)  while not exactly inspirational for the runners who generally looked a bit confused as they went past.  Their band did a vaguely decent jam of AC/DC’s Back in Black while they were waiting for the singers to get ready and the groups dancing was, well, they’ll probably get better, let’s leave it at that.

• YMCA – You’ve run seventeen miles, but you recognise that tune and when the chorus comes round you can’t help but do the moves, causing a huge smile to spread across the crowd, mainly because the three blokes running with you have automatically done the same thing.   

• A city fit to live in? -  Irony on marathon day.  What’s the best way to watch thirty thousand people pushing them selves to their physical limits?  In our area, it was with a beer in one hand and a bag of crisps in the other.  Next to the Radio London bus was a London Pride beer tent and they were passing out free samples at 10am in the morning, a fine example for us all to take on board.

                                                                                                                                                                    

At the end of March our friends Steph and Dave got married - We went to New Jersey to help celebrate a typical American Wedding. Here's the GBS.

Steph & Daves Wedding – March 2008 

Conversation at Kelly’s Bar after the wedding.
“We met the rabbi several times and we knew him quite well, but the priest we didn’t really know at all.  It was only when we went to see him that we realised he was married and had a kid.”
“Isn’t that a touch unusual?”
“Well yeah. So I asked him not to mention his wife or kid during the ceremony and he didn’t,  but he turned up with his wedding ring on.  Fortunately most people aren’t checking out a priests ring finger, so I don’t think anyone noticed.”  

DJ / MC during reception

“Will you please all stay in your seats for the first course folks.”

With plenty going on at the start of the reception (see strange things below) this announcement isn’t as strange as it first seems, although I did have an image of twenty or thirty old biddies dancing around with soup bowls in their hands playing on my mind for some time afterwards.  

Good Things

• Steph & Dave – Possibly the happiest couple I’ve seen at a wedding, fully in control and extremely relaxed throughout.

• Spring  Lake – A pleasant town on the Atlantic coast and a wonderful backdrop for the wedding.

• Cocktail hour and reception – Free booze all day long and very tasty food made the reception (and the cocktail hour that preceded it) very enjoyable indeed.  

• Photo montage – Dave has plenty of photo editing experience and Steph can smile, a lot. So the photo montage that was played before the reception was entertaining and stylish, as opposed to tacky and embarrassing.   

Bad Things

• Waking up hungover – We flew to New Jersey on Friday evening and drank too much when we got there, so Saturday mornings’ hangover was unexpected and unwelcome, whereas the hangover on Monday (the day after the wedding) was expected and unwelcome.

• Taxi back to the hotel –  On the way back from Kelly’s bar, at least twelve of us were ushered into a minibus, before being driven for five minutes.  We were  then relieved of cash on a per person basis.  I feel we may have been ripped off, but I wasn’t sober enough to dispute or prove it.  

• Car hire – We got our hire car for very little cash, which was good, because it wasn’t worth much.  It was slow and functional but a bit crap, a bit like us the day after the wedding. 

Strange Things

• Dual Ceremony – Steph is Jewish, Dave is Catholic, so they got married by a rabbi (smiling, benevolent, slightly disconcerting) and a priest (frowning, feisty and wearing a wedding ring).  Fortunately Steph and Dave’s presence shone through as several thousand years of mutual hatred simmered below the surface in a ceremony where the rabbi outdid the priest in every department, except for looking mean. 

• A different style of wedding  – In the US, weddings are a little different to the UK.  Steph and  Dave got married at 11:30am, we then had a cocktail hour, which included a buffet before the reception where the traditional meal was served.  The bride and groom had their first dance at the start of the reception  and the speeches were also made prior to the meal being served.  There were no father of the bride or groom speeches either – the maid of honour and best man got to speak instead.  The reception finished at 5pm at which point most people went home.  Those of us that remained got changed into casual gear and went to an after party at the aforementioned Kelly’s bar. 

• On the squint hotel room – We stayed at a charming hotel along with the bridal party, our room was spacious, comfortable and boasted  a working real fire that  I was determined to light, but never got round to it.  Judging by our bedroom floor the hotel was built by someone who had never owned a spirit level.

• Are you nuts? – On the flight over we were soberly informed that we had two passengers aboard with severe nut allergies and that we couldn’t even think about opening a bag of nuts on the flight as it could cause problems for these people.  I was disappointed I hadn’t picked up a pack of dry roasted in the terminal to threaten them with.

• The Reuben – At Kelly’s bar some of us ordered food – I went for their Reuben sandwich, the bar’s special.  It was a scary looking thing coated in cheese which probably had more calories in than all of the rest of the food and booze I consumed during the rest of the day put together.  But I ate it anyway.

• Invisible dogs – A new law has been passed in some of the states that forces dog owners to tether or fence in their dogs.  One way of doing this is to make your dog wear a collar that responds to signals when the dog crosses an electric fence buried underground.  The dog gets a shock and doesn’t cross the boundary.  We saw a sign in a front garden in Spring Lake telling us that their dog was confined by an invisible fence.  We wondered if the shop selling the signs was doing better business than the fence providers, after all if it’s an invisible fence, how do you check it’s there; before or after an invisible dog bites you?

Ireland – December 2007 

A short part of a very long conversation in a pub on the outskirts of Dublin
“You see my Granddaddy didn’t drink until he was in his fifties, then he made up for lost time by drinking the whiskey every day.” – pause for reflection. 
“One winter’s night he got lost rounding up sheep in the snow.  We all got back to the house and he wasn’t there.”
“That’s terrible.” – with sympathy
“We found him in the morning, in the snow, with his hand wrapped round the whiskey bottle, but he didn’t have the strength to bring the bottle to his mouth.”
“The poor man, what a way to go.” – with sympathy, but trying not to laugh at the image
“Well the thing was he was still alive, so we got him in the house, but we must have put him too close to the fire.”
“How do you mean?” – trying really hard to keep a straight face
“Well, he thawed out too quick and the doctor says that was what killed him.”
“Well you’d think that a frozen man should be as close to the fire as possible, I suppose.” – desperately trying to say something to stop from laughing.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you.” – with a gleam in his eye that suggested he may have been stringing me on. 

I never did find out if the story was true, but for the sake of entertainment I’m going to assume it was. 

Good Things

• Rory & Lisa’s Wedding  - A very personal ceremony (see strange things below), followed by an excellent reception with an incredible five course meal and plenty of Guinness.  As you might expect from an Irish wedding; a good time was had by all.

• “Jesus Rory, quail.” -  The meal started in a rather stylish fashion, which led to Rory’s brother making everyone smile during his speech by telling us that Rory had no idea what quail was until he moved to London.

• Hospitality – Once the initial feeling of hostility towards the English wore off (usually sometime during the first pint) the Irish were marvellously hospitable and wonderful hosts, especially,

• Barbara and John – Thanks for letting us stay at your home, feeding us and telling us some fantastic stories. 

Bad Things

• Hire car rip off – An expensive car to start with got more pricey when the charge came through.  The form that said “bring it back empty,” having been given to us in error.

• Getting there and coming back – Flights to Dublin from Heathrow are from a small metal tube of a terminal miles from anywhere else.  Ours was delayed.  Coming back was worse, Dublin airport is a nice enough place, but the thick fog in London meant we were stranded there for over five hours. 

Strange Things

• Father Uncle – Rory comes from a large family, so the wedding ceremony was very personal, as it was performed by his Uncle.  I don’t suppose too many grooms can say that.

• Irish storytelling – The stories can’t all be true, can they (see conversation above).  It doesn’t really matter if you can’t tell when you’re having your leg pulled or when the teller is being deadly serious.  Just try to laugh in the right places. 

• Concept of good ‘Craic’ – Less difficult to pin down than whether a story is true or not, good ‘craic’ can range from a pleasant few drinks in company to running from the English police after you have fly tipped a lorry load of tyres in an supermarket car park, apparently.

• Green is the colour – The national colour is green, which is handy because Ireland is very much a rural land.  Within fifteen minutes of leaving Dublin airport you could be forgiven for thinking that you are in the middle of a farm, a country sized farm.  With not much to do outside of work, it’s easy to see how the drinking and storytelling have come to such prominence.