The fabulous adventures of chris, maxibaby, mi'hael, t-bone and two random Irish bitches

The fabulous adventures of chris, maxibaby, mi'hael, t-bone and two random Irish bitches in Dublin, Ireland !

These names were given to us by Katie's aunt and you've got to admit it: they SOUND awesome.

Well, I should be studying right now as I've got two more exams coming up, both on tuesday, but what the heck. I'll tell you about Ireland! While reading: here's an typical Irish song:

First of all, for people who still haven't figured it out, if you click on the pictures they will enlarge themselves in a new tab! Secondly, as you might've noticed it's now possible to share/like/forward my posts via the buttons at the end of each post. Please feel free to do so, it's free! Thirdly, comments are very much appreciated and if you log in once, normally your computer should remember your information for next time! Forthly, if you see that words are written like this : Bold and red, it means that there's a link behind it, waiting for you to click on it. Do so, it will only enlargen your knowledge!

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Sound! Minus Craic! What's the craic? - Just some typical Irish words we learned during our stay in the country of the hot whisky, rugby, sheep and not-as-much-gingers-as-expected!

From the 24th -29th of November Katie & Caroline, two Irish girls I met in Rennes, were going back to their homecountry, Ireland to visit their family. Nice as these girls are, they invited us to join them for a trip to  'the other island' and kind as we are, we gratefully accepted this invitation.

This is how, on the 24th in the morning after having carpooled with Covoiturage, Katie, Caroline, Max and me took the plain from Nantes to Dublin. From there we went straight to Maynooth, where the girls' college is located. The first night we met some of Katie's friends and went out to a nice bar, where a very good live band was covering songs from Blur, over RHCP to Snow Patrol. As you all know me, I wasn't really paying attention to anything or anybody else and by the last songs, I found myself standing alone in the middle of the crowd going forth and back on the live music. At the end of the night we had a midnight snack. But not like in Belgium, where you eat a kebab and then feel sick all the way home, no! We had a portion of french fries with garlic sause and melted cheese. Sounds discusting but I swear it's extremely good!

The next day Katie, Max and me took the train to Sligo. Katie's hometown as we went to visit her house, family and the Irish country side. That Irish country side and the people, Katie's friends and family were very nice to us and made me realize that not only in Belgium real friendships exist. We were received in different houses and offered soup, hot whisky and childhood pictures and videos from Katie as if we've always been party of the locals. Very nice indeed!

Notice the lines of every zip you take from a Guinnes

On Saturday (I've just learned that you write this day of the week with a 'U' and not with a 'E', thank you Katie), we trained back to Dublin to meet Chris and Tam, our canadian buddies who could only come on that day as they had classes the days before. After having done a small tour around the city centre we headed to Katie's aunt's house and prepared ourselves for an epic night out in Dublin, city of Guinness.

Well, that turned out differently. Sort of. In some kind of way. Let's just say that one of us, the weakest link we could name it, was not able to join us into the city

Chilling in the wind on the grass of Dundrum

 and we ended up going out with only Chris, Tam, Max and me, which in the end wasn't that bad as we only had to pay for one cab. There were some problems figuring out how to come to the city centre though, as we were staying in the outskirts. The solution to these problems involved: hurting your back while carrying people up the stairs into their bed, three guys checking on Google Maps where the hell we were exactly and how to get to the centre, one guy running through the street of Dundrum (suburb of Dublin) trying to find a streetname, and grass being eaten by a Chinese-Canadian dude. After having found the exact way, we were on our way to a bar where we were going to meet up with Caroline. But she didn't bring her cellphone. And we didn't find the bar. And Tam missed the metro stop and had to run all the way back to where we got off. And this helped us all actually! Because, when we were walking through some random Dublin'er street, we heard a familiar voice screaming 'CHRIS'! and Yes, this was Caroline, who was about to go into some dance bar/discotheque/... And so, the fortune was with us and we had an awesome night with the four guys, Caroline and her friends.

City tour

The next day we got up, some with a headache, others without their head and others just had difficulty to get up at all. But after the 2,5hours we needed to get up, shower and have breakfast, we headed for the city centre of Dublin - Capital of Ireland  and took a Hop On Hop Off Tour Bus, that brought us to all the 'major' and 'important' places in Dublin. We saw some nice things such as The Spire, Trinity College, Temple Bar  and of course the Guinness Brewery ! - btw: did you know that the Guinness Book of World Records, actually is made by Guinness? Well maybe you did, but we didn't, that blew our minds for a second! -

On Sunday night, we decided not to go out as we were pretty tired and wanted to save some money. So we were just playing some games, checking out bands from each others' countries when Katie and her aunt and uncle came home in, well let's say, unsober conditions. Hilarious circumstances were the conclusion, certainly if you know that, during our cardgame of King's Cup (Kingen, Circle of Death,...), after taking the 'rule-card', the uncle said that all women had to go to bed and if not they had to drink. Well, they drank for sure! Irish people really are heavy drinkers, I can must now.

What made the night even better was that I met up with my buddy Géaroid, whom I'd met in Argentina back in the days and with whom I did Pukkelpop festival 2010!  It was awesome to see him again, he's doing fine and working. The dude even has got a girlfriend! -Your song should be done by now: try this one : Irish Celtic Band.

Tam, Chris, Max and me @Jameson Distillery

On Monday, our last day in Ireland we finished our tour of Dublin by going to the Jameson distillery. We didn't do the tour though, not enough time and too expensive, but we got some souvenirs!

After this we went back to Maynooth, for Katie to be able to say goodbye to her friends and for us to be able to hang out, play some pool and get back to our senses after five days of crazy Irishness.

On Tuesday morning, 7am, we took the plain back to Nantes, were a colleague of Max's dad was awaiting us to drive is back to Rennes. In the afternoon some of us had a presentation and Max and me finished an essay and presentation that we had to present on wednesday morning. 68% we got for that one, if you know they barely ever give more than 70 for most courses, that's kind of good I think.

That's about it people, I could keep on talking, but should actually do some stuyding today so I'll conclude here. An update about the two passed weeks will follow soon I think. I'll just inform you that more pictures, as usual, can be found on Picasa and that here too, it's free and easy to comment!

And btw: I did the calculations and you can see it on my previous post: Ireland was my 21st country to visit and this on my 21st year of living on this planet (haha, no red color here, it's not a link!). Only 29 to go to reach my goal of 50 before I die. And yes, I want to reach that goal to be able to set another one!

Ow yeah, I just realised I'll be back in Belgium around 20/12, so if you want to meet up let me know! And if you don't, you're probably not really a friend of mine so I don't care! haha!

Cheers, I got out in style

Belgian proud in front of Guinness Distillery

All of us on top of the Guinness Brewery with an amazing view over Dublin.