Around Ireland with 2 Aussies - By Michael Finnegan

October 21 - November 8 2006

Hi, my name is Michael Finnegan. I’m a leprechaun! I grew up in Dublin, a fair ole city in a fair ole country called Ireland. I used to live in a house with all my cousins, brothers, sisters, friends and relatives. We all looked exactly the same. I think it was because of our diet. We lived on Guinness and dibidedeeh-potatoes for breakfast, lunch and tea, so we all grew up looking the same.

One bright and sunny day when it only rained a little bit, these two crazy looking Aussies came into my house and kidnapped me. It made me very happy because now I live in Felsted on a bookshelf without any of my family or friends, just the two crazy Aussies. I love it! We’re a strange breed, us leprechauns, you might say…

Anyway, we set off for the craic of a lifetime. I became the official mascot for Davo and Fi’s tour of Ireland.

First stop, the Guinness Factory. Second stop, the old Jameson distillery. Third stop, the pub. Fourth stop, another pub. This paints the picture of our trip around Ireland. Suits me, said I, the leprechaun. Dibidedeeh potatoes.

A few Irish stews and countless pints of Guinness later, we were in our hire car on our way to Belfast. Don’t be fooled, future tourists driving from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland. The road signs are in km/h in the Republic and miles/h in NI. So when cars are piling up for ‘miles’ behind you, you know why!

Then to Galway for the first of the International Rules games. It was a great craic. The atmosphere at the game was awesome. It was like a big country footy game with 30,000 people there. At half time a Warrick Capper look-a-like ran out onto the ground from the crowd along with Superman and Osama Bin Laden and they all met up and did a bit of a lap together. No one really cared, they weren’t causing any harm, just entertaining, it was great! Only in Ireland, I say.

We got into a local music festival not far away in a small town called Gort with Aussie friends Jess and Pete. The festival involves bringing an instrument into a pub, sitting in a corner and jamming away. They had accordians, flutes, whistles, guitars, drums, you name it. Oh yeah, it also involves drinking a bit of the black stuff.

I loved the amazing and unique scenery of driving around Ireland. Especially the rocky plains of the Burren, the Giants Causeway (where I nearly got blown of the cliff with Fi), the beautiful hills and farm land of Kerry (where Davo nearly fed me to some sheep), the cold and windy peninsulas with beaches almost as nice as home (where I took this photo of Fi and Davo looking cold).

We had a look at the Waterford Crystal Factory and saw some amazing skills and techniques of glass blowing. We also got a look at an exact replica of the Ashes trophy which is made at the factory. We’ll be taking that back shortly.

After having a Kilkenny in Kilkenny, our trip ended back in Dublin where we stayed with Louise, a friend who Davo met in Panama. Greville and Louise showed us the sights of the non-touristy part of Dublin. Unfortunately Fi had to go home and work, while Davo and I stayed and saw Wolfmother, The Living End and the brutal second International Rules test which had the Irish media whinging for days.

No time for that, say I Michael Finnegan the leprechaun, get me a Guinness, to be sure, to be sure. What time is it? T’ree T’irty? Dibidedeeh potatoes.

Oktoberfest

17 - 23 September, 2006

Only the Germans could think up a name for a festival held in September and decide to call it Oktoberfest! And only the Germans could organise such a festival which involves a dozen massive tents holding thousands of people, all drinking litres of perfectly brewed beer, eating gigantic pretzels, all wearing stupid hats and even stranger costumes.

Each day of the Beirfest in Munich consisted of deciding which tent we would tackle first, finding a table, ordering a couple of steins from an unattractive, big busted, super efficient, german barmaid and then getting to know the fellow drinkers you were surrounded by. One stein later we would all be singing aand dancing and sharing giant pretzels.

Every 10 minutes or so, the band would stop and sing a drinking song. Somehow this one drinking song did not become annoying even though it was repeated so frequently. It went:

Ein prosit, ein prosit der gemütlichkeit,
Ein prosit, ein prosit der gemütlichkeit,
Ein, zwei, drei, g'suffa
prost!

Translated to something like:

We're all getting drunk
We're all getting drunk
1,2,3 drink
Cheers!

Every now and then the band would also throw in an english song, but no matter which tent and which band you saw, they all had the same small repertoire of english songs, including: 'Hey hey baby, uh ah, I wanna know, if you'll be my girl,' 'Country roads,' 'New York, New York,' or 'YMCA'. Tragic!

So I came home with a stein glass and a cold. My diet of pretzels, sausages, weiner snitzels and multivitamin tablets probably didn't help the immune system avoid the cold. Couldn't have had anything to do with the amount of beer consumed either...

Janelle and I spent two days in Salzburg, a short train ride over the border in Austria. It is the home of the Sound of Music and the country side was stunning. So much grass which I wanted to cut up and post home for the cows to eat. We also got a glimpse of the Road Cycling World Championships and a junior break dancing competition, saw all the places of importance in the Sound of Music movie and ate more schnitzel! Fi wasn’t with us, so when it came to posing at the rotunda from the Sound of Music where two people from the movie have their first kiss (apparently a famous rotunda?) I had to settle to have my first kiss with the tour guide, classic!

Felsted – From one extreme to the other!

After finally arriving in Pommy Land, we have come to settle at Felsted, 35 miles from London and conveniently 15mins from Stansted Airport (cheap flights to Europe galour!) First impressions of the school have been unbelievable. With buildings close to 500 years old spread over 80 acres including 2 cricket ovals, 5 or so rugby fields, 2 soccer fields, a shooting range, 2 astroturf hockey pitches, 6 tennis/netball courts, swimming pool, squash courts and gym just to mention a few of the features, this school is not surprisingly amazing to be part of.

Our flat, attached to Stocks’s boarding house is spacious, has a good backyard (with gum tree!) and has a wicked heating system (praise the lord!) Walnut trees line the front with squirrels everywhere. Very exciting.

Admittedly I arrived and thought, ‘This is sweet. Only 7 weeks ‘til a two week half term break, how good is that!’. However………… 5 weeks later, and with only Davo the Crazy chef feeding my amazing hunger to keep me alive (a full time job in itself) I was certain I wouldn’t make it. Have come to the decision that my expectations of working in a boarding school, 6 days a week, finishing some days after 6 (other days by 4.30!!!) and being on duty 3 nights a fortnight, was a little ummmm shall we say inaccurate! My appreciation for working only a 5 day week and sleeping in on Saturdays has skyrocketed and I will never again complain about a meeting that finishes at 4.30!

Highlights so far:

• helicopter arriving at school to take a group of students flying (part of the Combined Combat Forces program)
• going clay pigeon shooting (I seriously suck at shooting – all pigeons are safe when I have gun control!)

Things to look forward to:

• Boarding house excursion to see the musical Wicked (Davo coming too - paid for of course!)
• History of Art trip to Venice, Italy in December
• Trying my hand at both gliding and sailing in Spring

Overall have settled in well and am already counting down the number of days til the next break. Will keep you posted!