I am catching up on stuff that happened a couple of weeks ago now so this post will probably just follow the order in which this stuff comes from my brain…
Damien and myself headed into the Portabello to meed David Martin and his friend Pat. We stayed there and actually drank a lot of beer. I managed to leave my phone in the taxi but luckily Damo had taken a card of the taxi driver. I called the company and they were able to trace the taxi. They called me back in a couple of minutes and said to call my phone and that the taxi driver had it. I called him and he said, no worries, my phone was safe with him and just give him a call when we want to go home and he’ll pick us up which was handy.
It was about 12 when we left the Portabello to go down to Hogans to meet John Mark and his crew. I needed to stop drinking because I was driving to Limerick in the morning and I had an early start. Damo wouldn’t listen to me… but I didn’t drink anymore because I would have been fucked. When time came to go home I rang the taxi driver and told him where we were (on Kebab Street) which as it turns out is really George’s Street and that I wanted a Kebab. Taxi Driver was sound.
Sleep for about 4 hours before I had to get up and go to pick up a Santa Fe in Thrifty. I left Damo at home to sleep on a bit more and get a shower while I picked up the car. I got home and called Marco to say I would pick him up on the way to drop down town home and we could then go to help Ann Marie bagging. Damo was fucked…
Bagging in Tesco Roselawn was as it turns out good fun but there are some really strange people out there. We did that for two hours before going back to pick up Julie and meet Eoin and Scotish Dave in town and head to Limerick.
We called Steve and he told us to pull in at Moroe and meet him in the pub for a drink, which turned out to be 7 or 8. Luckily I was driving because although I was feeling fine, too much alcohol too soon would have killed me later on in the night. We hung around there for a while before heading to Elke’s parent’s house which was in a really beautiful park of Limerick.
The party was very enjoyable, and hanging out with people I had met at the wedding was good fun. I made it to about 03.30 before I had to go to bed and get some sleep, but in reality I hadn’t said a word for the previous hour and was just listening in on the conversation and enjoying the relaxed feelling of being among friends. I got a text message from Ann Marie to let us know that she had raised e1700 that day for MS.
I can’t remember what time we left at on Sunday, but it wasn’t late so we could beat the traffic on the way back to Dublin. Pretty uneventful as everybody was tired and we only stopped so Eoin could take a toilet break… in a field.
We were flying home at 1900 so we had plenty of time to walk around and visit ground zero which is a strange. To be actually standing in the area where you associate the pictures you see on television and the towers falling down are surreal.
We walked around a bit and found a view of the Statue of Liberty. The cues to get a ferry out were crazy so we stuck with a long range effort. We headed back to the sublet, packed up and went to Bua for a few last drinks.
Day 5 was a combination of packing up the house, cleaning the house and a big drive to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. No pictures were taken because we were both too hung over.
Luckily we had enough time to make the last ferry and Leona had hooked us up with a place to sleep, in a bed. Six hours sleep had never felt so good and we got up early to do some tourist stuff.
The island was beautiful. No other way to describe it. We had an amazing breakfast and took some pictures of the signs that hung outside the shops.
Waiting for the bus back to the ferry…
The drive back was mad as we didn’t know how long it was going to take and we had to have the car back by 1700. Then we took a wrong turn on the way into New York and ended up on St Marks Street at 1900, long after the rental company closed. We hung out in Bua for a few hours before Stephen hooked us up with a sublet which is really the way to go if you are staying in New York.
I slept on the ground in the second house beside the fire even though myself and Mark had pitched the tent the night before on case we needed it. In hind sight I would have been much better off in the tent.
House two had no electricity but it was a strange collection of stuff gathered together to make something I just can’t describe.
Before the wedding we played football with a beach ball for kids…
Ok, proof I did do karaoke…. To be honest I don’t really remember this. Carol had upped my intake of whiskey considerably after she saw me pouring Irish measures… now I was on full glasses of whiskey…
Myself and Mark checked out of the hotel and walked to the car rental firm (avis) to pick up our car, a Chevy Impala which was big, powerful and fast although driving it felt like driving a boat because of the suspension. We filled the car up with stuff and headed for the mountains.
This is where I took our only wrong turn. I was driving and Mark was navigating. He looked down to check the map and when he looked up we were here… not on the highway.
We got into the house late, about 2300 as far as I remember and immediately started to chill out and have a few beers. It was about 6 hours in total in the Chevy.
Despite the late night which featured a lot of bars and a place that makes bun cakes, we got up early and hit the streets to do some walking and see some stuff. The weather was mildly better but I was better prepared this time. We stopped in Subway for breakfast and then went in look for a Starbucks so we could get access.
We ended up doing 150 blocks by foot just seeing stuff. My sense of direction let me down when looking for Moma and ended up on 82nd street… about 20 blocks too far north. On the way back south towards ground zero we eventually stopped for coffee. There are not many pictures… We didn’t make it as far as Ground Zero and got a taxi to Steve’s place where we got lunch and met up with Eoin.
We were late landing so we missed the train and had to get a ‘Carmel’ taxi into Manhattan. The weather was terrible was a disappointment after leaving a sunny Ireland behind was. After we checked into the hotel, Marco and I decided to do some sight seeing. The weather was crap and we only got as far as Times Square before the rain put us off and we got a taxi to Stephen’s apartment where we left the camera for the night and headed out to visit some bars and drink some beers and get soaking wet.
