One Night in Cork

No, it's not a tagline for some porn movie involving a socialite named "Cork", it's simply an account of my trip to Cork at the weekend. It should be mentioned that there was a lot of alcohol consumption on this trip, so some details may be sketchy...

Anyway, the trip began officially at 00:01 Saturday. After the Johns on Friday, we went to the Long Miler as usual, followed by the mandatory trip to the Regent Palace Chinese takeaway. Myself, Wolfie and Joanne had all been asked by Lorcan to spend the night so we could get the Luas to Heuston early the following morning. Knowing in advance that my choices for places to sleep would be (A) The floor, (B) The couch, (C) The recliner or (D) Not sleeping at all. I hastely baggsied in advance on of the recliners. A baggsy that would prove to be painful. A trip to the off licence on the way to Lorcan's yielded more alcohol for the trip. Upon reaching Lorcan's I quickly parked myself in the aforementioned recliner and began to familiarise myself with the reclining action. While it was a little stiff, I figured by the time I decided to sleep in it I'd have it in the bag. How wrong I was.

A few games of Wii bowling, two episodes of Family Guy, and one episode of Celebrity Deathmatch later, we figured we should probably hit the hay...or the couch/chairs anyway. Wolfie was first to go. I had always thought that people had exaggerated just how bad his snoring was, "The Chainsaw" as it is known amongst those who have experienced it. But no, it was that bad. Given we had consumed alcohol we found it quite funny just how loud and irritating it was, how the laughter stopped when we actually tried to sleep. This is where the matter of the recliner comes into play. My recliner intially reclined well, and I was reasonably comfortable. It didn't take long however for it to keep moving back into shape, meaning I was constantly fighting it, not really allowing me to sleep. Coupled with the snoring, this made for a very disastrous sleep. 5 and half ours later we wake up to head to the Luas. My bag weighing a tonne didn't exactly help the walk either, but I endured.

Upon reaching Heuston we found the queue for the train to be too long, so we opted to wait for the 9.30 train. With an hour to waste I bought a magazine and tried to gather my thoughts whilst everyone else went to different areas to grub up. In the queue for the train I witnessed my bands homepage on bebo, an article which can be found 5 or 6 posts below. The train journey was reasonably uneventful, except for Becky not realising that the "Charleville" stop is where the cheese is made. Reaching Cork we opted to walk to Southern Command to relive our cadet days. At Southern Command we were greeted by the other Walkinstown members who drove down. Some O'Briens sandwiches later and we were off to Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Our competitions were on in the actual stadium itself, but outside was some kind of fair "War through the Ages" or something. Looked kinda lame if you ask me.

The competitions were brief, no fucking around in Cork. Myself and Bren came second in the dual, beaten by one point! We then had to walk to Southern Command to get a taxi. Unknowingly I had been assigned the duty of looking out for taxis, because I was last in the line...due to my heavy bag. I missed one.... Eventually we got two taxis and we got the hotel. A wedding was on aswell, but that wasn't going to stop me getting in two pints and my dinner! Not much happened for a while, I made myself comfortable on the couch in the room which was to become my bed for the night and almost fell asleep until Sine rang to ask us up to the villa. A few drinks in the villa, and a membership of the Walkinstown Gun Club later and we were ready to hit the down.

We went to the Market Tavern and it's here I don't remember all the details. I remember getting a numb face anyway. Oh and there was some dude playing music, and we debated for a while over whether a picture opposite us was painted or a photo. Of course we were all too lazy to actually get up and look at it. I think we left there at about 12.30-1.00 in search of a takeaway. We passed 3 Indians but no Chinese. We did pass an Off Licence, and duelly stocked up. On our travels we met one of the HSE examiners from the competitions who was on duty in the ambulance. Eventually we ended up in Burger King and then headed back to the Villa. More drink as you can imagine and we watched a few episodes of Britain's got talent. Around 2.30-3.00 we decided to head back to our room.

When I woke up in the morning it felt as though my shoulder had been stabbed with a knife!! I mean I probably just slept on it but I liked being dramatic. Breakfast, TV in the villa, and a few agonising walks with my bag and we were on the train home. We were all either too tired or too hungover to make much conversation, though we did manage to get in a few games of switch and shit head. Wolfie eloquently summed up the trip with a song....(from his iPod obviously)....




Goodbye, goodbye, good friends goodbye...

~The Damo