Bumbling? I don't think so

We're not bumbling around the world at all.

We can even read Russian now* after only about a week in the place.

* well, our Metro stop and some shop signs at any rate..

Helsinki, in defense of pantslessness, beginning of the epic

So, Because my family read this (hiyis) I feel it incumbent upon me to fill in the full story of the pants incident. So we get the carriage with the one eyed hunchback guy and the girl with the transparent knicks. And Im up in the very top bunk, getting tucked up for bed. Iäm a little wierded out by the whole thing, and donät know quite what to be doing. So, I decide, the hell with it, Iäll get a bit of kip.

Now seriously, who sleeps in trousers? So, I discreetly depantsed myself. (by discreetly i mean, i said "right, Iäm taking my pants off" & followed up.)

The second sleeper train, we got split up, and I ended up sharing my cabin with a beautiful polish scientist on her way back from an aluminium conference in siberia. And let me tell you the things that went on in that cabin! (a little awkward but polite conversation, a bit of a read and an early night)

ON to real business. Helsinki.

We got into Helsinki yesterday, from Warsaw. We all agree, this place is lovely. (if a little cold - we had to stock up on hats, scarves and thermal underwear, mmm attractive)

Theyäve a tractor themed restaurant here - Zetor, where we had our dinner last night (had to, really -what with the high proportion of culchies in our little band), and just now, we´re letting a good feed of reindeer sandwiches settle. (very salty, not unlike salami)

We´ve spent our time here doing the usual sightseeing, I took a bit of a run around the old olympic training ground & we did a bit of postcarding. (send us yeer postal addresses!)

The other focus of today has been preparing for russia. Tomorrow morning, we take a train to St. Petersburg. (dendenDeeeeeh!) We picked up a bunch of roubles, enough books to keep a small library going & an awful lot of boil-in-the enamel-picnic-mug noodles. We could survive a nuclear war at this stage. (and who knows, we may have to)

Anyway, probably time for bed now, will keep ye all posted as we progress onto the more epic, trans-siberian portion of the trip.

Andy, currently wearing pants.

Sleeper trains...

I promised a post about the sleep trains we have got since leaving Ireland, so here is it..

We arrived at and left Budapest by sleeper train. The first journey was a nine hour one from Prague to Budapest. We got the train at 23.23 from a desolate Prague train station. We were full of excitment at getting our first sleeper train.

So the train arrives and we all hop on and get to our compartment. I should let you know at this point that Andy is normally slightly uptight about travel arrangements anyway.

Our compartment turned out to be a six-sleeper, approx. the size of a small family car. We were sharing with Fonnie* & Cish*. Fonnie had transparent knickers (Sammy was quick to point this out to the group the next morning), and Cish only had one eye but made up for it with a scary beard thing, ear thing, hair thing - hell the guy had the asymmetry thing down pat.

So lets just say there was a bit of tension in the air from the start. Sinead & I got a bit giggley, as we were still excited. Sammy put on some Ace of Base on the old iPod and got settled in, while Andy.....took his trousers off!

Now the rest of us had planned to sleep in our day gear, but not our Andy. Not five minutes were we on that train before he had de-pantsed himself. Later questioning revealed his motives

-I...uh...didn't know what else to do...

I mean, sure, the rest of us were in awe of his masculine and god like figure (this post may have been slightly edited by Andy) but still. As a group, despite andy's actions, we remain resolutely pro-pants, in most, if not all situations.

I've just sent Andy off to the kitchen to cook us up a few pizzas so I'll finish off this post now.

I don't think Andy will chance the de=pantsing thing again, so much slagging did he get about it. It didn't help that we met another traveller soon after (Hi Valia!) and without any background explanation we kept mentioning Andy taking his trousers off at every occasion.

The final paragraph is for our second sleeper train journey - Budapest to Krakow. It was like the Hilton of trains. We had a sink, some snacks, only 3 beds to a carriage...

Being only a 3-bed compartment Andy had offered to take the single bed in another carriage. I offered multiple times to sleep in the stranger's compartment, but he was fine with it..

Turns out he was sharing with a woman on the way back from a conference. He got a bit antsy about the situation..

Yep, the pants came off again..

Fingers crossed the lesson will be learned by Russia....



*names have been changed to protect identities

Bumbling along...

Just a quick post to update all on our bumblings..

We left Berlin last Monday (12th) and got the train to Prague. We bumbled around our hostel for about half an hour before finding it.

Prague turned out to be pleasant but crowded (damn those pesky tourists). Sinead, Sammy & I walked most of the city before carrying out a classic bumble. We walked all the way up to the top of the hill, then decided to get a cable car down. The machine kept beeping and wouldn't give us tickets, so we decided, in our infinite wisdom, that the best thing to do would be to get on anyway...

...at the end of the hill not one but two inspectors were waiting...and they weren't happy campers! Eventually they agreed to go back up the hill to check the machine. We used all our charm on the way up and made friends with the inspector. At the top, turned out we were right. The English language instructions messed up the system.

So we were VIP'd through the system and came through unscathed.

Must go catch a train now, but will post a bumble re. sleeper train at next stop - make sure to check it out because it'll be a good one!

Wonderful, wonderful Yorkstraße, Jogging the Berlin Wall, Snackpoint Charlie

Hello from the day of walking (once again, Deutschekeyboard hilarity to ensue).

We woke up, it was lashing rain, the sky was grey. Our hostel overlooks a huge deserted trainyard just on the east side of the wall. I left a chalk mark on the corner lamppost, as requested and made contact with the cutout. The operation was a succ...sorry. Anyway. I for one spent most of the morning in a cold war reverie.

The obvious thing to do, given the weather was to set off on a 4 hour walking tour of berlin. It was actually prettz interesting. We saw all the old buildings, nicely decorated with patched over machinegun fire, walked over a lovely car park built over Hitler`s bunker, and marvelled at some of Albert Speer´s architecture.

Then, we spent the afternoon wandering around berlin, taking in the local and unique charms of Yorkstraße (reached ever so easily - nay accidentally) on the S-Bahn.

We engaged in some hilarious acts of not paying on the train, visited the beautiful Rosa Luxembourg plaz, the remains of the Gestapo HQ, drank Coffee in Cafe Adler (downstairs from the ex CIA hq, and where John Le Carre used to write) visited Checkpoint Charlie (surrounded by Chezkpoint, and Snackpoint Charlie) and took off for home.

Quick note - if you find zourself being buried in Berlin, for godäs sake look after zour grave. They do an odd thing & give zou a ticket if zour grave is loose. A second ticket telling zou to move it, and then thez unceremoniouslz take zour gravestone awaz and dump itin a pile.

Finallz, i fulfilled a minor ambition and jogged along the side of the berlin wall at dusk. (verz poetic)

Also,happz birthdaz to Declan.

peace out, homies.

A.

Bumbling Post # 1

Hello all from Berlin.

As you should have picked up from sentence one this is being written on a German keyboard. Therefore all zs are where the letter y should be...along with a couple of other sneakz changes, so make the relevant amendments as zou read!

So itäs daz 5 of our trip around the world. Thanks to Kevin we have been leaving cards advertising this site in random places along the waz, so hello to all our new readers...who will probablz be street cleaners, park cleaners, adult shop cleaners etc due to where we left our calling cards.

So far we have hit Copenhagen, Malmo (the Red Cow Roundabout of Scandanavia as far as we can tell), Hamburg & Berlin.

And we have bumbled in each.

In Copenhagen we didnät book accommodation for the second night of our staz and hence had to go to another countrz to get a bed (hence the unscheduled visit to Malmo). Andz nearlz got killed bz a bike on manz occasions...those bike lanes are not too clearlz marked and czclists in Copenhagen are an unethical bunch.

But it doesnät stop there. We got to Hamburg in one piece despite our best efforts, and on our first afternoon decided, after walking down the river bank for about a decade, to get a water bus back to citz centre. Except we missed the regular water bus & instead attracted the attention of a passing tourist boat. The kind-natured tour guide decided to give us a lift & tried parking her boat alongside us in order to let us get on. She was talking awaz in German all the while & out of the blue threw a rope at us....Andz manfullz tried to drag a huge boat full of people ashore, which obviouslz didnät work. We climbed aboard to laughter - our preferred response.

Itäs almost not worth mentioning, but we have also been milling people with our rucksacks..but thatäs a given is it not??

Other than this we have been having a good time knacker-drinking in parks across northern Europe. (This is not out of the ordinarz - itäs what everzone does here, honest..)

Hello to all back home, and feel free to keep us up to date with the minutae of zour life throughout the zear.

Until our next bumbling post,

Laura, Andz, Sammz & Sinead

Cake

Picture and Cake courtesy of Nick Murtagh and David and Joan O'Callaghan.

Par-Tay.

Well, last night we had our going away do. There was a cake shaped like an octopus, much alcohol, various generations of Moran Brothers, mixing of groups of friends, some tears, a missing phone, no punchkindle, sleazing, shitdancing, a couple wearing the face off each other, a girl with an unreliable bra strap (alledgedly), lots of 'now look after XXX' talks and more beer than any group of people should ever intake.

A brilliant night, and thanks to all y'all for coming.

Especially to Eric, who said that if it came to a brawl, it'd be him and me da fightin' back to back.

We've to be in the airport in 28 hours, and I'm getting a bit nervous. We're leaving everyone behind, family, friends. We can't make plans at this point. Earlier on this evening, I was chatting to Conor (my brother) about the new series of Trailer Park Boys. I won't see it. I know it's a massive adventure, but it will mean we'll miss some stupid things from home.

Anyway - it's 2 in the morning. I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully with pictures of the party.

Andy