Monday, February 15, 2010

"United...United...United"

Searched Manchester United on Google and this is what I found on Wikipedia: Manchester United Football Club is an English Premier League football club which plays at Old Trafford in Greater Manchester. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65. Manchester United is the reigning English champions, having won the 2008–09 Premier League. The club is one of the most successful in the history of English football and has won 22 major honors since Sir Alex Ferguson became manager in November 1986. Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club, and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport worldwide… Did I mention that I went to their game last weekend?
Welcome to England, land of the bad teeth and home of the futball hooligan. Two Saturdays ago I went to possibly the best sporting event of my entire life. Having booked this ticket about a month ago, I was literally eating, breathing, and bleeding Manchester Red waiting for this day to come. And when it finally did, it lived up to every expectation that I could possibly imagine. Saturday morning Hubick, Bobby, David, Pat, Dan, KP, Charlie Mock, Hales and Cammie, and I took the two hour train from Liverpool Street Station to Manchester to see the Red Devils play Portsmouth in a premier league showdown. Actually it was more of a blood bath, but regardless it was amazing. I should have felt dead tired from the day and night before but energy and excitement propelled me into supernova supersonic mode and I was good to go. I was like the energizer bunny on crack. The train ride up was like a blink of an eye, then the quick 15 minute ride to Old Trafford from Manchester train station was like being shot out of a gun. As soon as we got there we ran into the first local and asked him where the pubs were. (Like you didn’t see that coming!) We wanted just about every minute possible to try and find United’s GSE version of a real futball hooligan. And even though we didn’t find anyone who was in the United crew (which we wouldn’t anyways because most of them are not allowed in the games anyway) we did find plenty of English blokes who taught us what it means to be an avid true fan. In America most people really do hate the superstars of the teams that they hate. But I think I would be hard pressed to find a Cub fan that said he didn’t want to meet Albert Pujols or a Bears fan that didn’t want to meet Brett Favre. If these guys had a chance to meet their rival’s superstars I think they would try to kill them or at least verbally assault them. The hooligans we met at the Trafford Bar had already made up chants about Chelsea’s John Terry and his sex scandal. (For all the uninformed- John Terry is basically the Tiger Wood’s of England right now.)
After the pubs we went into the game. Words cant describe the mayhem that occurs in that stadium every game. Portsmouth is the worst team in the Premier League right now, dead last in points and will definitely be dropped from the League next year. The place was sold out holding 76,000 people screaming and singing for 90 minutes straight. Ill try to put this into perspective: imagine going to watch the Saints play the Rams and screaming and singing for the entire game. Seems kind of hard to do right? Well Man U treated us to 5 goals and ended up winning five- nil, even better Rooney scored the first goal, and Nani the second. It was like a dream. Auf Hubick Bobby and I all sat together and met some nice people that told us the things to know about the club and such. After the game we hit up the United store and got some gear, which was totally necessary because I already don’t have enough Man U paraphernalia having dressed 3 people for the game with clothes I brought from home. After the game we went back to the pub and met some more hooligans learned some more songs and then took the train back. I will never forget that day. I don’t know if I will ever be back to Old Trafford again but I know that I will always bleed Manchester Red until the day I die because of that day. Forever United.

"You Sound Like Your From London"

This is long overdue but the blog had to be put to the side for a bit due to the pandemonium that occurred in my absence. I will try to reiterate all that has happened in the past two weeks in as few words as possible because I feel that I could write a dissertation on all the events that unfolded. Don’t worry Ill break it up into multiple posts so people don’t fall asleep half way through. My life isn’t that interesting. But the past 14 days have been busy so here it goes:

London: Flew into Stansted, England late Thursday night and met Dan at the airport and took the Tube into London. From there we successfully got lost on the Tube trying to get to Trafalgar’s Square to meet up with KP and Jay. Its been a while since I last was in London and I quickly remembered how much I love the city even when I was cursing out the Tube for going the opposite direction on the wrong line. What’s the point in visiting an English speaking country if you aren’t going to ask for help when you obviously do not know what you are doing? Beats me, you figure Dan would love the fact that he can talk in English again to ask someone, and its not like I am speaking Gaelic over here and that I have forgotten the language. Regardless, eventually we met up with KP and find Pat and Auf already there ready to go. The boys are back in town. We drop off our bags quickly and go to a bar that night and meet up with some of KP’s friends and so more BC people. Great craic. The next morning Auf Pat Dan and I successfully complete a full day of being a tourist. We visit that really big clock, House of Parliament, the Eye, and the Queen’s house, and Westminster Abbey. In between the Eye and Buckingham he travel out to the suburbs of London (on KP’s bright idea that we would be bored when he is in class so he should plan something for us to do because London is really boring) to go to Fuller’s Brewery. We all laughed at the fact that we are being sent out to the middle of nowhere on some escapade. We get lost, then get on track, then get lost again in the end we are 20 minutes late for the tour and end up just drinking in the bar talking to a couple of really nice locals about fun places to go. It ended up being a highlight of the day. Just shows you how things always work out in the end. Of course the last stop of the day to complete the ultimate tourist day was King’s Cross. Oh yes, I had my moment at Platform 9 ¾ and it was just about everything I ever wanted. That night we met up with Haley and Cammie and all went out to club Fabric, a multi level dance club. It was a blast, we ended up meeting Dubbs, PJ, and Tom there for a bit and took a cab back to KP’s in the wee hours of the morning, and needless to say Fabric was a pretty crazy time.

Fastfoward 24 hours: Pat, Dan, Gaby, and Auf are all gone and its Sunday morning. I spend the day bumming around with Hales, Cammie, Bobby and Hubick doing more tourist stuff. I walked past the nostalgic place of London’s Dungeon that Lockyer and I had made so infamous 3 years ago, saw London Castle, Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, and Trafalgars one more time then made the trek back to Ireland, missing just about all of the Superbowl but not being too upset about it because I remembered that I had just gone to the best sporting event of my entire life less than 36 hours before that. All in all, still have London as top 3 cities I have ever visited, seeing all the BC people was great and made me miss Boston and the crew a bit, ooooh yea one more thing; I hate the pound.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Pictures

After a great demand from some people for pictures (aka Jenna and Kathleen, out of fear that Dad will get a facebook page- still get one Dad. Ill accept your friendship even if they wont!) here a couple of the highlight pictures. For more of them just go look at them on my fb page.




After we missed the ferry ride back the day before this is the view I woke up to at 7:30. Almost made it worth it in the end. Hello Atlantic Ocean.



I decided to climb down a bit of the way to go on this little edge about 8 feet down. I dont know if it was the smartest thing I have ever done but it was definitely worth it to go where few people have probably ever gone.



Pulling the standard Dad move on the top of the Dun Aengus Fort. The coolest place I have yet to be at in Ireland.



Hanging off the edge of the cliffs on the Aran Islands. 300 ft drop down feels like a lot more when your on the edge.