Czajkowski

Picture some very very sore heads….. Crap weather, the sun has gone. We’re all a bit wrecked. Our ferry is due to leave Pembroke at 2:30am, to get in Rosslare at 6:30 and I’m due to go straight to Dublin and work. I’m bollixed.

So we get a text saying our ferry is now leaving at 6:30 instead, balls! We were the first crowd due to go back, except, Maire gets  a text saying her ferry that she’s due to get the next day is now going same time as ours. Most strange. Getting the paper work out, she went red. Turns out. She’d in fact misread the 24 hour clock, so than fuck in her case she got a text or she’d have missed it

Down to Pembroke we went, joined the queues at 4 am! lordie! Only time I’ve ever been up at that our is when I’m falling in home from a club! We don’t get on board till close to 7am. Roughest crossing known to man! Green faces does not cover it! DYING! We get to Rosslare. Well outside of it, nice captain man tells us, nope can’t dock, too dangerous, lets just sit out here on the windy nasty sea and get greener while he waits to see what he’s told to do.

……………………… We wait, in the end Captain of the ship of the green passengers says fuck it he’s not waiting any longer, it’s now close to 11am, and we are going to sail up to Dublin port……

More time on the nasty ship I’m dying at this stage! choppy choppy waters, people walking and falling over, no it’s not the drinks fault this time it’s the sea! Except for kids, they could run everywhere and remain standing, resilient little buggers.

We finally dock in Dublin port. In a port that’s not able for our ship, we get towed in. We’ve to REVERSE off the ship for a bit do a U turn and drive off! Yes only in Ireland do they encourage folks who’ve not slept in day to attempt to reverse off a ship! I’m back in Dublin at least. Short trip along the Quays. Home. BED

We’re planning next year already! FLIGHTS this time

Did I mention over whelming! The game was intense, the first twenty minutes was like we weren’t awake! Then we woke up and were in control! Much roaring, yelling, screaming and pointing was all done. Anyone who goes to watch a game and sits their quietly is bloody weird! It was the final for feck sake! Tense match! Fecking brilliant. Down to the second half and it was bloody close! 16 13 final score. WE WON!!! I’d seen matches on TV before of this scale but never been. It’s really emotional!

From the start we’d followed them. It was a great way to send Declan Kidney off! We were the champions for the second time in three years! That’s some achievement. Back to the streets we went! Back to the side of a pub and got more beer to celebrate! The day was early we were going to celebrate true Munster style and educate those around us.

All the photos to explain one of the best weekends I’ve ever had with some of my best craziest mates ever (yes they are on crew also ) are HERE have a giggle! Do we did.

The morning is here! Bright eyed and raring to go! I finally get a glimpse of the outfits! How the shagging hell do I get myself into these messes! It’s 10am and I need a drink! TC is running around like a big kid! Coxy joins in. May as well get into the swing of things, and I’m roped in to braid all the girls hairs so they sit nicely under the wigs! Yes we’ve actually gone and through this one through! So while I’m braiding everyones hair, Coxy goes to repaint the Jeep, as we’re driving it into Cardiff and really the cheerleader outfits don’t stick out enough so the jeep is needed.

So there we are all ready to go and head into meet the rest of the loons. We’ve gone from nutters to loons, as the rest of them are doing the same! Trusty Mr. Satnav now knows the way in, and brings us to our destination. As we drive along the motorway with the car painted, flags flying, the horns sound, the sound and horns get louder the closer we get to Cardiff. Road diversions are in place and we take some random other turn, but satnavvy gets us there.

Ok, now the sight before me is one of pride, shame, and utter disbelife and also hilarious. Only a photo can explain it. Yes these are my utter lunatic friends. We’ve arrived. Jumping onto the jeep!

So I did mention earlier about ticketmaster being a tit! Do you have any idea how many Munster people are in Cardiff, never mind the amount of Welsh folks, oh and a few French thrown in for balance( though not that many). Bloody hell it took us nearly the bones of over an hour to track down the ticket master office. We basically circled the stadium, through all the people in the streets to get our tickets. Feck sake! We got them though. That’s all that matters. Let the relaxing begin.

Should point out, through all of the running around the stadium the looks we got, saying that, a lot of folks dressed up. But we did get a lot of photos taken with many random folks, and even the French TV who asked who we thought would win! Most amusing! Which did add to finding the tickets as we were stopped every 3 minutes.

Cardiff is the most relaxed city I’ve been to. Maybe it was the weekend that was in it. The sunshine. Thousands of Munster folks over here, and again the token amount of French supporters. But bloody hell it was fantastic. Pubs were so packed that they had no problem in folks going to off licenses stocking up on drink, and drinking it outside on the streets. Neither did their police. So we drank. Were merry, and waited till we could go to the stadium and roar! Not that we weren’t doing that already though

We finally made our way to the stadium. OMG! MASSIVE! The sea of red was overwhelming! We were there! Let the game begin.

We had been fortunate to book our accommodation back in January! By fortunate I do mean track down and book! Last January the accommodation for Cardiff was a stagging £200 quid a night in some places! Madness, so onto the trustworthy magical superhighway that is the internet I found a really cute place 26Km from Cardiff costing us €32 quid a night! A taxi into Cardiff would only cost us £50 between 6 of us that were staying out there, so we said we’d take that thank you very much.

Now for those of you who use satnav’s and found them to be helpful, yes I will agree except for one thing. They don’t always want to bring you to where you want to go.  As you can image we were all shattered at this stage. Up since silly o’clock and boat ride over. We plugged in our address into Mr. Satnav, and headed towards our destination. It was looking good. It got us to the village and one line of the address we chucked in. However, this is where we end up going around in circles for the next half hour close to pulling our hair out. We’re tired. Cranky. Want sleep. Shower. Food, and to get there. We’re at the street name according to our satnav, but no hotel. Up and down the road we go. We’d even printed off AA road map directions as a back up, so between the two you’d think we’d be there!

Finally, I pick up the phone and ring the hotel, give our location and some landmarks, she giggles! Seemingly that road was closed years ago, we need to go out up left, and around and down some other road! feck sake! So AA please update your maps and Mr. Satnav learnt our destination and SAVED IT!

Arrived checked in and some of the lads went to sleep for a bit. Got up later and headed into Cardiff to meet the rest of the nutters. Tom managed in his most ever charming ways to get the barmen to make 10 pints of Jellyfish for us! for £55quid in TOTAL, not each!  Should point out, CARDIFF IS REALLY REALLY GOOD VALUE!

Deciding to be good people and not be broken the next day, plugged back in our hotel address and went back there and rested for the big day ahead, after all, it had rained and the paint needed to be touched up and we needed to be in early the next day as we’d to collect our tickets. Turns out no matter how many times you pay (twice) to ticketmaster to get your tickets delivered they thought they’d like to add some fun to our day on Heineken cup final day to go collect them!

Jellyfish!