Great weekend in Killarney
After some house drinking in Kilmurry on Friday night I got the bus from Limerick to Killarney on Saturday afternoon. As before, I met Sara and went straight to Salvador's, one of her parents' restaurants for some FREE FOOD! Of course it was deliciousness at its finest. We drove out to the infamous Mary Howard's house and got some coffee cake with a cupán tae. Stopped in the offy on the way back for some alcomoholic beverages, then back to the house for me to play her father's guitars and her to change. People started arriving pretty soon and we got stuck into booze and banter before heading into town waaayyyy later than we had intended.
We went to a pub that one of the lads worked in and got FREE BEER!!! Met Kate in that pub and headed down to the Granary for another few. Myself and Sara decided to leave early as we hadn't seen nearly enough of each other in the few hours we'd been there! I got to see the legend that is the Allegro chipper, outside which was a Corkman covered in blood of undetermined origin, and got some more FREE FOOD in the form of a delicious garlic cheese chips.
Soon after we got home, more people started arriving and we tucked into what was left of the drink. Sara's parents Sandro and Paula came home from work around 3am. Now Sandro can be a pretty intimidating man at the best of times. He speaks with a Dublin accent, looks like a bouncer, is of Italian descent and generally seems like he could kill you for something as simple as, I don't know, taking his baby girl from him. So he comes into the living room where we all were, calls me out to the hall and, instead of beating me to a bloody pulp and making me dig my own grave, asks me if I want to jam. Now I love jam, and also guitars so the pair of us disappeared into the guitar room and played for a while. We went back into the crowd later and everyone was chatting away about all sorts of things. One by one, people got tired and went to bed until it was just Sandro, Darren and I. We cracked open a bottle of vodka and proceeded to drink and talk about everything until discussion came to guitars and Darren decided to hit the sack. Next thing I know, he says he's tired, we look outside to see that its very bright and my phone helpfully informs me its almost 7am! I awoke several hours later in a daze. Sorry, that's a Family Guy quote that sounded right. I crawled into bed to inform Sara that I was not, in fact, beaten to within an inch of my life and had just gotten all sorts of guitar advice and tips, and discussed random philosophical stuff with her dad till the wee hours. She thought perhaps the world had ended, but indeed it is still spinning. Could meeting the parents possibly go any better than this?
I wasn't tired at all the next morning, despite only getting about 2 hours of real sleep, so I got up and walked to the shop for life-restoring breakfast rolls, and picked up milk and bread and some random stuff for her family. After a few cups of tea Sara rang into work sick and we headed off to the park with the dog and a ball to get back to our primitive roots. We lay in the sun, invented "crotch ball", using crutches, not our crotches, watched Kate being taken for a walk and a tumble with Luigi the labrador and lay in the sun for hours before walking back home to some genuine Italian home cooking. Oh yes, FREE FOOD yet again! After drinking too much tea to make it to the bus station in time for the 6pm bus, I got there at about 6:30 to find out the 6 o'clock bus was, in fact, the last bus to Limerick for the day! Nothing to panic about, I gave Sara a ring, got a lift to Cork with her and spent the night in the old homeland Abbeyville, where we lived together while I was on co-op. After a final cup of tea this morning I finally made my way back to Plassey.
It was one of the best weekends in a long time, and one to be repeated!
We went to a pub that one of the lads worked in and got FREE BEER!!! Met Kate in that pub and headed down to the Granary for another few. Myself and Sara decided to leave early as we hadn't seen nearly enough of each other in the few hours we'd been there! I got to see the legend that is the Allegro chipper, outside which was a Corkman covered in blood of undetermined origin, and got some more FREE FOOD in the form of a delicious garlic cheese chips.
Soon after we got home, more people started arriving and we tucked into what was left of the drink. Sara's parents Sandro and Paula came home from work around 3am. Now Sandro can be a pretty intimidating man at the best of times. He speaks with a Dublin accent, looks like a bouncer, is of Italian descent and generally seems like he could kill you for something as simple as, I don't know, taking his baby girl from him. So he comes into the living room where we all were, calls me out to the hall and, instead of beating me to a bloody pulp and making me dig my own grave, asks me if I want to jam. Now I love jam, and also guitars so the pair of us disappeared into the guitar room and played for a while. We went back into the crowd later and everyone was chatting away about all sorts of things. One by one, people got tired and went to bed until it was just Sandro, Darren and I. We cracked open a bottle of vodka and proceeded to drink and talk about everything until discussion came to guitars and Darren decided to hit the sack. Next thing I know, he says he's tired, we look outside to see that its very bright and my phone helpfully informs me its almost 7am! I awoke several hours later in a daze. Sorry, that's a Family Guy quote that sounded right. I crawled into bed to inform Sara that I was not, in fact, beaten to within an inch of my life and had just gotten all sorts of guitar advice and tips, and discussed random philosophical stuff with her dad till the wee hours. She thought perhaps the world had ended, but indeed it is still spinning. Could meeting the parents possibly go any better than this?
I wasn't tired at all the next morning, despite only getting about 2 hours of real sleep, so I got up and walked to the shop for life-restoring breakfast rolls, and picked up milk and bread and some random stuff for her family. After a few cups of tea Sara rang into work sick and we headed off to the park with the dog and a ball to get back to our primitive roots. We lay in the sun, invented "crotch ball", using crutches, not our crotches, watched Kate being taken for a walk and a tumble with Luigi the labrador and lay in the sun for hours before walking back home to some genuine Italian home cooking. Oh yes, FREE FOOD yet again! After drinking too much tea to make it to the bus station in time for the 6pm bus, I got there at about 6:30 to find out the 6 o'clock bus was, in fact, the last bus to Limerick for the day! Nothing to panic about, I gave Sara a ring, got a lift to Cork with her and spent the night in the old homeland Abbeyville, where we lived together while I was on co-op. After a final cup of tea this morning I finally made my way back to Plassey.
It was one of the best weekends in a long time, and one to be repeated!