some highlights of my canoe club weekend

yeah, i know it was two weeks ago, but i had to do some serious internetal wrestling to make it happen. love you all.


here's how the bus ride went on the way there :-D i mean, it was a good time. on the way to belfast, one of the irish lads turned to me and said, can i ask a question? "sure," i replied. "why is no one drinking on the bus!?" ...
so on THIS trip.. i was one of two americans on this bus =D you can see me in the back there behind cian with the guitar..



here's the skyscape on the coast of kerry where we were staying... this was saturday. sunday it was a monsoon.


friday night was messy. and amazing. we had about a barrel and half of jungle juice. i was safe, of course... but part of the festivities was a constest to see who could hold up the barrel of jungle juice for the longest. (i think i lasted about 15 seconds...)


i also think i told some of you that we happened to put a hole through the bath? welll, here it is. the captain told the people from whom he rented the houses it was a canoe anchor....
yeah so they'll never let the UCC canoe club back ever.


i swear i had nothing to do with any of this. but it's still funny... (willie the captain told the people from whom we rented the houses that the footprints on the ceiling were from the anti-gravity boots...)


this is the only other picture i have of me.



best part of saturday morning.



here we are getting ready to get into the river on saturday...


saturday night was a blast as well... we went out on the dunes and made a campfire. it was class. some of the lads stayed there until the sun had risen, and if i had waited 15 more minutes, i'd have been with them, but... i was cold. they also decided it was a brilliant idea to cook sausages upon a piece of plastic within the fire, and they got the taste of plasticy, charcoally, half-cooked sausage. however, they have decided in years past that no matter what you eat jack's weekend, it is impossible to get food poison. specialists in the case have theorized that it is due to the extrobinant amount of drink imbibed.

as for sunday, more of the bus ride back... and then we stopped at a pub midway to watch the game. we landed right where we started- cissie young's pub on barrick street. there we stayed for a few more hours, and then we went back to willie's house as the night went on. we created a concoction to please the masses, with these results:

a touch of class... as always.

this is where willie, the captain, landed on sunday night. i'll have it be known that his bed is actually in the room over, complete with duvet, pillows, and warmth. apparently he prefers fetal position in the corner... :)



sorry i have no pictures of us on the river, but one cannot carry a camera and swim at the same time. (not that i took any of these pictures :-P )

i actually took all of them from the german in the group who carries a camera eeeeeeverywhere. those germans :) it was a blast.

next update i will have for you of the canoe club is going to be the 12 pubs of christmas, planned for this tuesday. oh i anticipate some interesting photos there. i'll also try and get some pictures up of the water polo match i have on sunday.

i love you all and have to jet to class!
chris

northern ireland weekend..

hmm... so i think i'm just going to post that email i sent out to a few of ye, and just add pictures! ...well i guess some more captions, so yeah, read on. (yes, i'm just that lazy!)


i was in northern ireland this past weekend, it was a blast... we got there late on thrusday night, and were fed by the program, then set out to, er, explore the town. by explore the town i mean hit up the pub down the road, robinson's.. which was right next to the famous crown bar. it had live music and a relaxed crowd. the following day, we went to derry to take a tour around the town and around the walls which were heavily guarded during the troubles. if anything, this whole trip served to show how quickly we can get over something like that... the evidence of the troubled times is everywhere, murals, video cameras, barbed wire, but the people seem alright, and very welcoming to the tourism.

you know, i'm not sure how i feel about the revolution in northern ireland. a part of me is proud, you know, because (excluding all of the violence) it was a revolution that worked. did you know the average age of those in the IRA, men, and women, was 17? the revolution was staged by younger folks, and the difference was vast. now, i'm not saying that i agree with the methods. it's just nice to know that something CAN be done without the meddling of everything over here.
see, they're big into the American Way:





in any case... then we headed to a castlescape for some quick photos:
here's the only picture you'll ever get of me running. they told us we didn't have time to actually go down into the castle, only look from afar.... so naturally i sprinted down to go explore for 15 minutes or so.


here's the castle from afar... i guess the castle was in use for a long time, until the family who owned it was hosting a dinner party during the storm, and just before dinner was to be served the kitchen, chefs, meal, everything, slid into the ocean. the hostess then declared, that's it! we're moving! and they did.




and then off to the giant's causeway. here we are at the top of the cliffs... these are the girls i spend most of my time with, they're awesome.


check the way these rocks have formed....



that was particularly cool, a geological wonder. you know the story from which that was devised? finn mac coul builds it to go across the water to scotland where he drinks and then, naturally, gets into a fight with their local giant. seeing that he is to be on the losing end of this fight, he runs back across and home to his wife, where her quick thinking puts him into the baby's pram and dresses him up as such. when teh scottish giant comes to finn's door, she answers and tells him to be quiet, as the baby is sleeping. when the giant sees how large the baby is, he fears he's underestimated finn and runs back to scotland in a panic, and breaks up the causeway on his journey back. in any case, we climbed all over the cliffs and rocks while we were there.. very cool.
here's me and katie playing on the rocks.


on saturday then, me and a few of the girls took a hop-on hop-off tour of belfast city. i saw the place where the titanic was built... now i guess i've seen both where it's built and where it was set off! (cohb) we walked around Queens university and their botanic gardens. we walked around downtown belfast as well... i went into a linen store to see if it was decently priced but to no avail. it was a sad story. hm... we saw a blue ceramic salmon of knowledge with all the stories of belfast town within its scales...


then, er... we went to go see the Borat Movie. very nice. very nice.

saturday night we went out to more of a younger crowd bar and did it up in style for a while,
and the whole group

then from there we went to a pub that had three levels... one with live music, another dance floor, and the third pool tables. i would have gone back to that place had i been in belfast longer.

sunday was a looonnnnng drive back. but it went by quickly, what with good company and clear roads for most of the 8 hours.



hope you enjoyed the update!!
slán,
chris


me, checking the sun set near the causeway.