Taking the piss!

It´s one of life´s little wonders how you can manage to pack a bagpack and everything fits perfectly yet take one thing out and good luck trying to get in back in! That´s a good summation of how Friday morning begin. Finally though after a lot of stuffing and squashing the bags closed and we bid farewell to Frankfurt. We arrived in the train station to be met by a group of Dublin´s finest soccer fans looking frazzled and frustrated - "There was a bomb, we´ve been delayed for hours" was the opening remark from these Dubs. They claimed that their train from Framkfurt to Stuttgart had been delayed for hours owing to a bomb scare - yet oddly enough this "bomb scare" did not feature on German news, in German newspapers, it did not delay our schedualed departure of 10.30 nor was their a policeman to be seen in the station. Whether our fellow Irish men we´re hiding their embarrassment at missing their early morning train owing to a hangover or whether the language barrier caused them to entirely misinterpret a notice in the train station we´ll never quite now!!! Relieved nonetheless that such a "scare" seemed only to exist in the minds of these members of Jackie´s Army we boarded our train headed for Stuttgart.

Group harmony was tested to the limit when our train arrived in Stuttgart and we went about the task of finding our accomodation. The only difficulty lay in the fact that this pre-arranged accomodation was located in the very scenic but socially remote town of Ludwigsburg. Pre-made plans were abandoned and a mutiny averted as alternative accomodation was sought. Back in the centre of Stuttgart we visited the Tourist Information Office to seek last minute alternative accomodation. Bearing in mind that we were in a city about to host a European Soccer Qualifer and amongst 15,000 Irish people this was no easy job. Next thing we knew we had booked to stay on the floor in a "hall" (of sorts) in a youth hostel located up a hill which would put Kilimanjaro to shame and with more steps enroute than one would find at the internationally renowned Spanish Steps in Rome!!!! Nonetheless, we arrived, out of breath but ready for the craic!

Refreshed and luggage-less we descended from our hilly retreat to the large plaza in the centre of the city. Stephen´s Green all of a sudden seemed like a mere grass verge as we encountered what must of been a crowd of in excess of 1,000 Irish people nearly all in Irish jerseys (that looked like they had been worn since they arrived in Germany!) knocking back pitchers of beer. The sight of grey haired men in their Ireland jerseys literally drinking beer out of plastic jugs at a rate of nought is a memory which will remain with us for some time to come. We enjoyed the afternoon in the sun, soaking up the atmosophere and with the motto "If you can´t beat 'em join 'em" in mind drinking pitchers of what we were told was beer!

After a dodgy take-away and a bit of a scrub we headed out for the night, flags drapped across our backs and an array of Irish jerseys we hit what was known within our group as "Breffini" Earlys Irish pub. After queuing for an eternity we finally got in and despite the lack of females, drinking and dancing continued well into the night. After we were kicked out onto the streets with our new friends who were refered to by us "Variety and Baldilocks" (pictures will sum up the last name....!!! and the former just seemed easier to say then her real name!)

"Dalilas", the Stuttgart equivalent to any late night Dublin watering hole was next on the itinerary (actually itinerary makes it sound planned and dignified - really we were just going with the crowd led by our two new female friends). While a certain M & S enjoyed themselves with the new found company the other member of our entourage and Group Organiser was left discussing the world of football and life in general with "Pat and Paul" - two lads from Coolock and Santry. However, "Pat and Paul" didn´t seem to realise that the conversation was over and instead tagged along for the rest of the night!!

Stephen arrived, as expected, later that night after flying into Stuttgart. While some of us were on our way to being legless, Stephen instead turned up bagless - his baggage having been "misplaced" in Heathrow Airport (trust the Brits to deprive an Irish fan of his jersey for the match!). Stephen did his best to catch up but we´d been out at this stage for what seemed like an eternity. Our fun had for one night we headed back home to hilly retreat to find things not quite as we left them..........

On entering through the back door of the hostel we arrived into what seemed at the time like the River Liffey that seemed to have broken its banks. Some clever person (we think it was a jealous English person) had pissed all over our sleeping bags. An extremley annoyed and now fully sober R went ballistic. He managed to get the perceived guilty party thrown out of the Hostel and we got upgraded to a private room with a bathroom. He got this despite asking the manager how she would feel if he pissed all over her bed...!!!! Delighted with the room upgrade but still pissed off with what had happened we all hit the sack eventually, praying for an even better day and an Irish win tomorrow........