The big fat funny mess that was People to People in Europe

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Hilarious. This trip was hilarious from beginning to end.

The original itinerary was begin in
Amsterdam - Anne Franks house, the flower market, canal cruise and stuff.
Belguim and i take them on a walking tour and stuff and we go to a chocolate factory.
France to do the Paris tour - Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower
then down to Normandy - Omaha beach and the American Cemetrary.
Then Caen to get the overnight ferry to Portsmouth.
From there the ferry to the Isle of Wight to the United Kingdom Sailing Academy for a few days kayaking and sailing.
Then up do London - the Churchill War rooms, London Eye, a West-end play (we saw Wicked).
Then Warwick for the Warwick Castle experience (thankfuly not staying overnight this time)
Wales - bangor and absailing off Penryn castle and the Full-On experience (where they break wood with their hands and stuff)
Then the short ferry to Dublin from Holyhead - to do the tour, GAA museum and Croke Park,
then County Kerry - the pony and trap ride and some of the ring of kerry on the bus.
Then County Clare and leave from Shannon!


SO.....It all began with the leaders being elderly nonces and not doing count-offs and all that jazz. which inevitably, and nightmarishly, resulted in a lost kid in amsterdam! not ideal. anyway, she was found alive and not stoned so could have been worse. however, it went from comedy error to error, like a fawlty towers episode. The next couple of days were filled with fun, from a tour guide storming off in paris and very nearly having a full on fist fight with the previously-obliging dutch coach driver to a weird prozac-addicted having a panic attack and pretending to faint on the parisian motorway. Still.........after calling his mum in the states, it turned out theis was normal behaviour for him and to....erm, ignore it! haha.

Met joe on his vespa that night in paris and saw his lovely new flat...he thought the trip so far sounded hilarious...and to be fair, i was thinking, it couldnt get much worse so just to embrace it!
oh how wrong i was. when a vastly overweight, black kid pulled me aside after the eiffel tower, to reveal, what i can only describe as seeping boils over her middle, i could have laughed. but thankfuly didnt. after getting her to a french doctor, the rest of the group continued with the day. we'd decided to stay in the centre after the sacre cour and walk back to the hotel to maximise shopping time and told the driver this that morning. The leaders later decided this wasnt a good idea, but it was too late, we didnt have much choice! i had to go back in a taxi with a leader and the boil-infested youth to the hotel, to come back into town and meet the rest of the group and walk them back. when i met them on the sacre cour steps, it is honeslty not an exaggeration to say that each and every one was in tears. I thought they'd witnessed a human sacrafice or something. It never was clear why they were all in tears, to be fair i dont think they knew really. apparently it partially had something to do with me though, which was worrying! i managed to gather a few factors.....someones grandad died the year before, they were having a horrible time, they were sad coz i was trying to hard and the leaders were so rubbish. Hmmmm. So i took em to the bakery adn we had sweets adn pastry and they soon cheered up.

Well, yea, it went on and on, at caen, the oldest, frailest leader, who honestly looked like the living dead managed to slip off a kerb. not a massive deal if she hadnt been so ancient and ostereopotic that she broke it. So by the time we got to UKSA, we had her in a wheelchair, the fainting boy at a GP, the boil girl at another and 7 more of em at the medical centre for one reason or another! Hilarious.
The overnight ferry had been fun though, Jai Ho, our morning song had come on and everyone went mental. Especially Sam with his comedy dancing. The fact the leaders are so, so bad, means iv got even closer to the kids this time. That sounds dodgy but not meant to! But yea, especially Taylor and Ashley.
But yea, the trip continued in even more comedy fashion, with another leader being flown out and inevitable torrential rain wherever we went. We ended in shannon where, i was nothing more than resigned to it being a comedy of errors. Id be ringing the offfice and they just would laugh, becuase they didnt know what else to do! I met cat at the airport and God, it was funny going through the drama of it all. Funny, but, yea, never again.

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