People to People in Europe...again

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After last years nightmare delegation i was a little hesitant to expect too much from this trip...but to be fair, reasoned it coudnt be any worse realistically! It got off swimmingly when airport police approached me tin shannon airport to say a member of the group had already been met by ambulance and taken to hospital from the plane! Nice start!
Anyway the rest of the group showed up and we met the driver, noel, who from the off was a little legend. he had a glint in his eye from the beginning, a sixty something 12 year old. We started off going to Bunratty castle that day in county clare, which was nice enough. its always a bit funny at the start of a delegation, you're so aware of how you appear to the leaders and the kids that you second think everythihng you say. Plus the fact, all the bloody kids look the same at first and you are aware you might be saying the same thing to the same one 4 times...
After picking up our little convalescent from the hospital (against the hospitals will by the way) we made our merry way to cahersiveen in county clare. This is daniel O'Connells birthplace. After three delegations learning this stuff, im determined to retain at least a bit of it this time. SOOOO....he was the guy who fought peacefully, in parliment to bring back the civil rights to irish catholics, because all the penal laws were in place at that time. There, ill remember it now iv written it down.
We were all allocated guesthouses and Mary, the country manager sorted it all. Massively aware i was a bit redundant and still finding my feet with the delegation at this point, but was inevitable really! But yea, i did a pretty good job of appearing half asleep and incompetent for the most part when Mary was around. The guesthouses were lovely, the most beautiful view across the atlantic. In my typically sesitive way i managed to laugh and say 'y'alrigt mate?' to a girls voilent jump at breakfast......only for her to tell me she had a 'tick'. Apparently brought on my the trauma of her parents divorce. I went back to my coco pops and was silent for the rest of breakfast.
They did all sorts of stuff in cahersiveen, peat cutting, gaelic football, caeli dancing. A bizarre little girl called breanna, managed to find herself wading joyfully through the peat bog, in her element, as the other kids watching in amazment from good solid ground. I see trouble with this one afoot.....!
At the caeli/irish session it turns out we have a bloody star in the making with one of the lads, whos dancing was unreal. Breanna stunned us all again with a completely gorgeous rendition of silent night.
Th etrip was taking shape nicely....the only other thing really worthy of note was Noel, who progressively got more and more brilliant. I sneaked to the pub a couple of times with him and just chatted. Everything he said was just so bloody profound i wanted to write it all down! Just loved his, like attitude to life. He told me he didnt drink because there'd been a time when he liked it too much...but when we got on to the subject more he said -in a more articulate way bear in mind and in a musical, lilting irish accent - whatever you do drink/smoke/etc, thats its you who has to look yourself in the mirror of a morning and if you can live with yourself, then thats ok. I really liked that. A couple of his other little gems were 'easier to mount a fallen tree' (apparently what short girls say about tall fellas) and 'if you were born to hang, you wont be shot' (about smoking/drinking/everything that kills you) what a little dream!
From cahersiveen our next stop was the whole gap of dunloe thing in Kerry. We did a pony and trap ride and a boat trip which was ever so lovely, we're massively lucky with weather on this trip so far. Hadnt pre warned any of the kids about the 'hikes' (otherwise known, in english, as 3 minute walks) up some of the hills the cart couldnt get up. Jeez louise theres some fatties on this trip. Was painful to watch them hauling themselves up the hills in the heat, wanted to get behind and give em a push.
We moved on to dublin after that, to do the whole dublin tour. I do love dublin and love its history...helps that irish people tell it so passionately. They did all Croke park and that and i had a nice wander around the shops avoiding them at every oppurtunity. The leaders are actually ok so far on this trip, Norm being the highlight. He's maybe 63 ish, but smiles with his eyes and is so...like, alive! He loves a beer and confessed thats why he carries 'this stupid fanny pack'. He's a briliant influence actually, sometimes with this job, only very very rarely, you feel a bit like on your own. You're the only DM doing that job and theres a groups of leaders doing theirs and a group of kids. So you can feel like your bossing people around and its easy to get het up if your not careful. And i dont get het up easiely to be fair! But if i have so far, you only need to glance back at Norm whos just strolling along, chattin to one of the kids and laughing away, and it just puts everything into perspective. Like it doesnt really matter if the coach is 5 minutes late and the lunches will get picked up at some point, whether we worry about it or not! So he's great like that, and just ensures you take your time and just enjoy every day as opposed to rushing it through thinking about the little job things.
It was sad to say bye to noel the next day at the ferry terminal. The kids gave him a million and one pins/bottle openers/keyrings as usual, which im sure thrilled him! He gave me two mini bottles of wine which was well cute! Anyways, the ferry over to bangor, which was relatively painless...this group is great, they actually do what i say! ha.
In bangor we met the new co ordinators there an they took us on an orientation of Anglesy. I forget how gorgeous wales is. We went to this beautiful spot over looking the bridges which join it to the mainland, in, erm, a graveyard. I tried to point out breanna to them, to see if they could encourage her to integrate more. When asked to point her out i could only describe her as, erm, the one with two spoons on her face. As she proudly presented her party trick to the whole waiting on staff.
They then did the whole Full on experience thing which always goes down well...positive thinking and taking control of your own future and all that. I do like the quote 'whether you think you can, or think you cant, you're probably right' though. getting good with these little quotes recently! ha.
So from there to warwick castle, which was nice...feel like a got to know the leaders a lot more after that. theres a hige divide at the moment between three of them and this one called susie. Who, to be honest, i feel a bit sorry for. She is a dick though. And she does go on, and onnnnn about inappropriate dress of the kids, which im sure is as pointed towards my flip flops as anything else...
Anyways, to london and the london eye, jubilee gardens, where tyree stunned about two hundred people by joining in with some break dancing street performers there. i was beaming like a proud mother.
they did all the changing of the guard, tower of london and all that with the guide and then we went to see blood brothers at the theatre.
God, it was sad. it really struck some chords with me, about, you know, some people not really having much choices in life and made me think about loads of sherwood people i know. This lad in the play went from being a child to a man in one fell swoop and by 18 had the weight of the world on his shoulders. There was also a scene where he was in the prison meeting room, and, God, it just broke my heart coz it reminded me of marcus! I dunno why it struck so many chords, i think if anything though, probably what to take from it, is it made me want to make my life exactly what i want it to be, and me thankful i have so many choices. Wo....deep eh.
Anyways, the only other minor issue was the randy little buggers, banging the past coupld of nights....a small, comical issue the leaders were sorting till the wee hours,
Anyways anyways from london to southhampton and onto a ferry from UKSA on the isle of wight. Again, somewhere i forgot how pretty it is. The sun setting over the water on the first night with all the boats and stuff on the horizon was stunning. The first day there we went into town and had a pub lunch before the football. Then, and im gonna say this quickly, england got humiliated by germany and made a quick exit to the world cup. A fact which some of the kids relished and gave them taunting ammunition for a while. That night didnt soften the blow, but it was great though, we got a lift in one of the boats (WHICH I DROVE!) to a little pub on the other side of the island and sat in the evening sun with a pimms...like a dream holiday! was really funny swappin war stories with the leaders and another DM, miranda. feel suitable refreshed ready for france after that!
God....iv wrote a lot here.....just come back to catch up on this blog from amsterdam. The rest of the trip went really well, apart from havign a retarded coach driver, who got us lost in paris and kept hitting posts...everything went smoothly! i had to, not yell, but y'know, get mad with him when we loaded all the kids on the coach with luggage at 6am for him to choose that moment to tell me the battery was dead! but, he spoke no english so we had to have a receptionist translator for the argument! was hilarious. seeing the eiffel tower at night was a definatehighlight, although i dint get to catch up with joe, which was a bit of a shame...
the kids crack me up though, the walking kills them...feel sometiems like they feel its like a military camp trapsing round! ha. so...what else, they loved normany and the beaches, and it dint get any easier the second time i did it, i still cried my head off! we had a fantastic guide for Bastogne, who told us about the battle of the bulge (again sounds like a fat kids camp!) but he was so into it and knew all the veterens (and even tom hanks) that it got so real when we saw the foxholes. amsterdam was good, apart from minor driver issues and sacking off the diamond factory. the kids spent a ridiculous amount everywhere (180 euro at a cheese farm!) but thats pretty par for the course...even though it never fails to amaze me!
the final night was sad but such an ego booost. we all were in a room in the hilton at teh airport finalising things before they flew the next day and norm made a speech about me, saying in 11 years of doing this he'd never met a DM like me! then they all said such lovely things and gave me about a thousand presents (lots of sweets adn drink powder things im getting obsessed with!) They are such such a good group...and it all ended suitably cheesily in a massive pile on hug. Then, of course, drinks in the bar! woop.
when they left i didnt know realy what to do with myself, after changing hotels, i wandered round town for a bit and the other DM came.

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