Anyway, I’ve already started planing stuff for this year…

• Home & NZ in April 12-27th
• June 6 – Foo Fighters at Wembley
• July 4-10 – Spain (Pamplona) running of the bulls festival
• July 11-13 – Oxegen.ie music festival here in Ireland (R.A.T.M aww yeah, plus an assload of other bands over 3 days, gunna be huuuuge)
• Sept 18-23 – Opening weekend of Oktoberfest in Munich!! There will be lots of beer drank

Aside from those that are planned there will be some other trips in there as well, thinking of a tour of Scotland, Copenhagen and a few other places, still want to hit up Italy as well…

Anyway, this is far to much useful information for one update!

So in December I saw Powderfinger & John Butler Trio, both awesome. Was in Newcastle for Christmas.

Not alot else going on at the moment, Aust day this weekend, going to www.woolshedbaa.com to have a few beverages and that’s about it… trying to work out my travel plans for 2008. Hope to get a long weekend ’somewhere’ in Feb & March before I head home in April!

That’s all for me, might upload photo’s one of these days…

Not alot happening really, just the usual, work, drink, sleep – rinse repeat.

Did head over to Wales (Cardiff) to watch Aus v Wales at the Rugby World Cup, went with the Fanatics supporter crew, they are freaking awesome fun, ran amok, was interviewed on BBC Wales with some else Welsh player, good times.

More recently was in London at the weekend watching Aus v Nigeria in the Soccer, again with the Fanatics crew, again another awesome time had! I am back in London this weekend as well, going to see Arsenal V Wigan at Emirates Stadium (this time I’ll try to MAKE the flight and not get too hammered the night before…)

Aside from that winding down towards christmas – heading over to Newcastle for that and then it’s 2008, already!! Still deciding the travel plans for next year, but I’ll be hitting up more of Europe, want to go to Venice, Rome, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Western Europe as well, so lots to do, going to go to Pamplona for the running of the bulls I think, pretty keen to see that, also want to see a European Grand Prix, not sure which one because if I go to Rock-am-ring music festival it’s at the same place as the F1 so I’d go to a different Grand Prix I think..

I’ll be home briefly in April next year on my way through to NZ to catch up with Sutto, Marty, Ando and Watto (plus Sez and Chelsea!).
That’s it for now, I might try to post more often and get some pics up sooner or later

Some ‘stats’ as it were:

Flights taken – 33
Flights missed – 4
Gigs – 8
Muse (Dublin), Wolf mother (Dublin), TOOL (Dublin), Big Day Out (Sydney – TOOL, Muse, Trivium, TZU, Kasabian, The Killers, Jet and more), Metallica (London), Silver chair (Edinburgh), TOOL (London), Foo Fighters & N.I.N (Dublin)

Sports events – 5
Int’l Rules (Dublin), Ireland V Aus (Rugby) Dublin, NHL Ice Hocket (New York), NBA Basketball (New York), Wimbledon (London),

Counties Visited – 9
UK (London & Newcastle & Edinburgh), Australia (Sydney), America (New York), Austria (Salzburg), Germany, Hungary (Budapest), Ireland (drove all the way around), France (Paris), Netherlands (Amsterdam)

Missed flights/events – 4 Flights (2 work related, 2 drunk and slept in) the 2 I missed due to passing out meant I missed the Arsenal v Man City match I was meant to go to!

I’ve had a ball this past year, met allot of great people and have generally run amok, drinking lots and going out lots – when in Rome…

Still to come this year, next weekend off to Wales (Cardiff) to watch Aus v Wales in the Rugby World Cup, other then that I don’t have a heap of plans, but I will have at least another trip or two before the end of the year.

I think that covers everything, I can’t remember… too many brain cells killed drinking hehe

Mon – work

Tues – Fly to London to see TOOL

Wed – Fly back to Dublin to see Foo Fighters & NIN

Thurs – Work (was meant to be in Manchester to see TOOL again, but have to work!)

Fri – Work

Sat – Fly to London to watch Arsenal v Man City, Man City are undefeated so far this year, should be an awesome game.

Sun – Fly back to Dublin to see Keiser Chiefs & Frantelis & back up again for work on Monday, good times ahead

I managed to go out drinking on Friday night, so yet again, I was hungover and travelling, good times, good times. Flight was only at lunch time, so it wasn’t to bad. Airport was relatively painless, I didn’t do ‘online checkin’ mainly because I forgot! But there was only 10 people in line when I got there, and no one in line for security scanning – which was handy!!

Was contemplating going to Murryfield to see Ireland V Scotland, but with no ticket & only 100 pounds in my kick pocket, becuase again, I forgot to get money out and hungover and all that, but I managed. Headed into town to have a look around, but it started to rain, so I decided to go ‘inside’ it just happened to be a pub The first 2 went down like rusty nails, but it all came good, watched the union and then some Scottish Premier League and then decided I best find my accom. Had a shower and then shot off to the concert and there was a freaking line that was massive, so I went into the pub & had a few more pints, and the line was nice and small when I came out, straight through security & into the bar, this is where I was dumbfounded, you could get 5 SHOTS of spirits in a SINGLE drink at the bar, not to be caught short, I had to have a lash at this, had 5 shots of vodka and lemonade for 12 pounds – pretty decent price I thought.

Silverchair were pretty awesome, they played alot of their new album and a few oldies, though I am dead set pissed off at them playing just over an hour, with 4 or 5 albums worth of material, they could have easily played an hour and a half and then come back on for a 15min encorr – so I was a little shitty with that.

But I managed to find some like minded aussies at the concert, courtesy of my boony army t-shirt, me so and my new found friends hit the town and hit it we did – didn’t get home until 6am and checkout was at 9am, so only a few hours of sleep doesn’t bode well, considering my flight was late arvo…. I attempted to do some sightseeing via one of the bus tours, had to hop off a couple of times for ‘air’ t’was quite funny really… but yeah managed to get in and see Edinburgh Castle, which is dead set awesome & saw a few other things…

But guarenteed, I’ll be back, this time probably won’t hungover or drinking to much when I am there!!

Metallica & Wimbledon are here

Pro tip don’t go out drinking till the wee small hours before having to get up at 4:30am for a early flight, after a few hours sleep (literarly) I managed to make the plane, flight was easy enough just over an hour, I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep or the drink but I managed to acquire a headache Paris airport is fucking confusing, well, again, it might have been the lack of sleep or the drinking hehe, but I managed to find Matt & Louise and they too were sleep deprived, so it all worked out for the best!

Weather was sensational, up towards 30 degree’s perfect for sightseeing, first stop was Macca’s – anti hangover cure (maybe), I ‘had a winfall at maccas’, suffice to say the trip paid for itself haha, Once we sorted ourselves out with some feed and post mix coke, we were off to the Catacombs – dead peoples bones stacked on top of each other, was pretty funny there was a few yanks ahead of us and they were shit scared, wasn’t too bad I didn’t think. Next stop was the Luxembourg Park in Paris, it had some impressive gardens and sculptures and some bad ass massive mansion. After that we were off to Notre-Dame, which was an impressive structure – the line up looked daunting, however the queue moved pretty quickly and we had a look around, I couldn’t be arse walking up the stairs to the top, I’ll cover that if I make it back to Paris again heheh, too hungover! We then went via the Lourve to the Champs-Elysees walked the length of that had some dinner and finished up with Arc de Triomphe, the round about – if you could call it that, was hillarious dead set no road rules at all, just cars going everywhere, good times!

It was then time to get on a boat at 9:30pm to see Paris by night, the river Seine cruise thingo was pretty good, although by this stage of the day I was over it and wanted to get some sleep, my head had been POUNDING all day, but seeing the Eifle Tour for the first time at night was pretty cool… after the cruise we were going to get the metro to the Eifle tower to see the ‘on the hour’ light show, a few fuck ups later, I said lets get a taxi and we got there with about 4 mins to spare, saw the 11pm show and by that stage I was like a 2 year old, I NEEDED to get to bed, having been out all night the previous night, a few hours sleep, being up since 4:30am and trekking all over Paris, I was an un-happy little so and so hahah ahh the life of a global jet setter!

Me and trains generally are OK, had a few ‘issues’ with the Tube in London the first few times but after that no drama’s. but apparently the trains in Paris hated me, my tickets wouldn’t work, couldn’t pick the right ones and so on… so we finally get to our hotel and notice there is only a double bed… interesting considering there was 3 of us, you guessed it, I get a trundle bed!!! It wasn’t too bad, shit anything would have done, I was wrecked… a quick flick of the TV – it was 12:30am at this stage, whilst Matty and Louise showered and hey presto there was porn, hardcore porn on the TV, who doesn’t love the French! it was quite funny, so we watched that for 20 mins or so and hit the sack by 1am.

Sunday, we had grand plans to cover a number of things today, didn’t happen though, we fucked about and only checked outta the hotel at midday and had to be at the airport for 8pm or so, needed to leave an hour to get to the airport just to be safe, you’d think 7 hours woulda been heaps, but have you tried taking on the Lourve, the worlds biggest museum (I think)?? The first Sunday of each month is free entry, so every man and his dog was there, you shoulda seen the line up just to get in the place, fuck that, I pushed in, a few Frenchies wern’t happy, but who cares! Walked and walked and walked around this place, saw the Mona Lisa – didn’t do much for me… and some de milo thing, as you can tell I am an art buff What cracks me up is how many art critics are in the general public and how many professional photographers we have… anywho, it was good.

Next stop Eifle tower, mission – to get to the top & not by walking, unfortunately the lineup for the elevator’s was maaaasive, so I couldn’t be arsed – found a grassy patch a couple of hundred meters away and just chilled for a while – then it was time to head home, well to the airport at least and because I was hungover and didn’t pack Friday night, I didn’t pack my e-ticket for the flight home, so I thought I was in strife, but no drama’s for the Air Lingus peeps, they checked me in seat 2C – first off the plane at Dublin, gotta love that!

That is the story of Paris, next installment is Edinburgh next weekend for Silverchair. Again I took heaps of photo’s in Paris, so I’ll have to sort the good from the bad at some stage, not tonight! I think I still have to post Amsterdam, London (Wimbledon & Metallica), Tour-de-Ireland & now Paris + Edinburgh next week, I’ll see if I can make a start some stage this week, though I wouldn’t hold your breath hehe

We started off Friday 13 July, probably not the best of days to hire a car and drive in a foreign country if you are soupaticious, but it didn’t worry me in the slightest. The Dublin traffic did! Roughly 1.5 hours to get from my place in Dublin to ‘red cow’ round-about, which is a complete joke, but we were off on the highway heading towards Kilkenny.

I am just going to give a ‘brief’ overview of each day, rather then type hiddeious amounts of text….

Day 1 – Dublin to Kilkenny, not a whole lot going on here, just driving, hit up a pub for dinner – good times.
Day 2 – Waterford, we shot down to Waterford Crystal, primarily to see how it all happens, they make each piece completly by hand, crazy talk. Then we went to town buying crystal (well mainly me, some nice crystal wine glasses and boubon/whisky glasses, and a few other bits a pieces).
Day 3 – Kilkenny to Cork, Kilkenny Castle – fantastic place, restored from essentially ruins by the government, did a tour and then headed off for Cork (Southern Ireland). Went off into the Jameson distillery in Middletown to see how whisky is made, good times – bought a good few things, including a 12 year old ‘only available at the distillery’ personalised bottle off grog! Stayed at Cobh (pronounced Cove).
Day 4 – Cohb to Kinsale, Cobh is on an island of sorts, so we drove around the Island sight seeing. Short drive down to Kinsale, went to Charles Fort & James Fort – pretty damned awesome, stayed in at Kinsale for the evening.
Day 5 - Kinsale to Dingle, It dawned on me we were nearly halfway through our trip and hadn’t gotten very far! Drove pretty much all day, stopped off at various spots to sight see, travelling along the Ring of Kerry, beautiful scenery along the way.
Day 6 – Dingle to Doolin, again another fairly hectic day of driving & sight seeing, Bunratty Castle & Cliffs of Mhore
Day 7 - Dooling to Bushmill, met a Swedish couple at breakfast and they told us about the Slieve’s League, more cliff’s to check out, these are 600m above sea level though, was an awesome view! Then we hauled ass toward Northern Ireland to hit up the Giants Clauseway, again this was sensational! Crashed at the Bushmill’s inn – where I got conned outta nearly 200 pounds for a room, classy!
Day 8 - Bushmill to Dublin, we went into the Bushmills distillery in the morning, spent more $$$ on grog and glasses and what not, bought another ‘distillery only’ bottle customised with my name one it

Once home, we crashed for the night and I got up early to take the car back to the hire place and then we had a trip on an old ‘tall boat’ called Jeanie Johnston, started ok, however the weather turned to shit and we (me) got totally SOAKED!

Right that’s it for now, there is over 1,000 photo’s I’ve taken on the holiday, I was hoping to go through them this weekend and post a few, but I spent most of the weekend either drunk or hungover hehe so I’ll get around to posting some photo’s this week, hopefully…

Hitting up Paris this weekend, should be a blast, then the weekend after to Edinburgh to see Silverchair (can’t wait!).

Well I’ve been across to Newcastle, met up with mum and dad, along with Ridley & Lynette, then wandered around Newcastle for a day or two, went down to Whitley Bay to see where grandad and grandma grew up and saw the house(s) they lived in and where grandad was born, so that was pretty good.

Then we were off to Wimbledon, up at 2am (pick up from Hexam) for a ‘quick’ coach ride down to London, move forward 10 hours and we’ve made it to Wimbledon hehe we had Show Court 1 tickets (i.e. not centre court) but it was the last Sat of the tournament and they were behind schedule, so we managed to get to see the Nadal Semi, womens double semi and saw the Woodies take on Pat Cash and Richard Kriajech in a exhibition match, this was quite funny, alot of messing! Wimbledon was awesome, fantastic atmosphere and a good time had by all. Ohh yes we managed to get onto Centre Court to see the mixed doubles semi as well, they just opened up the court, so that has handy!
Sunday saw us off to Windsor Castle, a massive, massive place, with even longer line-ups! however because we had some package tour rolled into our Wimbledon tickets, we managed to queue jump, love it! Wandered around there for a few hours, the queen was in residence, but didn’t want a cuppa with us, nor a beer, biatch! I then had to catch 5, yes 5 trains to get to the other side of London to meet up with Matty & Louise before heading out to Wembley to catch Metallica, who were awesome – they played mostly old stuff and played for 2.5 hours, good times.

Mum & dad made their way to Ireland the Tues afterwards, we went to Riverdance on the Wed night for mum’s birthday, mum liked it, it was a little bit so-so for me, but all good. Picked up the hire car 13 June and we’ve hit up Kilkenny, Waterford and we are now in Cork. Went to Kilkenny Castle, Waterford Crystal factory – did a tour of both, whilst wandering down the coast towards Cork I saw a sign for the Jameson Distillery tour in Middletown, so we went in and did that – another excellent tour and another few hundred Euro’s gawwwwn haha – I managed to get a bottle of Irish Whisky that is ONLY available at the distillery, 12 year old stuff, so it’s good, the kicker is the label has my name on it!! yeap custom made!

That’s it for now, sitting in our hotel room at Cobh, mum and dad say hi to everyone as well!

A quick shout out to Rod from McQ Smash down there in Sydney, Aus – I know he is an avid fan of the site!

I was in Amsterdam last weekend, wholey shit, what a place, Rod if you are reading this, tell Dar to get his arse there he’ll love it, dead set 100’s of ‘women’ in 2m high by 1.5-2m wide ‘doorways’ dressed in bikini’s or lingere (spelling?) and you ‘barter’ for their ’services’, once you’ve agreed to a price, there is a bed in there little treasure trove, she’ll draw the curtains and off you go haha love the Red Light District, unfortunately there aren’t any photo’s apparently their pimps don’t like photo’s being taken and camera’s are often smashed.. or so the rumour goes… The women are generally all from the Eastern Block, lots of stunners, a few dodgy ones, but mainly fairly decent birds. Red Light District is FULL of drunken wanker poms, there was at least 10 hens or stag/bucks nights on the Sat we were there and they get fairly rowdy, but it all adds to the fun and the atmosphere!
Ohh yes and pot is legal there, so we had to have some ’space cake’ and smoke a joint, just coz we were allowed to!

Busy, busy, busy with work at the moment, alot of stuff I need to get completed before my next trip to London for Wimbledon when I’ll be catching up with mum and dad, then head on the 9 day tour de Ireland (luckily there won’t be any need for push bikes on this tour, so no chaffing). Once we wrap up tour de Ireland, there is a comedy festival on here in Dublin that I’ve got a good few tickets to, so that’ll be a blast, then off to Paris in early Aug.

After Paris, I’ll be in Edinburgh to see Silverchair, then back London 21 Aug to see TOOL in London, fly to Dublin 22 Aug to see Foo Fighters, then fly to Manchester 23 Aug to see TOOL again, yes that’s right 3 concerts in 3 days in 3 counties, am I mad or what? should be a blast and that weekend following that madness is a long weekend, so I’ll be trying to book a trip away somewhere with Matt and Louise before they shoot home.

I think that’ll do it, I’ll throw some photo’s up hopefully later this week of Amsterdam, didn’t really take many but there are still a few!

EDIT: New York is up

EDIT: Salzburg pics are up now – I think they are the most spectacular of the lot!!

This past weekend I was off to Austria (Salzburg) for the weekend with Matt and Louise, although there isn’t any direct flights from Dublin, so I had to Fly Dublin-London, London-Salzburg, Salzburg-London, London-Dublin all in 4 days! Good times.

Salzburg was awesome, went on the sound of music tour (yeah, yeah, I know!) I couldn’t care for the sound of music crap, but the scenery was sensational – went all over Salzburg to all the places where they filmed and some of the places were freaking awesome – there WILL be photo’s soon…

Also went to a place called Eagles Nest – Hitler’s ’spare’ hideaway in Bavaria (southern Germany) – now this was sensational, had to catch a bus to a certain point and then another bus and then Hitlers original lift that takes you 124m up to his hideout, from there you have views of all Salzburg and surrounding places plus some nice mountain ranges.

The week before I was off to Budapest, again with Matt and Louise, this place was pretty good too – but I liked Salzburg better, however Budapest was cool too,  went to Matyas church, walked on the Chain Bridge, The Royal Palace, Fishermans Bastion along with Parliament Building – the second largest in Europe! We took a cruise down the Danube river as well, which was tops. Again I’ll post photo’s ASAP!

Matt is over this weekend, plus the FA Cup final is on and then the following week Champion League final is on, lots on!

New York was awesome, photo’s will be uploaded at some stage (probably this weekend).

St Patrick’s day over here was fkn mental, talk about drunk people everywhere – it was like New Year’s Eve times 10, drunken people running amok, piles of spew everywhere, but good times were had by all.

Not doing a whole lot aside from working and heading to the pub to watch a match with the lads….

But there is plenty of travel planned, see below!

1. First weekend in May (5-7) going to Budapest for a long weekend
2. Weekend after (12-13) heading off Salzburg (Austria so I am told)
3. June 9 & 10 off to Amsterdam, just checked the booking confirmation and it turns out I’ve managed to book a flight for the 17th of June and not 10th – well done idiot, so I think I’ll have to pay 35 euro to change the ticket, even though the original only cost me 45!!!
4. July I am off to London for Wimbledon, mum and dad are out so we have the tour de Ireland – 10 days of driving around this place!
5. August 4-5 is Paris
Then there is the concerts coming up, seeing Foo Fighters (with Nine Inch Nails supporting), Metallica at Wembley stadium!!!!, Pearl Jam at Wembley ‘Arena’, John Butler Trio and contemplating going to a couple of the ’summer’ festivals over in Europe.

Good times, not much sleep and plenty of Europe to take on in the coming months

Till next time…

]]> http://heardy.com/?feed=rss2&p=37 0 http://heardy.com/?p=36 http://heardy.com/?p=36#comments Fri, 09 Mar 2007 23:58:23 +0000 http://heardy.com/?p=36 So, it’s fkn freeeeeeeezing here, like colder then in Dublin The average temp is -3 degree’s, good work me, not checking the weather and packing ‘lite’ haha anywho, it’s cold.

So arrived Monday arvo, got CONNED into getting a ‘private car’ after asking for a taxi, $100USD later I arrive at my hotel…. very spiffy, so all good, met up with Kent and Natasha and we were off to the NHL (Ice Hockey) I didn’t have a ticket, but decided to go along anyways to check out Madison Square Garden and maybe pick up a scalper ticket, got a ticket with a face value of $46 for $50USD, pretty happy with that! Not that the ticket mattered, we all got a seat together behind the goal – great seats

Tuesday was a day of walking around, trying to work out where is what, went into Rockafella Center and then down to ground zero – World Trade Center and home via Wall St and the financial district etc

Wednesday was a shopping day http://www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet.asp?id=7 I went mental and bought an arseload of shit, Quiksilver t-shirts were $5us per shirt, Levi’s were only $25us a pair, Nautica, Van Heuson, Adidas, Echo, Burbury, Ralph Lauren… I’ve had to buy a second suitcase to fit all the stuff in, haha

Thurs, went and did all the Tourist stuff again, NBC Studio tour, Top of the Rock, United Nations, then went on to see a Broadway show – Avenue Q which was piss funny, good times.

Today (Friday) went to Empire State Building – NY Skyride and Observatory, then did a 3 hour cruise around New York, saw the Statue of Liberty and all the islands in and around NY, good times.

So I am freaking tired, all the walking and tours etc takes it outta ya, I will upload some photo’s soon.

]]> http://heardy.com/?feed=rss2&p=36 0 http://heardy.com/?p=35 http://heardy.com/?p=35#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2007 23:35:52 +0000 http://heardy.com/?p=35 Yes, it’s been nearly a month since I’ve updated the site!! But honestly, not alot going on, just work, work, work and booze, booze, booze – watching football (soccer) at the pub 2 or 3 nights a week, my gawd, I am getting some drinking in!

Anywho, I am off to New York tomorrow morning, cab arriving at 6am, should be at the airport for 6:30am ahead of a 9am flight – dead set can’t wait to get to NY, I know it’s only been a month since I was in Aus, but I really need this holiday hehe no really, I do!

Lots of things to see and do and then there is the shopping, with any luck I’ll be able to score some bargains with all my Euros!

I’ll post again from NY – where it’s COLDER then it is in Dublin :/ I picked the best time to go…

]]> http://heardy.com/?feed=rss2&p=35 0 http://heardy.com/?p=33 http://heardy.com/?p=33#comments Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:25:15 +0000 http://heardy.com/?p=33 Yes, it’s snowing in Dublin right now! Well more like sleet, but I’ll call it snow…
]]> http://heardy.com/?feed=rss2&p=33 0