ROUND AND ROUND, GERMANY

This time last week my hands were shaking, my stomach was churning, my bags were (mostly!) packed, i had my plane ticket printed, I had my Rock Im Park ticket stowed away safely and I was talking to by best friend about how cool everything was going to be and how afraid I am of flying.

That day I had been watching the keynote speeches at E3 over some stream, I'd written to Joey a little and read some of Twilight (yuck), I couldn't reallly concentrate and I was spending most of the time talking to Joey about all the things we'd do the next day.
I passed out around two, while reading, I was exhausted from not sleeping the night before. At 3 I woke up and made the last check of my stuff, said goodbye to some friends online and dragged my luggage to the door, it was 4 am at that stage. I didn't know it but I was missing my towel and sunglasses.
My Dad dropped me off at the Airport and I checked shit in down in the deepest basement, I ate brefast.. I was getting scared.

Before I started flying again the other year it had been about 9 years since I'd last flown and in the meantime I'd decided that being really high up was SCARY AS FUCK. A plane had just gone down leaving Brazil too, so I was pretty scared.

It went well though. I think it was one of the smoothest flights I'd been on. I watched Germany slide under me from the security exit window. It was gorgeous, light green fields, golden hay, dark shadows of woods..

I'm getting tired.. more tomorrow!

ok, I'm awake.

I tried to keep distracted by reading or just staring out the window at everything, but as I got closer and closer to 10:30 German time.. I got more and more excited. this was a really big trip for me. I'd been looking forward to it since the end of fucking Febuary!

We landed at around 10:10, a little earlier than promised, which was cool by me. Less time in the air will always be a good thing. I grabbed my case and got an odd look from the man beside me for saying "case... casecasecasecasecase" to myself as I reached for it. I smiled at him, popped the handle on the case, wandered out the doors and.. was lost. My German is so bad.. I dropped the class in 4th year, and yet here I was, in Munich all on my own. I sat down on a chair and stuck on my brand new Sennheisers I got in Dublin Airport seeing as they were the only set of headphones under €50 htat didn't have a huge mic hanging out of them... ugh.
Looking at all the sings hanging above me, I realised that this airport was fucking HUGE! I sent Joey a text saying I was on the ground and at Gate D and drifted back to the music. I figured if she couldn't find her I could head down to the S-bahn station like we'd agreed and I'd see her there. I got a call a few minutes later from her on a payphone, she was somewhere else and I was to STAY PUT. It was great when she finally arrived, marching up towards me in the now crowded hall. It'd been so long since I'd seen her.. I'd missed her so much and here she was finally!

It felt so good to kiss her..Things have been sort of weird between us lately and.. fuck I just really needed to kiss her, I needed to feel it all again.. I mean it fixed nothing really... I guess.. but, God I needed to kiss her right there and then! So I did!

We caught the two trains to her apartment building, helping a lady in a wheelchair on the way. I mention that because Joey told me later to no one over there would have given a shit and would have left her. Pretty lame.. Yeah so I didn't know what Germans are like, but i got a pretty good crash-course in their manners over the weekend.

We got back to her apartment and hung out for a while and stuff..and stuff.. I was so fucking nice just to hang out, just messing and talking and listening to music. I'd really missed it. We get on so well! At some stage I fell asleep from being awake all night. That night Saz and Charlie came over to watch the Aprrentice with Joey and I sat about doodling. After they left we cleaned up, climbed into her tiny bed and slept together for the first time in 3 months. Man I forgot how warm she is! She's almost never cold..

Thursday was kinda hazy.. we slept in, ate..hung out... I'm making it sound boring but it was great fun. We took a shower and Joey headed out to aerobics and left me to my own devices. She came back with a bottle of Vodka and after some grub we stuck on... ugh Twilight.. and played a drinking game to it, which got me hammered. Yeah I'm a tiny tiny man and I get fucked up easily, what of it? We went to bed while I was still drunk because Joey was tired.. which was a bad Idea... I'm one of those drunks who get really dizzy when they lie down. I had to keep sitting up.

The next day we grabbed our camping stuff, got dressed and headed off to the station to meet the others. Ohhh I feel ill... Also I miss all my old Dinosaur books... whatever happened to all of them?

We met up with the others in the station, who were late, which I said was typical for yanks. heh heh. So yeah, there were two Americans and an Irishman with us, which brought our group to five and meant we could buy some strange ould ticket, that meant that we could go all over Baveria I think.. was it Baveria? Who cares?! Main point was that we only had to pay six quid each to go all the way to Nuremburg.

Hours later we dragged ourselves off the train and wandered out of the staion... and were immediatly lost. I don't think any of us had really given much thought to how we were going to get to the Zepplinfield. Joey was expecting a bus of some sort.. me too actually.. but we got a taxi over in the end and wandered off, again. Shit, we were kinda lost for most of that day, you know? But whatever, we handed up our tickets, got our little wrist things and set up our tents in the first decent spot we found. Someone came out to bitch at us at the second decent spot we found, which was pretty fucking selfish, but em...it's not like that wasn't a running theme this weekend..
We flung whatever stuff we wanted to leave in the tents and headed off, not before I took all of my money and stuffed it in my wallet. I was about to stick some in my sock for extra special safe keeping, when someone asked me why. I always do it, in case I lose the wallet or it gets stolen. I usually keep some of it in a breast poket but it was a warm day and blah blah blah. The main point is that all of my money was in my wallet! ok?! God I fucking ramble!

We wandered off and saw the first few songs of Chris Cornell's set and then went to see Bring me The Horizon in the indoor bit. I'm really fucking glad we didn't have to go back in there. Everybody funneled through the one tiny exit at the back at the end and with everyone leaveing and a heap of people coming in, it got a bit squashed. And then some asshole decided to start pushing and we started to get crushed and wildly pushed about. It was fucking scary, and it happened everytime we tried to move from one place to the other.
We got out of there and took a breather by a T-shirt stand where we bitched about kids or something while looking at the shirts. They were pretty cool, but I wanted to get a hoodie.. The girl in front of us decided she needed to teach us a lesson and told me that I shouldn't... shit I've forgot... she thought I was trying to act mature or something by bitching about kids. Which would have been fine, except I was talking about 16 year olds, who were fucking kids!
Anyway, after a moment of figuring out what she was on about I asked her what age she thought I was and she decided to leave it and wander off.

An odd moment...

Later that night we saw Limp Bizkit, who were fun! All five of us entered the area around the mainstage together, but 2 minutes of walking later I realised we weren't following the two American brothers any more, so we stopped to make sure that Stephen, the Irish guy was still behind us and pooof! He was gone.
We watched them on our own. Special mention goes to the one drunk girl who was facing the wrong way and annoyed Joey for about a half hour and the couple who ignored the band entirely and ate each others faces for a full hour, whihc I stuck next to them and made puking noises while they lost their balance and kept walking into us.
At some stage someone in the pit flew out and nearly knocked me out of my boots! I only ever got hit properly by someone flying out of a pit twice that weekend, but both times were at Limp Bizkit and I got hit hard!

Both times I forgot to check my pockets, which I'd buttoned up.

Later we were waiting for the others when I looked about in my pockets I discovered my wallet was gone.

Gone gone gone gone gone

I didn't really take it so well. 300 quid that was supposed to get me through the weekend was gone, never to be seen again! So I was in trouble. Luckily Joey really came through for me, which was cool, but it sucked that she had to spend all this money on me when I was going to spend loads on her. Fuck I really wanted to treat her.

We headed back to the main area for a moment but security had it roped off so we couldn't even search. I knew I had dropped it, there was no way someone could have opened the little cargo pocket (and it turned out someone didn't), and I knew it might be out there if someone hadn't picked it up already. It was frustrating.
On the way back I yelled at someone for cheering at me, I don't know what they even said to me. I was really really crushed.

We all headed back to our tents and tried to sleep. Yeah Tried. Someone was blaring out music from an amp plugged into their van. But we slept with that going on later, what kept us awake, and the other guys in their tent awake was this one fucking English Gobshite who was trying to chat up two German girls in one of the canopies near us. God he was such a loud, stupid BASTARD!

Seven hours later he was still talking

No seriously SEVEN HOURS LATER HE WAS STILL TALKING

It wasn't even takling really he was just yelling stupid fucking waffle for hours and hours untill finally the two German girls he was shiting on to got tired and went to bed and we FINALLY got to sleep. Sorry this sounds silly, but you have no idea how fucking much we hated that guy!

Saturday was better. We saw Scouting for Girls out in the rain, I was kinda bored and messed a bit and it annoyed Joey... Sorry Darlin'. Later we headed to the lost and found (which was.. ugh fucking difficult..shit this whole thing was so badly organised), and got told to come back later.

After that we saw Placebo in the lashing rain, which was fun. I really like them. After that was the end of Killswitch and the wait for Manson. I was pretty nervous because we'd nearly gotten sweapt away in another Crush. Actually if you're reading this, just assume we got pushed and squashed going from one area to the other, while people yelled and pushed as hard as they could and ignored security.

I'm not a big Manson fan, I was really there for Joey, but man.. I really fucking hated being there. I don't know if it was where we were standing or if it was the kind of people who were there for Manson but if felt like most of the crowd decided to shove by us. Like I'm not talking about squeezing by, I'm talking about people just plowing through and not giving a fuck. After a while we just had to shove them back (Or trip them, which was just me being a vengeful shite). Even the older couple next to us (who were cool) were shoving and pushing people off them by the end. Oh and there was this one guy off his face who had about a foot wide radius around him free to himself because he spent the entire time stumbling about and bumping into everone. I hated him so fucking much. I wanted him to die. Fuck that guy.
Manson.. didn't have fun up their either, I wasn't watching as closely as Joey was, but after a while she wasn't even bothering to sing.

After that we got really really crushed! it was pretty bad this time. Security were blocking us off while people piled up behind us with no idea what was going on an with typical patience of most of the festival goers decided "Fuck it I'm going to push every fucking person I see!!! HAHAHA AINT I FUN!?"
Saw some Irish people in there though, who were heading off to see the Killers, we were only goign to grab something to drink..

Then my Dad called and assured me he wasn't using up my credit (he was). And I got into an arguement with him where we went around and around in circles. The plan was to send money to Joeys account and for possibly me meeting my Granny at the airport. Which he knew.

Okay look at how long it took me to convey that information to you, that took me about 20 minutes of shouting to get across and by the end he still kept asking me the same question over and over. Yeah I was pissed.. Joey was pissed too, it was pretty much the lowest moment of the weekend I think. I was just so fucking frustrated.. ugh.
Anyway it turns out he was pissed. Like drunk off his face, which I should have picked up on, but I missed. I'm really thankful that he wanted to help, and that he did help, but man, talking to him while he's drunk is a total waste of time, it's like talking to a retarded child, I swear.

Off we went to Korn, who were awesome! I'd never seen them before when they played over here and they sounded great!Oh yeah we saw Papa Roach that day too... So many bands I'd listend to for years..

We slept a LOT better that night, that one asshole wasn't anywere to be found and the msic was a little lower.. Plus security would drive buy ever once and a while. Someone nearly kicked both of us in the head while we were laying down...

The last day of Rock Im Park dawned on us. We spent most of the time walking, looking for a proper ATM. We got rained the fuck out during the end of Flogging Molly, so much so that I couldn't move in my drenched Metallica shirt, so I took it off and walked back to th tent with Joey and Stephen in the rain shirtless in a pair of sunglasses. We missed Madness, which fucking sucked, 'cos you HAVE to see Madness, you know? We managed to get my wallet back at the lost and found, minus any cash I left in it, and at a cost of €3 which was fucking robbery. Joey managed to find an ATM back there (the ATM and the Lost and Found were hidden away in the press area).

After that we saw the Progidy, who were pretty good... but like.. how could they be bad? After that we made our way to the barrier to wait for Slipknot, which is when a storm rolled over us and we experienced the quickest, coldest and hardest shower in my life. I was yelling at Joey to come find cover with me before our last set of dry clothes were soaked. but she wouldn't budge and we were drenched... God damn it was so cold.. It was so cold I could barely handle it! My boots had filled with water, the back of my shit was soaked through..

Steam was rising off of the people in front of us (who turned out to be cool) when Slipknot finally came out and blew us away. I'd been looking forward to seeing them the whole time! I love seeing them so much! I'll honestly go see them any time I can!

After them we headed back to out broken tent and started to pack. The plan was to get the hell out of there and head to the train station to beat the crowd the next day. Also all our tents were wet, so sleeping wasn't really an option. Once we were ready and I'd hidden my broken tent away we left for the train.

Along the way we walked down the almost pitch black path along the side of the lake, were I tripped over a stereo that some idiot left lying in the dark path, completely invisible. The group of people next to it stared at me while I stared back at them for a moment. I had no idea what had just happened. one moment I was walking along and the next my feet were catching on something and they went everywhere! One of the girls yelled at me in German, I have no idea what she said but she clearly thoguht I was an eejit and was pretty pissed. I stood gaping for another mintue with Devon standing beside me, wondering what to do when I suddenly decided fuck it, it was their stupid fault, I'm out of here and walked off.
Further up some guy decided to blind us with a torch and chuckled to his mate beside him. "Hey you know what? suck my dick!" I yelled and kept walking. I was tired of being pushed about all weekend and having my hair made fun of at a fucking Metal festival. I was done with RIP.

A taxi later and we were at the train station, we had to wait till around 5 for our train and spent the next few hous doing nothing.. yawnsssssssssssssssssss abound..

We got kicked off the first train because or ticket wasn't valid yet and ended up in Ingolstadt at 6am, freezing our faces off. Next train we got was at 8:30. We were hoping we wouldn't have our ticket checked until nine, when it became valid, but we were out of luck and got kicked off again.

The next train took us all the way home, I don't remember much of that one, I was alseep the whole time.

We split up in the staion and headed our seperate ways.. it's weird, I probably wont ever see any of those guys again..

We both had showers when we finally got home and curled up in bed and stuff... It was really perfect.. The best way to spend my last day with her, I think. After a little sleep we started packing, and both got upset. It felt like I'd only just arrived and now I was leaving.. It was really hard. I gave her a letter I'd been writing for a while so she wouldn't feel so alone once I left and we headed for the airport. My flight wasn't boarding for another two hours so he hung out in BK and talked for ages, untill it was time to leave.
God, it was so hard to leave her there, I kept choking up.. we kissed for a very long time.. Longer than we had when she left me to go to Munich. ( Damn you Saz!!!) but the time came were I had to leave or I'd miss my flight. Watching Joey leave was realy really hard..

The flight over was bumpy and.. I make the mistake of putting on Radiohead.. As we came into Dublin I looked out the window at the white clouds... they looked like a huge snowy plain..

We arrived 45 minutes early and I began to freeze my ass off. My phone finally ran out of battery and I had no way of contacting my sister so I sat in arrivals untill I was actually supposed to have been there. I met her and my Uncle outside and.. fuck thus began another bloody adventure. Emma had left her glasses at home and was now blind on the road, and lost and stuck behind a bridge that was being transported along the motorway. It took a good long time to get home. And a few times we were going int the complete opposite direction. BUT I GOT THERE.

What else is there to say? My roof now leaks MORE... em... that's really it. I'll have more arts up soon. I'm sick as hell from being out in the cold in wet clothes but I'll survive.

okay, talk later! BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE