Sorry, I'd to run to training yesterday and didn't have the chance to finish it off. So, it continues...
He arrives home in Dublin and much consernation in the family. He kicks his bag around the kitchen cursing his rotten luck, he has a ticket for a day later, his friend calls and says he bought him a ticket with Ryanair for the next morning to Paris and tells him to go get a temporary passport. My brother decides he's had enough and decides to unpack, and finds at the bottom of his bag (cargo hold one) his passport. To celebrate he goes out to town and gets plastered. Friend does the same thing in Paris and will meet my bro at the airport the next day.
Next morning I drop him to the airport, with passport in hand, and off he goes. Just over 4 hours later I'm sitting in the kitchen with Dad and we're talking about Christmas and such. The phone rings, in the brothers friend..."I'm waiting here and he's not on the plane. He never arrived". Cue much consternation, fears that he's met the fate of well, anti-establishment folks. We call Dublin airport - get no answer. Minutes crawl by and I'm thinking of Steve McQueen and butterflies, of "Oh Jimmy no" stuff or even duelling banjos (you never can tell).
An hour later and the friend calls again, panicking, and more than a little hungover. It suddenly dawns on me...." @$%& (name witheld as he's a well-respected civil servant now) what airport are you at?" he replies "DeGaulle." Now, maybe it was only to those of us who have travelled a little before that it might dawn on us that there is more than one airport in Paris. He begins to rant, I tell him to relax and stay put, their flight is in 6 hours, he'll get from Beauvais in time.
With perfect timing I hang up and my brother phones "Where the duck is @$%& ?" I tell him to catch a bus to DeGaulle via the city centre. What happens next is farce, 2 hours later his friend calls, "I'm in Beauvais and I can't find him!" I tell him to get back to DeGaulle as that's where my bro is. A few minutes later a call from my brother lets us know he's just too hungover and has stopped in the city centre gotten a hotel and will put his flight back another day.
After returning to CDG his friend is told (by my Dad) to go to a hotel in the Latin Quarter. They meet, get hammered and leave the next day.
But it doesn't end there.
The diving company don't pick them up in Manila, so they go to the city, book in a hotel and start trying to track down the agents. With no joy they decide to make their own way south. They meet with 2 fellow Irish and 3 Swiss and fly to some resort in the south, where the friend is bitten by a snake and hospitalised for 2 days. The area of the bite is rather unmentionable, but he had a problem sitting for a week.
They leave the resort to spend a final 3 days in Manila, to save on funds for a final partying session, they have to stay in some shanty hostel type of place. Bro's friend meets some attractive local and invites her back to their hovel (they've a 2bed apartment shack, no doubt for sale now as a "sure-fire rental return property") and my bro decides to drink on a little. A little became a lot and winds his way home, and is set upon by a kiddie gang, beaten, robbed, stripped down to boxers (shouldn't let people he wears under his designer duds but there you go) and lying in an open sewer. He comes to and finds his way back at a jogging stagger.
The front door (flattened oil drum) is swinging open and inside he finds @$%& lying naked and tied up (not in a fun kinky way, more like in a just been robbed and beaten way). Cue another phone call (reverse charges) to yours truly and a transfer of dollars until they get back on the flight home.
The above it completely true, and can be verified, it's not even the worst trip they've been involved in, as whenever they head off together disaster follows. From being beaten severely and glassed by loyallist thugs in Belfast to bike crashes in Thailand and Turkey to being burgled in Spain to being arrested for breaking and entering and sleeping in their own car in England (they were rather emotional and tired at the time), they've achieved it all. And since they're both in the early 30's and single I figure there's a little more to come!
I've had a few rotten journeys, you tend to when you dcide to drive across 2 continents, but that's how it is. But one from my brother is a gem and prime for a Britcom (I think my brother would like Guy Ritchie to do it).
Himself and his best friend decide to go for 2 weeks diving camp in the Philipines and even though there are problems before they leave (1 week gets cancelled and they are put onto some hotel in a shanty slum in Manila) they decide to go.
So, the night before they decide to get a little merry before flying to Paris and onwards. My brother (who's a very careful packer) is ready in advance and the day of doesn't know where his passport is, so he nabs our Dad's one (who has an anglicised fom of my bro's name) and makes for the flight. All is well and he gets to Paris (amazingly as they look nothing alike!). I arrive home for the holidays and all is well with the world.
Then we get a call from Paris, his friend. He's gotten through but my bro is arrested. My brother explains it like this - no, I'm really 55years old, honest, ah no, that picture was form when I had cancer, I looked older then, oh, okay. Can I be honest....I couldn't find my passport took Dad's and sure I'm only going on holidays.
At which point is is arrested, strip and body cavity searched and deported from France. But his frind is still there and has missed his flight in the hopes of finding out what's up with my bro. Brother arrives home and
lol