It’s October. It must be Wales away again.
Travelling away watching Wales national team (round shaped football) can be a roller coaster.
In an effort to end on a positive, I’ll start on the negatives.
Airlines, hotels etc all know there will be demand, so they obey the rules of supply and demand, and stick the prices up.
Exotic and mysterious places can become a blur through alcohol. You can do that at home.
It’s a long old treck for ninety minutes of football.
The welsh team are consistently inconsistent. We punched above our weight in Euro 2016, but that was a fluke. Getting a hiding on the other side of the planet can be miserable
The positives…..
If it were just football, it would be a folly. But it is motivation to see the world. Yes, you could see the world anyway, but when? A football match is an incentive to get off your arse.
You will never walk alone, to coin a phrase. Put on your Wales shirt or you bucket hat and you will either hook up with other Wales fans or stike up a conversation with locals.
And if you hook up with a gang the camaraderie, the craic, is something special. Or something like that.
Over the decades lifes big shaker has resulted in a close tight nit little Iguana gang to go away with. All on the same wavelength, sense of humour, musical tastes and appetite for partying. Well, mostly.
Anyway. The trip…..
Just when I thought I was getting this bag thing down to a tee, my bag gets snatched off me as we are boarding. A kilo over weight. Why dont they check that sort of thing when checking in? I wish all airlines would adopt the same rules and stick to them.
At least food and drink are free on Austria airlines. Even if it is just a ‘salty or sweet snack’ and free wine.
Yes, that’s right, Austria Airlines. And our flight to Vienna is full of like minded welsh skin flints opting to fly to a different city to the one we are going to, to save money.
The journey from Vienna to Bratislava takes less than half an hour, as they are the two closest capital cities in Europe.
The apartments are fleetingly checked into and we head for the pub. Within no time we are in Bargoed on the Danube- a pub full of singing welsh football fans.
Neil Diamond, Oasis and The Beatles are among the artists whose repertoire is ruined by the mob. No Tom Jones though, which is unusual.
An optimistic gentleman wandered in with a three foot tall wooden giraffe trying to sell it. I think he misjudged the crowd. Fool.
A local musician got up to entertain the great unwashed but soon gave up as he was drowned out by the massed voices of the Red Wall Choir.
I spotted some dudes dancing about waving a three foot wooden giraffe in the air. Not such a fool after all!
All that was needed to round the night off was an off licence selling cider on the way back to the apartment.
Mission accomplished.
Oohhh. And it turns out we have a view of the castle from the veranda, dont you know
