On the 24th of January of 2008 I woke up at eight o’clock sat behind my computer and just surfed around the web. Nothing special, just some blogs, twitter etc. At nine I dressed myself and at ten I was out the door and headed for the train station to go to Schiphol the Airport. The trip to the airport took about an hour and for the first time I arrived at Schiphol. Yes, in al my twenty-one years I have never been to Schiphol, hell, I’ve never even flown before. So, this was all new to me but I was very excited for I was going to Ireland! How can you not be excited about that!?
So, we arrived at Schiphol and the first thing we did, after checking in, was find a McDonald’s for we were very hungry and hadn’t eaten a thing yet. Thankfully there was a McDonald’s and we were able to eat something. After eating we visited some of the stores there. I even bought a new book (“The memory keeper’s daughter”), so I had plenty of reading material (I bought two of my own books, “The Hobbit” and “The Phantom of Manhattan”).
Around two o’clock we were to board the plan. After shopping and waiting for about 2 hours we were finally able to board the plane. – I have to tell you that when we were waling through the terminal I was listening to the song “Air Hostess” by Buated. It was quite funny at the time. – We were sitting in the front, row three, and I had the window seat so I could see everything. The plane started to drive away and it took a few minutes before it was on the right lane. The plane drove faster and not long after it was up in the air… The experience of flying was nothing special to me, I wasn’t afraid nor nervous. I guess I was more excited about going to Ireland then to feel anything else at all. On the plane my sister and I played a game “Trivia Pursuit Celebrities” so that was fun. Most of the questions I didn’t know so that’s always funny. After an hour we got sick of the game so we stopped and it was a good thing as well because my ears started to hurt a lot and I felt like crying, cause it hurt that much. But thankfully we had already arrived at Ireland so the plane was descending so the pain got less worse, not quite gone but better. About twenty minutes later the plane had landed and we were leaving the plane and for the first time in my entire life I was standing in Ireland – sure only on the airport but I was in Ireland none the less!
We went to get our luggage (we had only one suitcase since we weren’t staying there long) and then we left the Airport to find a bus to take us to Linton Lane. The bus trip wasn’t all that since most we saw was construction work and one really, really, really long tunnel. Oh, and I have to say that they drive crazy over there in Ireland. I don’t know how to explain this but, damn I was sitting in the bus and I was thinking “Whoah, dude, look out” and “Are you crazy?”. But anyway, our stop arrived and we went in search of Linton Lane – we found it pretty quickly after asking someone where Linton Lane was. After finding Linton Lane we went in search of our hostel which was surprisingly called Linton Lane Hostel – can you imagine that? Anyway, we got a room and went to it – it was on the first floor so we didn’t have to go up many stairs. When we entered the room we actually wanted to get out again because it smelled big time in there. So, the only thing we did was dump our suitcase and leave. We also found out that none of the other Echelon members were staying in that room when we asked to be put together.
We went back down to the front desk and ask for a room change – unfortunately it wasn’t possible. We did, however, found a few other members of the Echelon so we went with them – the were Spanish and just one spoke English so there was a language barrier. They were suppose to meet other Echelon members so we decided to go with them. They went to this American restaurant (which I forgot the name of) and we took something to drink there. Of course I didn’t eat anything since it was an American restaurant and there menus are very big – too much food for lil ol’ me. After about twenty minutes we left them since I wanted to go shopping and not sit at a restaurant. We did however find a McDonald’s so we could eat something. After eating we went shopping!
We were lucky we arrived on a Thursday since the shops would be open till 20:45. So, we were lucky (we had arrived round 3 o’clock Irish time). We went in some book stores, record stores etc. I bought one or two things… Shall I list it? Why not, right? This is what I bought in Ireland:
01. 30 Seconds to Mars – A Beautiful Lie Special Edition (with dvd) (Album)
02. Busted – Who’s David Promo (CD Single)
03. Son of Dork – Eddie’s Song (CD Single)
04. Busted – A ticket for Everyone Live (DVD)
05. Doom (Book)
06. Three keychains (One present for my mum)
07. Lighter (present for my father)
08. A clover button (present for my grandmother)
I think that was it. So, yeah we did have a good time while shopping. I also found a few DVD’s I wanted but I didn’t buy them since some were a lot cheaper here than there. Actually Ireland is very expensive compared to the Netherlands. On Wednesday I went to the McDonald’s with my class mates and I paid about 5 Euro’s for a menu while in Ireland it cost me 6/7 Euro’s for the same menu. But, still I could live with it since I was still in Ireland!
We left for the Hostel round 9, since I was pretty beat. At the hostel we were lying in bed but since it was still so early we didn’t wanna sleep so we went downstairs as they happen to be played live music (let me tell you some songs were good others just suck). But it was mostly French and nothing to drink so we went out again, to the McDonald’s (YES again!!) and we bought something to drink there and then we went back to the hostel so I could sleep. Though I read for about half an hour to an hour and then I went to bed.
Whenever I go to sleep it takes me about 2 hours to fall asleep. This was not the case here, whenever I was close to fall asleep some of our room mates would come in (the door made a lot of noise) turn on the lights and I was again wide awake. (I was sleeping on the top bunk and the light was right over me, so yeah – stupid light.) I think that night I sleep about 2 or 3 hours and at 8 o’clock I was already awake again.
On the 25th of January of 2008 we went to the McDonald’s to get something to drink and then we were off to the “Ambassador” where we would be attending two concerts of 30 seconds to Mars. We arrived there around 10, already about ten fans were there. So, we stood there with them, talking, not talking, reading the “Metro” (which was actually funny reading it since it had a part of 30 seconds to Mars in there and it said ‘Shannon on drums’! I mean how stupid can you be!! To those who don’t know 30stm and Shannon, Shannon plays the drums. Since my sister likes Shannon best I kept saying that and laughing… Yes I am mean…)
In case you were wandering why we were there so early, since the doors would open at 7:30 pm and we were there at 10:00 am. We hoped we would catch the band while they went in. So, we waited a long time. At around 12:00 I think it was the security guards came outside and told us to stand in two’s. So, we were all cramped up together because the security guards can’t organize anything. Eventually some of us were sitting again, yes me as well, and round three they came again telling us we had to stand two by two. So now we were even more cramped against each other… no fun at all.
Around 6 they told us that all level 2 tickets should go around the corner at the entrance there. I of course had a level two ticket but thankfully the line there wasn’t so cramped nor as long so we waited there, except for my sister since she went to the Echelon to promote the band. Also at 6 the band still wasn’t there and neither some of the equipment. When we heard the band still wasn’t there and would arrived like half an hour later I finally went to the bathroom, yes, most of the day I hadn’t go since I wanted to wait on the band but when we heard when the band would arrive I went. Thankfully there was a hotel across the street so I went there warmed up and went to face the cold again…
As I told you before, the doors would open at 7:30 pm, but they didn’t. At around 9 pm we were allowed to get inside, finally. We were near frozen so we had a hard time moving but finally we were allowed inside. At this time the band still hadn’t arrive but we decided to go inside anyway, we were almost frozen after all. So we went to the balcony and took the front row seats there and had a very good sight of the stage.
At around 10 pm the concert finally started. The intro began and the whole crowd went crazy, screaming and such. First Shannon came on, then Tomo, then Tim and finally Jared. They started with “A battle of one” then went right into “Saviour”. Unfortunately I cannot remember all the songs they sang as it was quit rushed and not as good as all there performances but it was still good none the less. But thankfully my sister recorded it so I have the tracklist (i’ll write it under this paragraph). Jared also told us why it was delayed. They had troubles with the ferry and the weather was against them. So, we finally know why they were delayed since the security guards didn’t tell us anything.
Tracklist of the first concert:
As I said the concert was rushed, but it was still a good concert. All four of them went extreme and I did have a good time. Also for the first time I could see all of them playing! I’ve been to three concerts now and two times I couldn’t see Tomo, Shannon or Tim. So, it was good seeing all four of them for once.
After the concert we were rushed out of the concert hall cause there’d be a second concert of 30stm. So this time we were G.A. tickets and had to stand almost at the end of the row… Not good since we were there since 10 am and we were in the back. But, you know, we went in. We went to stand on the left side since that’s Tomo’s side and we were like “we want to see Tomo!”. This time we were cramped again! I had two annoying girls in front of me who kept jumping and hitting my camera so that wasn’t nice. But there’s nothing I could do about it.
This concert was so much better than the first one. Also they played all the songs on A Beautiful Lie! The started with Attack and ended with Hunter (which is the tracklist of ABL). It was just awesome! I made pictures and video clips but they aren’t that good. I’ll see about uploading them and will let you know in the asides!
Tracklist second conert:
Also almost at the end of the concert this guy started to crowd surf and he hit my head (and damn it hurt). I was wearing my bandanna and it got stuck in my hair, as well as my earrings so we went back so I had space to take them off without hurting myself. When the concert was over we went outside and, although we wanted to wait till the band got outside we were just too tired so we decided to find a McDonald’s (yes again) to eat something since we hadn’t eaten since that morning and after eating something we went back to the hostel to sleep a little.
The sleeping didn’t take very long since we had to be up at 8 to find a bus to take us to the airport. So on the 26th of January of 2008 we went back home. We found a bus and went to the airport, hoping to find a McDonald’s at the airport but there wasn’t any. So we just hang out, bought a Mars so I would have something to eat and then we waiting to go home.
The flight home took about an hour and again my ears hurt even though this time I was wearing ear plugs and chewing gum. Didn’t help much though my ears still hurt. But anyway we arrived on Schiphol and after that we went in search for a McDonald’s there but we couldn’t find one so we just went home, we had to wait 10 minutes and then we had the intercity back to Dordrecht. We arrived home round 4 o’clock.
This was my trip to Ireland. Although I didn’t get to see much of Ireland itself I did have a wonderful time. Especially with the concert. Sure enough we had to wait a long time for it to begin but once it did it was awesome!
I am sorry for this long post but I thought to write everything down I could remember, so you’ll all know exactly what happened!