Got home from Galway around 5 yesterday. I was there for the National Young Greens Convention. The bits I can remember were really good ! The rest is a drunken haze...ahem so yes I probably did drink a little bit too much but it was galway and I wasn't the only one ;) It was cool getting to know all the other greens from galway, cork, dublin and letterkenny !! They are all legends but the ultimate legend is leader of the Green Party Trevor Sergent ! He came drinking with us in Sherrigans pub and then came with us as we hit Pi nightclub !! He is unbelievably cool and down to earth. Told us some brilliant anecdotes too !
Quick summary of the weekend
Friday : Me and Jerrieann got 7pm train down to galway... Convention was due to begin at 8pm in Busker Browns (cool pub, great music, i recommend) so of course we were late...fashionably late I like to think. Anyway we were brought up to speed by the more punctual YGs :) fyi train journey down was grand (unlike journey back which i shall briefly describe later) although there was an unusual looking backpack staring at us at the start of the journey. Jerrieann suggested it might be a bomb ;) Anyway someone came along and moved it.... It didn't blow up. Bit of an anticlimax ;) After BBs we split up. A few sensible people went back to hostel to get a good nights sleep (probably a good idea) but us less sensible people split into two groups. Some went to some Irish pub/club while some others (me included) headed to the GPO nightclub. Bad idea ! Crap nightclub with awful music but the drink was fairly cheep. I was drinking double vodka and red bull most of the night so yes I was very drunk for all of it. But in my defense the music was so bad we needed to drink to cope with it ! Steve showed off some ..interesting dance moves. Some others joined (who shall remain nameless because I was too drunk to take in any names) Umm yeah don't really remember much else of that night. Don't think I want to... One thing I remember is dancing with Steve, Eimear and Brid to some atrocious song at about 2 in the morn. I have NO idea how I got back to the hostel which is kinda scary. Apparently when I wandered around the hall for a while and then sat in the doorway of the room breathing (as you do) until roderic had to get out of bed and explain to me that we have these things on planet earth called 'beds' to sleep in. I still reckon that doorway would have been just as comfortable ;)
Saturday : Had to get up at bout 8.30. Torture. Not sure if I was still drunk or just really hungover but morning was hard. Had breakfast in hostel where I learned of some of my actions. Ugh...I really should stop drinking so much on nights out. Then the convention really got underway. We were in a lovely part of NUIG from 10-6 learning a lot, voting a lot and drinking lots of tea. There were four workshops on Canvassing and Food in the morn and Creative campaigning and Energy in the evening. You could only go to one at each time. I went to Canvassing in the a.m. Creative campaigning in the p.m. The canvassing one was cool and very education and led by the the calm,cool and collected Rodric O'Gorman (vote for him !!) The creative campaigning one wasn't exactly what it said on the tin but no mahor complaints. Ahh then Andrew introdruced us all to the new constitutional proposed amendments. We voted on them. Exciting stuff ;) Then came the long anticipated election ha... Ed ran for Chair and got it...yay ucd representing at the highest level..congrats to mr davitt ! Andrew ran for secretary and got it ! Steve ran for everything and also ran a his second successive 'don't vote for stephen' campaign. He got Communications Officer. Someone (can't remember who...too hungover) convinced me to run for Expansions officer so I did and I got elected !! Yay I won my first third level vote ! So now I am officially a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) ! Expect to hear loads more about that in the future. My first job is to locate a tree costume which we can purchase...umm yeah so that was that. After copious amounts amounts of tea-drinking that followed it was time for Trevor Sergent's key note speech. Very interesting and inspiring :) Then Aidan White (head of international journalists) gave an equally interestining speech and answered all our questions..And that was the end of the educational events on saturday. Trevor and Aidan joined us for dinner in the brilliant NUIG restaurant. We had yummy homemade pizzas which were great to line our stomachs for the night of drinking ahead ( OH YEAH I forgot to mention earlier that I had very little to eat on friday which absoloutely contributed to my drunkness on friday night. There was nothing in my system to absorb the alcohol so it went straight to my head :O )..... We started off in Sherrigans and had some great conversation with Trevor. Seán and I discussed music when we couldn't hear Trevor. Found out we have same varied taste in music. Anything from Luke Kelly to Jimi Hendrix !! legends in their own rights ! ehh I think we walked to Pi nightclub after that. Oh yeah we did and I walked with Trevor and we discussed Paul Gogarty's chances in the election nexxt year and other very interesting political stuff like that ! Once again I must reiterate what a legend Trevor is ! He came clubbing with us ! He is no old fogie ! He mentioned to us earlier that the main ingredient in being a successful politicain is having good stamina (as it requires lots of travelling up and down the countr etc).. he proved he has that ! Pi was much better nightclub than GPO but again I'm struggling to remember most of it. Was great night anyway... Got supermac's chips in Eyre Square on the way home !!
Sunday : Pretty much everyone was hungover and starving when we eventually managed to drag ourselves out of bed and get ready for the day. Breakfast was well over in the hostel by the time we were ready to check out and head to our last destination..The Victoria House Hostel for out first NEC meeting with new members. Well we were supposed to have a meeting but we ended up having breakfast and half a meeting in the time allocated ! Oh well..it was a very productive half a meeting ! Then it was time for us all to head to our homes :( Seán and I got 2pm train back to Dublin. Jerriann and Molly decided to enjoy the joys of Galway for a few hours longer. Train journey back was eventful. First of all train was a kip compared to one on way down. Second of all we had the company of an um ..yeah I'll use the word "interesting" group of people in the cabin with us. Their hobbies included drinking, predicting lotto numbers, drinking, professing love to randomers, drinking and other not so legal things. Ah well...got back to Dublin safe in the end...
I realise I began this piece giving the indication that it would be a quick summary of galway events. I guess that has turned out to be false advertising...but don't sue ! I have friends in high places you know ( like in trees, and attics and other hard to reach places ;) )
