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As per the preceding trip (Faroes in June), our
last game in Paris was another Berti-induced humiliation, the notorious
5-0 gubbing dished out by the then World and European champions.
Few Scots in the Stade de France would night would dispute that
France were a shoo-in for the 2002 World Cup on the evidence of
that night; in fact, some of us (well, me, according to Rich) were
reputed to have declared after Zidane’s masterful opener “That’s
me f*cking off, I’ve had my money’s worth…”.
Notwithstanding prior performances, Paris remains one of my least
favourite destinations, due in equal measure to the haughty stereotype
its citizens strive to live up to, the prices and the dubious size
and quality of everything, from beer to hotel rooms. Accordingly,
taking the Bari/Torshavn approach to being miserable before we’ve
even arrived, Helen and I opted for a full day’s work on the
Tuesday, followed by an 8pm flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle
and two nights in the Ibis Bastille, a hotel we’d stayed in
for a U2 concert back in 2005. Whilst the upside is obvious –
less money spent, valuable holiday leave saved – the slight
downside is that the France trip became disassociated (for us, anyway)
from the previous weekend’s resounding 3-1 win against a theatrical
Lithuania side with several points to prove (they come over ‘ere,
they steal our jobs as footballers…).
The flight itself was delayed slightly, meaning more time in the
lounge hammering the wine and chatting to an American couple en
route to Tel Aviv (they’d been delayed a whole day!). On board,
the massive plane played host to all of 14 passengers, 5 of whom
were clustered around us due to the emergency exits affording more
legroom. Behind us, we got chatting to Felippe, a Brazilian IT graduate
on his first business trip abroad, along with the two boys over
the aisle. Bizarrely, there was no sign of any other TA presence
on our flight, despite the sight of a few other kilts at Heathrow
T4.
Knowingly that we’d arrive late, we’d booked an airport-hotel
transfer minibus, settling for the security of a fixed price over
the uncertainty of a cowboy cabbie if we arrived too late for the
RER train (as it happened, we’d have made it had we run for
it!). The downside of these transfer minibuses is the lottery of
which hotel gets dropped off first – we lost, and had to sit
in the furnace-like heat whilst the bus negotiated the periphique
ring road to drop off the only other two passengers at a hotel a
single metro station away from the Parc des Princes. The roundabout
had some sure signs of life, including that TA staple: an Irish
bar! Information duly mentally filed for later reference and it
was off to the Ibis Bastille.
With the clock having turned midnight, we decided to stay local,
and grabbed a seat in the hotel bar. After a brief contretemps with
the night receptionist, he agreed to carry on with beer service,
and after Fletchy (a pal of Coullzer who I’d met on the Vienna
Airport Train a few month’s previous) joined us, and Helen
retired for the night, we joined in chatting with a group of Dundonians
who’d braved the bus all the way from the city of Jute.
After heading to bed around 4-ish, and being woken 6 hours later
by the door-slamming contest in the corridor outside, a text from
Rich advised us that the beagle had landed and was on way to our
hotel. After rendezvousing in reception, we opted to get some food
early doors, so it was over the road for pizza and (whisper it,
after the NATA ban on me drinking grape juice after the Bari and
Faroes incidents) a shared bottle of wine. A stroll down to the
Bastille roundabout, and a few glasses of beer in a relatively cheap
stand-up bar later, it was the tube to Chatelet and on to one of
my favourite Paris pubs, the Frog & Rosbif. Perhaps unsurprisingly,
a Franco-English pub had failed to capture the imagination of the
rest of the Tartan Army, but being a big fan of micro-brewed real
ale, I was happy as a frog in beef myself. After Bruce and Sharon
joined us, we got talking to our neighbours - the table next to
us turned out to have a crowd of Scots and French related through
marriage, in Coatbridge of all places. The Potting Shed Tartan Army
was next to arrive, with Susan sporting a matching hat to Ally’s
(awww…), and then it was over the road to new Thistle Pub
for another beer before heading out to the area I’d inadvertently
scoped from the airport minibus the night before.
(A quick word about The Thistle – excellent! Very, very friendly,
and not overwhelmed in the way that the Highlander and the Auld
Alliance, both otherwise superb ex-pat bars in their own right,
were in 2002 or, reportedly, again in September 2007)
Catching the metro so early had the obvious advantage of affording
ample breathing space, and then a fortuitous mistake led to us surfacing
at the far exit from our target pub – Hoggans, the Irish bar
on the roundabout – but next to a wee brasserie that knocked
out inexpensive toasties (which slightly offset the expensive beer…).
With the sandwiches washed down, and after the obligatory photo
stop in front of the “Sumo” restaurant sign, it was
off to Hoggans to meet up with Craig, Disco Keith, Callum and Gav
B. Quick service, good Guinness and possibly the most spacious gents
toilet in the whole of France meant for a pleasant few hours leading
up to kick-off, and with our chosen perch on the street outside
the front door, we had the added entertainment of French road-rage
caberet to keep us entertained (at one point, the driver of a stranded
bus left the engine running to get out and knock on the window of
a 4x4, all to rapturous applause and encouragement from the onlooking
drinkers).
Difficult as it was to tear ourselves away from the alcoholic womb
of Hoggans, we set off with Callum’s generously distributed
carry out for sustenance. The ground was a 20 minute walk away,
and far from our confident predictions that our chosen route to
the ground would easily outflank those marching from the Eiffel
Tower*, it turned out our “just one more quick one”
refrain had left us at the back of a sizeable queue to get in. With
assigned seat numbers long abandoned, we filed in towards the back
of the official Scotland section and ended up alongside the segregation
fence (a wholly laughable concept in this instance!). With me being
the last to take up my space, I found that the fence effectively
blocked half the pitch, so Helen and I moved further down and across,
ending up in the aisle for most of the first half until Lynne, on
her way to the toilet immediately before half-time, squeezed past
us and explained that her and James had two spare seats right next
to them, making for a much more comfortable second-half (I dread
to think what the surge down the aisle would have been like when
the goal went in).
* I have to confess that I thought the Eiffel Tower march was a
mental idea as, factoring in the combination of rapidly warming
lager, full pubs en route, lack of toilet facilities and distance,
I figured it would be an uncomfortable struggle to be in for kick-off,
dehydrated thirsty and hungover. On reflection, I’m happy
to admit I was wrong!
Almost from our first steps inside the ground, it was apparent
that an unpreeeecedented (sic) amount of Tartan Army had found their
way into the home end, and the joyous clapping accompaniment to
La Marseillesaise (which still gives me goose bumps just to think
about) rang out around the ground as the anthems were played. Incidentally,
and coming hot on the heels of France’s 0-0 draw in Italy
where the anthem was whistled out, the Scottish refrain brought
all round praise from the French media the next day! The sea of
tartan and waving lion rampant and saltire flags continued unabated
around the entire arena, and it is a testimony to the welcoming
nature and tolerance of the French fans (yes, yes… even the
Parisians!) that no flashpoints occurred as a result. The performance
was stirring stuff from start to finish, however along with everyone
else I’ve spoken to about the day, I was busy looking around
the stadium at the sea of tartan and taking in the singing as Gordon
launched the ball forward in the 64th minute; after all, what could
possibly happen? The next moment I looked at the pitch to see the
ball rocketing towards goal and the goalkeeper flying across to
palm it into the inside netting. Sheer, unequivocal disbelief followed.
The next 25 minutes plus passed in a blur. I’ve spoken to
several people who were at Southampton’s 1976 FA Cup Final
victory against the unassailable Man Utd and they’ve told
how they spent the last 10 minutes (Bobby Stokes having scored in
the 81st) celebrating, oblivious to the fact the game had carried
on without them. Whilst it wasn’t quite as delirious as that,
and I remained acutely aware of the fragility of our lead, it never
really felt as heart-stopping as I would have previously imagined.
In fact, I remember coolly thinking “they’ll now need
to score three to beat us on the head-to-head”, not one to
equalise or two to win, but simply doing the head-to-head arithmetic
after the lessons learned in the last campaign against Norway (away
goals only counting double in Euro head-to-heads, not FIFA World
Cup ones).
Then came the final whistle and the reality sunk in – we
had become one of the few teams to win a competitive game in France
in the last decade. Unlike the corresponding home win the previous
autumn, when the loudest cheer by far came at the final whistle,
this was more of a satisfying finish, confident that Scotland could
now go away from home and win against top quality opposition, not
merely scrape the odd freak result here and there as plucky underdogs.
After wandering around delirious for a while, hugging anything that
moved, it was back out onto the streets of Paris and straight into
an honour guard of French supporters who were applauding the Tartan
Army down the street.
We headed back towards the Hoggans vicinity, planning one in the
small bar next to the Metro, only now with Tam Coyle and WESTA wenches
Wendy and Joyce in tow. The bar was closed, but common consensus
suggested heading underground and getting back to the centre rather
than have a few in Hoggans. By now, nervous exhaustion was taking
a hold of Helen of me, and we opted to head back to the Bastille
area, whilst everyone else was heading for the Irish Pub next to
the Moulin Rouge. At this stage, the evening was at a real watershed:
Helen and I ended up getting lost between the Bastille and the Place
de a Republique, eventually getting into a Quick burger bar before
the doors were bolted, and following that up with a relatively early
night (2-ish); Bruce and Sharon went with everyone else to the Irish
Pub, then pretty much went straight to bed, ensuring they were up
bright and early for their Eurostar the next day; Ally and Susan,
on the other hand, gave up on getting home that night and partied
on in the Irish Bar until the metros started running again on Thursday
morning. Not to be out-done, they then went on a pub crawl with
Rich and Kenny the next day, finding a bar run by a French jakey
Raymond Domenech look-alike and staffed by a woman with an incredibly
nice backside (“if only her face had been as tight as her
arse, she’d have been gorgeous”). For Helen and me,
all was not lost, as after an uneventful flight home and some top
notch Bordeaux and Brie on the Thursday, it was off to Magdeburg
(via Dresden) the next day for a drunken weekend of Fortuna Düsseldorf
and ongoing celebrations!
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When the draw was made for the qualifiers, the
two stand-out trips for me were Ukraine and Georgia. When the Ukraine
jaunt in October 2006 failed to live up to expectations, coupled
with my new job having less holiday allowance, I’d let doubts
creep in about the Georgia trip. Tales of civil unrest and Russian
missile strikes didn’t exactly fire our imagination either.
We’d booked pretty much a year in advance to fly from Munich-Tbilisi,
keeping our Glasgow-Munich (and back to London) options deliberately
open, on the off-chance that Fortuna managed to sneak promotion
to the second division, and could therefore be playing anywhere
in Germany that weekend. In the event, Fortuna were due at Borussia
Dortmund reserves the weekend immediately after the Georgia game,
and with Ally and Sue on the same flights as us and committed to
spending the weekend in Munich, we decided to spend one night there
and fly back on the Saturday (giving an all-important rest day before
going back to work – something that was sorely missing from
the previous year’s Kiev trip).
The trip then took shape thus: Friday evening, fly Gatwick-Glasgow;
stay for two nights at the airport Holiday Inn; see Scotland v Ukraine;
on Sunday fly Glasgow-Heathrow-Munich with BA, and luggage checked
through; allow an extra couple of hours at Munich airport, in case
the inbound flight’s late (or, if not, to enjoy the on-airport
brewpub!); fly to Tbilisi, arriving at 3am Monday morning and getting
picked up by a hotel transfer; stay at the Marriott Hotel on a ludicrously
cheap points deal (approx £60 per room per night!); see Georgia
v Scotland; leave Tbilisi at 4am Friday morning, arriving at Munich
for 6am; check into the Mercure Hotel in Schwabing (booked from
the Thursday night) for some much needed sleep, then head out into
Munich for some Bavarian beer and leather-clad thigh-slapping before
flying back to Heathrow on the Saturday; all that would then stand
between us and home is a National Express bus to Gatwick and a train
to deepest rural Surrey.
The first part all went well, with Scotland romping to a two-goal
lead within the first 10 minutes, and running out 3-1 winners against
the previous year’s World Cup Quarter-Finalists. We even resisted
temptation and headed straight back to the airport hotel after the
Allison Arms (although, to be fair, things did go a bit melon-shaped
before then…)
We checked through to Munich with no problems, and congratulated
ourselves on additional lounge-time at Heathrow as we wouldn’t
have to clear security there (having come off a domestic flight).
We were even able to enjoy a bit of blether with the Tevo brothers
at Glasgow, and again with BASTA chief Don Lawson on the flight
down. The problems started at Munich, where we arrived on time but
our luggage didn’t. A quick enquiry showed that one of the
bags had been loaded onto the next LHR-MUC flight, which would allow
just enough time for us to check it on to the Lufthansa flight to
Tbilisi. BA assured me that the other bag would be sent on to Tbilisi
the next day and couriered to our hotel. Now, we like to think of
ourselves as battle-hardened travellers, savvy enough to cope in
the face of adversity, and to this end (and learning from Ally’s
demise in Vilnius earlier in the campaign), we’d split the
luggage roughly half-and-half, however one half had more of Helen’s
single items in and one had nominally more of mine (given I don’t
have the same need for hair straighteners…). After an edgy
couple of beers in AirBrau with Ally and Susan and two bagpipers
they’d met on the EasyJet flight across from Edinburgh, I
returned to the BA luggage desk to find that it was Helen’s
bag that had won the lottery.
After checking in the bag (here’s a tip – never fold
a Lufthansa boarding card, as the luggage machine doesn’t
like that!) and clearing security, it was into the airside AirBrau
with the Cheeky Nonsense Tartan Army for some last minute sustenance.
The flight was rammed, but by a stroke of luck, I found myself next
to Scott from Dundee, a fellow regular on the TAMB; despite our
strapping frames, we both ensured that each other had plenty of
space and there was none of the armrest wrestling that sometimes
ensues with complete strangers. As Helen passed out, even sleeping
through the “missile attack” over the Black Sea, Scott
and I got tore into the wine, showing some nice footwork to switch
seamlessly from red to white when the grumpy stewardess (to be fair,
almost everyone was asleep, so you’d have thought she’d
be happy to have something to do…) claimed the red had ran
dry.
Tbilisi passport control was conspicuously absent of all the ex-Soviet
trappings we’ve come to know and love: there wasn’t
a ludicrously large peaked cap in sight. In fact, the whole airport
gleamed like something out of an advert. After a slightly nervous
few moments waiting to see if our (now-singular) bag had made it,
we were out and in the back of the hotel Mercedes sent to pick us
up ($25 well spent). We were safely ensconced in our hotel room
less than an hour after landing, and the bed alone would have given
whole rooms in Paris a run for their money, let alone the abundance
of plumped up pillows.
Monday morning came and went in a lie-in, and early afternoon saw
us bump into Ally and Susan no less than 50 yards from our hotel
along Rustaveli Avenue. Walking with us back the way we came, we
bumped into Wolfie and Robert across from Vienna, and then having
stepped over the trench that separated the underpass stairs from
what passed as a pavement (“this place will look great once
they’ve finished it”), into Disco Keith (late for Wolfie!),
Mazz and the happy couple, Kenny and Andy Maclean. They tipped us
off about a wee Georgian restaurant, just up the hill from the main
drag, and we duly settled in there for some authentic Georgian cuisine.
After ordering dishes for myself and Helen, the waitress smiled
and trotted off, only to be chased by Ally ordering his and Susan’s.
He really shouldn’t have bothered. I’ve eaten few things
more filling than Georgian cooking; just a tiny amount of the cheese
pie (Katchapuri) sets in your stomach like cement! It got to the
stage that every time the kitchen door swung open, we prayed it
wasn’t more food for us! Still, the beer was very good (both
Argo and Kazbegi) and no-one can fault the price.
After paying the bill and rolling ourselves outside, we stumbled
into the Paradise Lost pub/restaurant opposite the decorative McDonalds
building, shortly to be joined by Carey McEvoy on a walkabout from
his guesthouse out in the suburbs. An abortive attempt to find a
backstreet bar led us towards the warm embrace of the Nali pub and
Monday evening’s Fans Embassy. This was a good move, as the
comfortable pub was nicely full but not bursting, and through Paul
“The Claw” and Tam from EASTA, we were introduced to
the most connected man in Georgian football: Georgi the Georgian.
Georgi was doing his utmost to introduce some fan culture to the
national team, and had arranged a Georgian fans team to take on
the TA Select. After we politely rebuffed his request to join him
and his friends drinking outside the gates of the Presidential Palace,
fearing such a move could easily be misinterpreted by the police
and media, he disappeared, only to resurface 30 minutes later clutching
a sports bag full to bursting with Georgia scarves, which he then
proceeded to distribute free of charge to everyone in the pub!
After a couple of hours, we decided to strike out and explore the
street that ran past Nali, having heard it boasts a fair few bars.
We only made it two doors along, but to be fair it was far from
kicking. After finishing off in there, following an in-depth conversation
with a film director who told us it was fine after all to toast
with beer, we headed along to the Dublin pub. This place was bouncing
to a live band, but we managed to snag a table just before the Nali
crowd made it in. By now, things were getting a little hazy, but
I do know that I ended up gate-crashing a Georgian birthday party
whilst Kenny “treated” Susan, Ally and Helen to a round
of tequilas. It all ended in tears shortly afterwards…
Tuesday morning saw us up relatively early and off to Ally’s
hotel to RV for a taxi to the Georgian FA offices on the edge of
town for the ticket pick-up, bumping into an aggrieved Tam McGhee
on the way – he’d been stitched up by Austrian Airlines
and his hotel on the way out, but at least he’d made it; we
heard the next day that several Scots had been left stranded at
Heathrow after a delayed Aberdeen-London flight. The taxi was an
“experience”, of the near-death variety; we marvelled
at how the other side of the road becomes an overtaking lane when
the oncoming lights are red, despite six lanes of traffic already
cramming in to the three allocated lines on each side of the road.
The windscreen was cracked, but at least the brakes and horn worked
well, as we were treated to both on a liberal basis. As the token
Russian speaker (strictly tourist level), I had a ringside view
of all of this next to the driver as well.
The Georgian FA HQ sits somewhat incongruously as a stone chalice
on a patch of scrub wasteland, next to the road out of a town and
up the slope from the presentable, mostly open bowl that passes
for Lokomotiv Stadium. Of course, despite the SFA’s instructions
to the contrary, the ticket pick-up wasn’t actually from here,
but rather from the travel agents 100 yards back down the road.
After a brief wait, and a look at Frieda’s new patterned tights
(a long story, but at least I didn’t end up with them on my
head this time…), we picked up the tickets with a minimum
of fuss. We also bumped into Helmut from Hannover, along with Torsten,
a guy I’d met a few years ago at the Confederations Cup but
not seen since; his Mum comes from Dumbarton, and he divides his
support between the Sons and Hannover 96.
Rather than take the cowards’ way out and jump in the idling
taxi back to the relative civilisation of downtown Tbilisi, we opted
to walk some of the way, weighing up whether to take the cable car
up the mountain (and sensibly declining!). After passing Gav and
Craig at the Unknown Soldier monument, and picking our way through
the rubble and car parts on the “pavement”, we found
an inviting looking door leading down into an equally inviting cellar
bar/restaurant. After more over-ordering and bursting at the seams,
we ventured further down the street, stopping first at ????, so
named due to the street number and afflicted by power cuts, then
again at the wee bar next door as the rain bounced off the pavement
and ran in torrents down the street.
Eventually we decided we had to make a move back towards civilisation,
however with the rain showing no sign of abating, we huddled in
a bus stop and attempted to catch one that headed to somewhere we
vaguely recognised (always a sound strategy, particularly in the
dark with torrential rain!). After two abortive attempts to board
a centre-bound bus, and a curious police car, a taxi appeared like
a genie out of a bottle and whisked us to the Sioni area of town
(opposite the Old Metheki Church) for a third of the price we’d
paid that lunchtime to go and get the tickets! The plan was to locate
the Kaiserbrau; Reeky Sporran had already warned us in Nali that
the place was impossible to find, so much so, he doubted its very
existence! Quite simply, with beer-scooper pride at stake, we couldn’t
afford to fail…
The Sioni area was very plush and modern, albeit quiet given it
was a rainy Tuesday evening, however finding the brewpub was indeed
a challenge; not only did our map bear no relation to the street
names in front of us, but none of the locals seemed any wiser either.
We picked up Mark and Steve, a pair of Ally’s fellow Aberdonians,
and at their suggestion we repaired to a riverside establishment
with the rather ambitious title of the “Rasta Café”;
despite its best intentions from the Bob Marley / leaf logo on the
sign, it was more olde worlde Tbilisi than cutting edge Amsterdam.
This pit-stop renewed my vigour to track down the errant brewpub,
and sure enough, not 100 yards away down the riverbank was the very
gargoyles we’d been told (by the SFA’s guidance notes)
to look out for. Inside was spacious and airy, if a little dimly
lit, with the gleaming coppers on show. The beer itself was passable
if not great (maybe I’m a little fussier these days?), but
the food menu was a bit laughable – most of the items were
unavailable, and for five orders of nachos (little more than Doritos
with a token amount of grated cheese) we were warned there’d
be a 20 minute delay! Nonetheless, I had my beer and was therefore
happy, and the banter was good, varying from Steve’s anecdotes
about the Brunei oil industry to sleeping rough around Europe to
the attractiveness of Aberdonian women. As the night drew to a close
(we were the last people to leave the brewpub), Mark and Steve grabbed
a taxi to a late-opener across town and the four of us meandered
up past the brightly lit old walls.
Matchday saw us progress even less far from our hotel than Monday
before being swept along to the nearest pub by Mick Carr, Mazz,
Fraz and Andy – it turned out there was a pool bar round the
corner and in the same block as our own hotel! Ally and Susan joined
us, however with minimal sleep (Andy hadn’t been to bed since
arriving on the Passport flight the previous day), most people drifted
off and the four of us headed back towards Monday’s excellent
Georgian restaurant. By now, rumours of early closures were reaching
us – Nali and Dublin were to both remain shut on matchday
– so we ate and drank our fill (taking much more care over
the ordering now!) and headed back around the corner to Marco Polo,
a smart looking restaurant/bar on Rustaveli itself. Inside the place
was jumping, with WESTA having secured themselves prime spot in
the middle of the ground floor – apparently there were 5 floors;
we could see a basement and a balcony but didn’t explore further.
After several beers, but still well before the game, word came
that buses were being assembled over the road to drive us down to
the stadium. This seemed a great idea, and with a small carry out,
we ended up on the first bus to the ground with Chairman Jim leading
from the front. The buses sped through town complete with police
escort, then straight in the gates of the stadium and deposited
us at the foot of the stairs to our section – despite there
being 90 minutes until kick off, any pleas to leave and find a pub
fell on deaf ears (there was actually an alcohol ban in place around
the ground, although some stories of this being flouted have filtered
through). Thankfully, the remains of the carry out was able to be
finished in peace ahead of the bag check on the stairs before we
took up our place in time for the warm up.
The game wasn’t particularly memorable: Georgia scored early
in the first half, we had a stonewall penalty waved away (a trademark
of this campaign!), rarely threatened and Georgia scored a deserved
second. The weird thing was, after the humiliation of losing 1-0
in Lithuania in 2003 and being taunted mercilessly by the locals
in the aftermath, the Georgians were incredibly sporting, even to
the extent of lining the stairwells behind the police guard to applaud
the Scotland fans and try and swap scarves. Even the day after the
game, I was amazed at the number of locals who expressed surprise
and humility at the result! We squeezed onto one of the first few
buses back into town, and someone suggested a pub (possibly Hungarian
in theme?) just the other side of the darkened Dublin. To be fair,
I was in foul mood following our capitulation, and along with most
of the company, spent the rest of what remained of the evening with
my head in my hands before giving up the ghost and calling it a
night.
Thursday always had the potential to be a strange day, with a hotel
checkout and then a long wait for a 4am flight (with a car to the
airport at 1.30am). Despite agreeing a 4pm checkout, we were out
by 1.30pm, and after a quick pit stop at McDonalds, I’d made
up my mind to track down a Georgia shirt and had received some reliable
intel that one of the streets by the ground offered rich pickings.
Ally and Susan joined us on our quest, so we braved the journey
to the centre of the earth on the never-ending escalator to get
to the metro. Tbilisi’s main station is relatively non-descript,
apart from its actual location – the middle of Baghdad market!
A chance meeting with a clock-making football collector led to the
frankly bizarre exchange of a NATA pennant for a small travel alarm
clock customised with a Georgian FA badge!
The street by the ground proved rich pickings indeed, and I was
able to pick up an official Diadora red shirt for less than £20
from the first of the dozen or so sports shops; even better was
the Dynamo Tbilisi scarf from the Dynamo sports shop built into
the stadium wall. After being shooed away by an overzealous guard
for trying to photograph the ground, we worked our way around on
the trail of Shota Arveladze’s World Sport Bar. What we eventually
found was the most innocuous looking, windowless building with absolutely
no sign of what lay within. The bar itself, on the inside anyway,
was very presentable in that “I’ve got loads of money
and want to show how western and sophisticated I’ve become”
way, as favoured by Eastern European moguls and entrepreneurs. What
was less obvious was who the target clientele was, seeing as we
were the sole customers for 90% of the time we were in there for.
Afterwards we completed the loop around the ground and took an
even more mental backstreet back to the station, catching the tube
through town and out the other side of the river, near to the Old
Metekhi Church. After an hour or so of winding through the backstreets
and admiring the view from a couple of church ramparts, including
the Old Metekhi itself, we chanced going into one of the city’s
top restaurants with its own balcony hanging over the river. After
a leisurely meal (that I still thought was going to kill me with
gluttony!) we strolled down the hill and over the river to Kaiserbrau,
where a meeting of WESTA and Loony Alba minds was underway. Kevin
and Gav were distraught at my souvenir haul, particularly the clock
(which now has pride of place on my office desk), and vowed to redress
the balance the following day.
After finishing up in Kaiserbrau, and still killing time ahead
of setting off for the airport, we wound up in Hanger Bar, a highly
regarded Irish pub not far down the hill from the Marriott Courtyard
where the Sporran Legion were safely ensconced. After convincing
Reeky that Kasierbrau was a “Torshavn Dubliner” style
wind-up, we opted not to stay for a beer, as the pub seemed to have
peaked and was now at that refugee camp stage of the evening. Back
at the Marriott, we met up with Gav and chatted before hopping in
the hotel car for the ride back to the airport. Gav’s not
the best flyer at normal times, but when confronted with a Lufthansa
notice that volunteers were being offered €500 to fly the next
day, he’s even worse! Knowing he had a tight connection at
Munich, he was keen to get safely through-checked, however he need
not have worried as we ended up first in the queue. Understandably,
some of the more intrepid TA members did put their names forward
for the cash incentive, however they were left empty-handed and
on-board when enough people didn’t show up.
The airside departure lounge is just as smart as the rest of the
airport, with a couple of shops, a pub and a burger bar, where we
sat with Riga-bound Dangerous Dave. The gate-side security were
not bothered about me taking some water on board, which was just
as well seeing as Lufthansa were attempting to parboil us on the
way back!
There was yet more luggage fun to be had – the second bag
had never made it to the Marriott, so I harboured an outside hope
that I would be reunited with it in Munich airport before flying
back to London on the Saturday. These plans were momentarily suspended
when the bag that had made it didn’t show up at Munich airport
either! Thankfully, this was only a minor blip – as it was
a rucksack, it came off the outsized belt 10 minutes or so later,
so it was onto the S-Bahn for the trek into Munich and some much-needed
sleep.
After the ferocious temperatures on the plane, the biting cold
of Munich initially came as a welcome relief. It took so long for
me to cool down that when I left the hotel around 2.30pm that afternoon,
I was foolhardy enough to walk out in a long sleeved t-shirt with
my kilt, without even a thought of an outdoor coat or other layer.
Of course, when it started snowing a mere 2 hours later, I had ample
chance to consider the folly of my ways. Helen and I had started
the afternoon off with a couple in the lokal right next to the hotel,
and followed this up with a couple in a party bar just off the Viktualenmarkt
before meeting up with Ally and Susan (who’d just invested
in an identical goretex jacket to her husband, awwww….). Of
course, you can’t come on your first visit to Munich (for
Ally and Susan) without struggling over a vase of beer in the tourist
trap that is the Hofbrauhaus, however I think all of us overestimated
our capacities at this stage, as we took well over an hour to clear
our litre each, whilst other people came, drank, went, were replaced
and so on (like one of those slow motion capture shots of a flower
blossoming). Not my proudest moment, and we wisely retired for the
evening at this juncture.
The following day’s train > plane > bus > train
adventure all went smoothly, and as a fitting postscript, my bag
and its entire contents were returned to me completely undamaged
5 weeks later, having turned up at Tbilisi airport (hence disproving
my oft-vented theory that some wee corrupt Georgian hotel porter
was stoating around town in my lucky sky blue away shirt). It’s
just a shame that I didn’t get that lucky shirt back in time
for the Italy home game…
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