Ross Mullen and Conor Beakey | Contributing Writers
We set off from Trinity on the first morning of Jailbreak with a Mario costume, no plan & very little else! With no bucket, we realised it would be quite difficult to raise money so we set off for a small shop called Coffee Bean beside our old school. The nicest shopkeeper I have ever met, Aileen, who had sorted us out for years while in school remembered us and thankfully said we could have a bucket, as long as we cleaned the remains of the Tika Masala sauce out of it… With bucket in hand, we went to the Marian Guesthouse where we rudely woke up our friend Mark McElroy in hope of some donations and an Ireland flag. He was too cheap to give us anything but big thanks to his dad, Brendan, who donated 2 Ireland flags for our travels, and his mam, Catherine who donated a considerable amount. We spent the next few hours running around town hoping to get money off French tourists, they took a liking to my French coloured Mario outfit and after various photos we had raised a significant amount of sponsorship. Our friend, Stephen Troy picked us up & we set off for the airport as Aer Arann very soundly gave us free flights to Bristol. Big thanks to Barry Murphy for this! We were informed 30 minutes after boarding that our plane was experiencing technical difficulties and wouldn’t be flying, so we had to change plane. We eventually reached Bristol and made tracks towards London where a very sound policeman helped us on our way, allowing us a bit of free Tube travel. We should have taken notice that when we asked how to get to Dover he replied ‘No one ever asks me that.’ It was a warning of things to come.
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On the train to Dover we met a Tunneler Steve who assured us it would be dead easy to get a ferry through the night.. We walked from the station to the ferry port in high hopes, posing for photos at signs and singing the whole way. The terminal was closed to foot passenger until 7am, it was now 11.30pm. We tried hitchhiking for a few hours with no luck, cruelly one car pulled up, looked at us and then drove off.We set down outside the terminal for a cold night at around 4am, deciding it was best we took turns sleeping. until a dancing Frenchman, with the worst selection of techno-French-Rap we have ever encountered music showed us we could actually wait INSIDE. Relieved, we bundled in and collapsed on the ground..We tried again for hours in the morning with no luck getting on a ferry so we decided to head back to London. We were taken in by Sean Nolan, a Trinity student over visiting his girlfriend Kate, for some cheese and toast. Then after a long day trying for bus around London we eventually resigned to the fact we were stuck. We roamed around London, highlights including a roly-poly at Picadilly Circus, visiting “Shaftesbury Avenue” and possibly the best moment of our trip, a photo with the tricolour outside Buckingham Palace. Thankfully, Sean and Kate took us back in for the night & gave us a bed. They also ironically brought us to ‘Dover Bar’, a much nicer place than the port’s actual town! The next morning we set off for Cardiff. The Welsh folk we encountered were not very welcoming as two people flatly refused to take a photo for us outside the Millenium Stadium! We boarded the plane after a few delays and eventually reached home. It was a trip of mishaps, but one that was a fantastic experience for both of us! #ForkDover*
