When you go on a coach trip it's always a surprise who are your fellow travellers. Sometimes you meet new friends; sometimes you see people sitting close to you, you would normally try to avoid.
We went on a trip by coach to Ireland. It started very early, we were picked up at 3 AM. Not my favorite time to begin the day.
We came to sit next to two elderly ladies, who immediately started to complain about the unholy hour we all had to get up. Their moaning increased after we had to wait for a couple that missed the coach, because of their taxi going the wrong way. We waited almost 2 hours and even after this were still on schedule. Maybe the old women were right in stating they could have been in bed two extra hours. All the others did not see how complaining could help.
Things went quite okay that day after the delay. We safely made it to Ireland The next day we had a bit of bad luck. There had been an accident, people got killed and the Garda blocked the way. So we were not able to visit the castle that was on our schedule. The old ladies shouted that we probably would go back to the hotel and be bored shitless. This was not the case: the drivers searched for a different route, another goal.
They started to search for a restaurant for our promised coffee break. Finally they saw another coach, a rather small one, parked. The driver was cleaning and told our drivers about a restaurant at the end of the parking lot. They came to an agreement with the owner and decided to get our coach off the road and park it. It was obviously quite difficult: the entrance was beautified with two stone pillars with stone lions on top. It took a lot of manoeuvering to get our coach through it. The result was a heavily damaged coach.
Near us the old women had a great time: "They call themselves drivers! Oh my God, we're all going to die! I can't watch this anymore!" Their big laughs showed that there was no real fear.
After this incident every difficult bend in the road got them to start shouting: "Oh no, not again! I can't watch this. Oh Lord, get me out of this!"
We never had real incidents with the driving, the other people on the coach rolled their eyes every time the old ladies started their moaning. We saw a lot of the western part of Ireland, had a lot of luck with the weather too. Ireland is a very green island, because of the amount of rain it normally gets.
It was very surprising to hear the old moaners on their mobile phones talking to a friend, saying that it was raining all the time and that this trip had been very boring. "We are being dumped in shopping centers all the time!" We visited the center of Galway, but that was all the "shopping" we did. Fellow travellers made gestures like the old women were out of their minds.
Coming back to England we were dropped at a central point. The old girls went to the drivers: "Thank you for a lovely time. We really enjoyed this trip. Will be happy to do it again."
I listened to it in amazement, my wife told me after some time that it would be better if I closed my mouth...
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