Page 56 - The Gonzaga Record 1994
P. 56
GERMAN TRIP
We turned Saxon for a week, at Halloween each morning, at German lessons in
- a score of gentle fifteen-year-olds, and Laoblenz, we called our charming blond
half a dozen less-than-healthy Sixth Years, haired drill instructor Frau. And each
with Ms Morris as the leader of the night we drifted off to sleep with the sweet
bedraggled pack, and Mr Stafford and smell of the Rhine seeping through the
Johann Peeters lounging back to pick up windows of our rooms, accompanied by
the slouchers. the gentle whirr of passing barges.
One day we climbed to the top of the old
cathedral of Cologne, and looked out over
the smoky city. Before leaving we
scrawled our names on the greeny walls of
the ancient building with chalk, hoping
that if we returned in a decade or so there
would be a frame around our scribble.
Some of the boys met the Pope at
Phantasialand, while Conor Scott was
twirling around in a giant buttercup upon a
slow-moving stream. And there’s a
photograph to prove it. Garfield, looking
pleased as punch, has his arm around the
Infallible One, just about ready to plant a
big kiss on his cheek.
With His Holiness in Germany But the smile was wiped off Garfield’s
face when we reached the peak of the
Water Ride, some thirty feet above the
Sailing from Dun Laoghaire to currywurst counter, and the canoe turned
Holyhead, Garfield Spollen fell instantly its nose down slightly to give a quick
in love with the stripper who appeared on preview of the remainder of the course,
the stage of the'Show Bar around 10 pm, which was, as G M Hopkins might have
while other people on board, no doubt said, but a cliff of fall, frightful, sheer, no-
befuddled by a cocktail of travel tablets, man-fathomed. Tony Burns and Tom
just fell. Eustace held on to each other for dear life,
Cutting across Britain by bus, with a
coach seat in front, and the night on your
left, and a snoring Lorcan Byrne on your
right, you desperately sought the day but
first you had to find the path to sleep.
Heading toward Calais, the labouring
metal climbing hills of seas, Olympus-
high, and ducking then as low as hell is
from heaven, many a traveller with the
damp sea wind gently dabbing his poor
feverish forehead, was green in the face,
and nauseous in the throat, and sick at the
stomach.
The bus trundled along the German
autobahn to the entrance of the Hotel
L’Europe. just outside the sleepy town of
Boppard. This was what Irish school Eins... zw ei... dry? Mark Stafford,
children called home for three days. And Philippa Morris and John Peeters
48
We turned Saxon for a week, at Halloween each morning, at German lessons in
- a score of gentle fifteen-year-olds, and Laoblenz, we called our charming blond
half a dozen less-than-healthy Sixth Years, haired drill instructor Frau. And each
with Ms Morris as the leader of the night we drifted off to sleep with the sweet
bedraggled pack, and Mr Stafford and smell of the Rhine seeping through the
Johann Peeters lounging back to pick up windows of our rooms, accompanied by
the slouchers. the gentle whirr of passing barges.
One day we climbed to the top of the old
cathedral of Cologne, and looked out over
the smoky city. Before leaving we
scrawled our names on the greeny walls of
the ancient building with chalk, hoping
that if we returned in a decade or so there
would be a frame around our scribble.
Some of the boys met the Pope at
Phantasialand, while Conor Scott was
twirling around in a giant buttercup upon a
slow-moving stream. And there’s a
photograph to prove it. Garfield, looking
pleased as punch, has his arm around the
Infallible One, just about ready to plant a
big kiss on his cheek.
With His Holiness in Germany But the smile was wiped off Garfield’s
face when we reached the peak of the
Water Ride, some thirty feet above the
Sailing from Dun Laoghaire to currywurst counter, and the canoe turned
Holyhead, Garfield Spollen fell instantly its nose down slightly to give a quick
in love with the stripper who appeared on preview of the remainder of the course,
the stage of the'Show Bar around 10 pm, which was, as G M Hopkins might have
while other people on board, no doubt said, but a cliff of fall, frightful, sheer, no-
befuddled by a cocktail of travel tablets, man-fathomed. Tony Burns and Tom
just fell. Eustace held on to each other for dear life,
Cutting across Britain by bus, with a
coach seat in front, and the night on your
left, and a snoring Lorcan Byrne on your
right, you desperately sought the day but
first you had to find the path to sleep.
Heading toward Calais, the labouring
metal climbing hills of seas, Olympus-
high, and ducking then as low as hell is
from heaven, many a traveller with the
damp sea wind gently dabbing his poor
feverish forehead, was green in the face,
and nauseous in the throat, and sick at the
stomach.
The bus trundled along the German
autobahn to the entrance of the Hotel
L’Europe. just outside the sleepy town of
Boppard. This was what Irish school Eins... zw ei... dry? Mark Stafford,
children called home for three days. And Philippa Morris and John Peeters
48
