With summer came the promise of a break from school and at least some form of a holiday. Whether it was an ‘educational’ jaunt to murder the Irish language, or a road trip that included a hang sandwich and instructions to use the loo before you left – we’ve all battled through the highs and lows of summer breaks.
Here we round-up the trips that could make or break your teen years:
Gaeltacht
Usually followed by a salute to the year ’05, and chats reminiscing over your first true love, or you know, the lad you kissed behind the bike shed. There was never a lad as smooth as they guy who bought you an ice cream from the college shop, or a moment as romantic as being asked to shift at the céilí. Aw, be still our beating hearts. There’s few loves as pure as Thomas and Vada.
Next stop… Caravan campers
This was a hell reserved for nights sweating in a room the size of a box, while everyone bickered over cramped beds and your dad’s snoring. You had a whole new respect for personal space and your own bed after 5 nights in this corrugated prison.
School tours
Five days on a supervised school trip was hitting the jackpot when you’re a teenager. For girls suffering the single-sex school syndrome, you were just about ready to jump on any male with a pulse. You probably still have the travel ticket stubs and a series of snaps flaunting bad fashion choices and braces. These were the years, and probably go down as one of your favourite holidays ever.
The weekend in Butlins/ Mosney/ Waterworld
It usually meant you spent five hours packed into a car with every item of clothing ‘just in case’. Mammy packed a tin of ham sandwiches and everyone fought to get a carton of capri-sun. Luxury items included a purple snack bar or a tub of Pringles. The game of eye-spy could cause wars. WARS.
Trip to your Aunty Mary/Paula (Insert name here)
You may have been dreaming of a summer in Spain by the hotel pool, but the reality was you’d be pulling up in a remote spot of the country and setting out in search of the local leisure centre. The part you’d probably never admit was that with the company of cousins, this was probably one of your favourite parts of the summertime. Not that your parents could ever know you were a satisfied teenager. That wasn’t going to happen.
Your camping trip with the scouts
No you were not afraid of the dark, it was just really really dark there. And it was hours since you saw anyone. And you needed to use the bathroom but had no intention of wandering off into the forest by yourself. Why did they have to tell ghost stories? Why did we think this would be a good idea?
The awkward parent/teenager trip
You feel too old to be going on a holiday with your parents, and they’d rather stick needles in their eyes than leave you house-sitting for a week. They see Project X, you see a week staring at goats and smelling silage. There was always the underlying fantasy you could meet the man of your dreams. It didn’t mean you’d know what to say when you saw him though…
