Things to do in Dublin.......

I'm sorry to all of you for the paucity of posts so far this month.....a combination of a crazy few weeks and then a touch of bloggers block.

There have been up and down the Country at least twice a week, but then this weekend saw the entire department's annual (well semi annual.....in that it occurs when they remember and have something/somewhere to discuss with us!) grand team bonding session. This time it was a trip to Dublin, to see our new office and to meet all those people we know about but who we have never met (some of them with good reason I have to say!)

This extravegansa saw about 140 people converging from 6 airports into Dublin International Airport, which is a really nice airport and delivered by a very friendly coach driver to our hotel......(not one that I will be heading back to anytime soon, but a stereotypical conference hotel) I think that it would have been taken slightly better had our flight not left Manchester at 7.55am for a first organised event at 12:30pm. After the conference and a evening of moderate entertainment (well I say moderate...it certainly started out that way with a walk round the office, a few drinks and a dinner, but ended up somewhat messily!)

A couple of us decided that as we had travelled over to Dublin, it would be good to stay over on Saturday night and enjoy Saturday in Dublin, so wondered what you can do. Having checked online we realised that we would be pushed to fit everything in.

Things that we thought that we would do:

1. Visit the Guiness museum,
2. Have our photo taken with Molly Malone,
3. Walk round Trinity College,
4. Visit Grafton Street,
5. See Landesdowne Road Stadium (and if possible see a game there!)

Well I would love to say that we did everything in the list and lets face it it isn't exactly an onerous list. Saturday morning saw us decide to go for a walk into town, having seen the stadium from a distance (.....about a mile from the hotel) Does this count?

A walk into the centre.....past Trinity College, and along Grafton Street, we found a pub.....well after a somewhat late night on Friday a coffee for me.....whilst the guys hit the Guiness straight away at 10:30am. Some 17 hours later we made it back to the hotel! There was fantastic live folk music, some hugely friendly people (except for one very well informed young lady who decided that she had to inform us four poor guys from the mainland the effects of 16 Guinesses in a short space of time - thankfully not experienced her dire warnings!) great beers and I can hugely recommend the Porterhouse - Temple Bar.

Whilst the flight home on Sunday was not too fun Dublin was everything that it was billed as, and can't wait to go back......

P.S. - Having looked at the list of things to do we:

1. Drank pretty much the whole Guiness museum's worth,
2. Definitely saw Molly Malone.....if not been able to focus a camera on her
3. Walked along Grafton Street and around Trinity College.....trying to find the pub where we were to meet up, and
4. Saw Landsdowne Road Stadium - from afar......and even caught a rugby match, even if it was whilst sitting in a pub with a beer in my hand!

Result I would say!