Dublin

I got back from Dublin this morning - I was there for basically 24 hours.  I loved it - it was cold but the sky was blue and the sun was shining, which made my experience better.  It would have been a bit miserable if it was raining.

The city was so vibrant and quite cosmopolitan.  I was surprised how many good cafes there were, and in particular food type emporiums which also had a cafe in them - seemed very New York.  The river running through the city with many bridges made it feel very European.  Everyone was incredibly friendly.

I arrived at 9.30am and was in the city by 10am.  I walked around one of the main parks, drank coffee, walked around several old historic buildings, stopped for lunch in a big old warehouse style building which had been converted to a food store with a cafe.  I had good nutty muesli and read the paper.  Everyone else seemed local which was nice.  I walked and walked some more.  I had read about a good coffee place about 30minutes walk from the main city centre, so I set off.  Luckily I was rewarded - a really top cafe, which was buzzing with local people.  I sat in the window seat with delicious coffee and a toasted tomato and roasted garlic sandwich - my back to the sun, reading my book.  Perfect!

After an hour or so there, I tore myself away for more walking around the city.  By 5pm I was rather weary - there is a gorgeous department store, Browns, so I enjoyed a glass of wine there and had a sneaky manicure.  From there I rushed straight to the theatre to see Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray.  I had bought the cheapest ticket in the penultimate back row - but the theatre was quite intimate and my seat was brilliant.  The play was quite brilliant and also rather funny - it was very cleverly produced.  Inspite only having had about 4 hours sleep, I was kept wide awake!

Ridiculously, when I thought I booked a flight out at 6pm on the Sunday, I worked out two weeks ago that my flight left at 6am on the Sunday! So from the theatre I caught the airport bus to the airport.  Amazingly, I (amongst other people) stretched out on some chairs and slept for four hours! I was home by 9.30am with an entire Sunday ahead of me!! It actually worked quite well - I think I'd have run out of things to do if I'd also had Sunday in Dublin.  Plus is was rather fun to travel so lightly, without even any toiletries.

Today I baked a banana cake to take to work, and uploaded photos, wrote some blog posts, cleaned the house - got lots done basically.

So that's my weekend!