Phase Five: Dubl!n

I haven't been blogging much lately. Mostly because I really haven't wanted the small amount of free time I've managed to squander at a computer. But alas, when I find myself on the other side of the world, I always seem to also find some spare time - and an itch to blog...

So here I am in Dublin, Ireland for two weeks for work. One week down and I have pretty much spent most waking hours in front of a computer. Kind of stressful, and it's not done yet, but I'm trying to remain positive. I mean, how can you not be positive in Dublin with all this... rain?!

It has rained every day for the past seven days. And probably, the seventy-seven days before that, really. But this city isn't phased. From 11AM - 3AM I find Dubliners drinking and smoking in the streets, laughing. It's rather impressive. Especially when I think back to my drinking days in DC and how the rain was really the only thing that stopped a night of debauchery. Not in Dubl

The city is pretty small - I already have a pretty good sense of direction and can walk almost anywhere. I arrived on Sunday night, worked and did some shopping on Monday, worked and saw Riverdance at the Gaiety theater on Tuesday, worked and worked and worked on Wednesday.

By Thursday, we'd had it with working, so we had a fun night on the town in the Temple Bar section of the city. Temple Bar has an amazing combination of what one considers "Irish" with what one knows is inherently cheesy and touristy. We went to Dougheny's by the office (not so much Temple Bar...) and then headed over to Porterhouse and Ri Ra and had a ridiculous quantity and combination of alcohol. So much so that I didn't make it into the office on Friday until 11:30 AM. But the brilliant thing about our European offices is that 11:30 AM is still 3:30 AM San Francisco time, so no big loss!

Cheers to next week being more relaxed and from a work perspective but packed when it comes to traveling...