The Emerald Isle p. 1

Okay, so we have a view of the river Liffey, my new haircut (surprise!), ranch being mysteriously sexy with a quote at the Guinness factory, me pondering life's problems in 'Arthur Guinness's chair' (or a random chair, I really don't know), and finally ranch the happy train driver, also at the Guinness factory.



I turned up to the airport on Fri so early that they stuck me on a flight an hour earlier than booked - then we were delayed on the tarmac for 2 hours following some sort of a 'security breach' (don't know what). That was lucky as it happened, because I walked out of the gate at Dublin and was surprised to be the recipient of a hug from ranch (Francesca) who had told me she was flying back from London that evening and couldn't meet me, but was obviously telling porkies to surprise me. That night we stayed in and watched the UK Big Brother final (sigh!) then Saturday visited the Guinness factory which was semi-dull but enlivened by our taking crazy photos posing with various Guinness-related ephemera and basically making idiots of ourselves. I did have a wee sip of Guinness, but I'm afraid I then used my free drink token for a sprite (so did ranch) so we had to pretend to be pregnant (ranch) and recovering alcoholic (me) to cover the shame. This consisted of ranch clutching her belly and me looking wistfully at glasses of Guinness. Quite why a recovering alcoholic would choose to tour the Guinness factory, I don't know.
We then got roundly drenched on the way out (lovely Irish summer weather), went shopping, went to the pub (Irish music and dancing) then spent Sunday basically walking for hours around the city. We went outside Christ Church Cathedral, but Ranch refused to go inside a Protestant cathedral (nutter) and we couldn't find St. Pat's, so that was that.
Monday I caught a very crowded train all the way across Ireland to Athenry (south-westish) where I was met by Heather and the Irish ROADTRIP could begin. I'll have to update you all on that at some other point, I think we're paying through the nose for this internet... Anyway, we're here until Thursday, then back to London again briefly.