Yes been quiet on the blog as have just got back from an eventful weekend in Dublin where the sun shone all weekend, the Guinness flowed constantly and the craic was ever present throught the St. Paddy’s weekend (despite us not being there today..) Arriving on Friday, took a trip out to the one major ‘tourist’ attraction in the capital – the Guinness Storehouse. Despite my general stance on brands – Guinness always seem to catch the imagination with their simple yet innovative use of language and imagery to create such a strong brand. Despite only really having one ‘product’ the museum uses a combination of modern lighting, sound and effects to show the history of the product whilst being located in one of the old original factories. Of course the highlight is the free pint of the black stuff in the rooftop bar which has stunning views across Dublin and the surrounding mountains. Dublin itself doesn’t really have a skyline like London but nevertheless it is quite an impressive view.

Our hotel ‘suite’ was pretty nice, 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms and kitchen. Quite lucky considering it was the only place left in Dublin for those two nights. Apart from the obvious fights for the single beds and the sofa bed – it was a quiet place to stay! Many thanks to Ade for choosing the two sharers of the double bed for the first night (Done through a complicated system of credit cards, shuffling and text messaging) and the second night was chosen using the tried and trusted method of ‘higher or lower’ where there was a fight-out between Nick and Paul for the pleasure (?) of sharing a bed with Kiff. Nick lost..

They say you spend 40% of your life sleeping, I imagine most people visiting Dublin spend around 50% in a pub. We were not the exception to this rule. The inside of a proper Irish pub can feel like a home from home. O’Neills near Grafton St. was one such pub where many hours were spent playing cards and drinking Guinness. Dublin has a real traffic problem, not alleviated by having some main roads next to the River Liffey – this hardly makes for a nice relaxing walk along the river, however there are loads of bars and cafes (well everywhere really!) to rest tired feet after strolling around!

Temple bar is full of bars, most of them are aimed at tourists but it was pretty rammed and a good laugh especially the street performers dotted around. Friday involved a tour of this area, and on Saturday we chose an nicely name restaurant called “Spacos” where we broke our Guinness drinking and actually drank some wine and beer. Smirnoff ice rounds were also favoured in the late night pubs and clubs. Its quite hard to dance with a nine pints of Guinness floating around in your gut…

Managed to catch DJ Hype in the tivoli nightclub on Saturday night, very impressive especially without an MC.

All in all, a top weekend – Dublin is a great place to go for a short break! Looking forward to see where we get sent to next year 😉 (Oh yeah, the 6 of us housemates in University go somewhere each year – it was my turn this year…)