It was a lovely month in Dublin. Maaike’s former boss Martin came over to say hello from Coventry with his wife Elaine. We had a lovely weekend hanging out with them. We went to Trinity College’s “Old Library”. It has a decent Celtic exhibition, including The Book of Kells. However, my favourite part of the Old Library is upstairs where there is The Long Room. It really is a very long room and houses the old library. It is, I think, my favourite manmade space I’ve ever been to. It’s beautiful. As a student (or graduate) you could go in for free. I used to go in maybe 3 or 4 times a year and just be in the Long Room for a while. It’s a wonderful place.
Interestingly, There’s a startling resemblance to the “Hall of the Jedi” which you can see here. Lucasfilm denied it, and Trinity decided not to sue… :|
We also saw a few of the sights, not least the doughnut stand on O-Connell street, a staple of any trip to Dublin. We visited Kilmainham gaol where there is an exhibition on the Easter Rising of 1916 All in all a lovely time with Martin and Elaine!
Next up, our friends Neil & Frances were visiting Ireland and stopped in for a few nights. We also went to The Long Room ;) (my alumni card has saved us about 100 Euro at this point ;), and we did a walking tour of Dublin. Funny to be a tourist in your own city. You can see the odd architectural style of Dublin Castle here below.
We had a really lovely dinner with my old college friend Lorcan. He’s so damn impressive with his house – did most of the plumbing and wiring himself! Most impressive. Apparently his answer to his wife of how he knew all this was: “Sure we did it for the Junior Cert”. Confidence inspiring I’m sure ;)
Then Femke, Maaike’s sister came to stay for a few nights. We went for walks, got beaten at Settlers – oh – and Sinkerklaas came to visit when we left shoes out for him. We went for a delicious meal on my brother Matt’s suggestion – The Vintage Kitchen which I’d highly recommend. It was funny, we turned up at about 7:50 on a Monday. Place was empty and the guy said “I’ll see if I can fit you in”. I thought he was kidding, I really did. Then he said, yep, I think I’ve got space, just go next door and have a pint, and come back for 20:30, you can bring the pint with you if you like. I was nonplussed, but off we went, had a pint, came back, and the place was packed. Great food, reasonably priced, and great banter. Highly recommend.
There were also a couple of concerts in the mix. Matt & Hélène sing in Choral, the college singing society, and they were singing Bach B Minor Mass which was beautiful. Mum plays in the Dublin Symphony Orchestra and they also had their 1/2 yearly concert which we were able to get to too. Lovely.
Finally, Maaike jetted off for a few days in Porto with her family, I started playing feverishly with this years Advent of Code and also managed to have a catch up with Morgan and Becky for an evening. Morgan let me play with his VR setup which was FUN. It was super fun with the controllers – painting fireworks in space – and I REALLY REALLY enjoyed the Portal intro!! I may yet loose myself in gaming again… ;)
A lovely month. Maybe we should take another year off ;)
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