Summer Wrapping up

It has been a week of good weather so of course it was bound to be a busy week! I thought after such a busy weekend of the GAA match, it would be a quiet week, boy was I in for a surprise. Monday Bruno came to town just for the day since he had a return ticket from Dublin to Lisbon. We met up for dinner and then headed to the Stags Head for a few scoops with the Portuguese group before heading to bed.

On Tuesday I headed to Karen's for a homecooked meal with her flat mates and to tuck in for the night and watch the Rose of Tralee. Since the hot water was still out back at our gaff I was also looking forward to a hot shower! Just as the Rose of Tralee started (think Rose Festival Princess but instead of High Schools, one girl will represent their county in Ireland) I got a phone call from an old collegue from back home. I knew he was going to be in Dublin at some point that weekend and early week. I left Karen's and headed to town to meet up with Erik. It was great catching up with him. Since Tuesday in the office has become the new Friday, a few workmates were also at Whelan's so when I said goodbye to Erik, I headed downstairs to meet up with Tullia, Sean, Colin and Glenn. I headed home relatively early since Frank showed up and shots were being had. I was to have none of it, since it was a school night!

Then Wednesday Joao was having a few people over. When you come back from holiday it is customary to bring back some sweets and share with your co-workers. Instead, he brought back shed loads of wine and had a wine tasting night at his house! Good stuff for sure. I just laugh since we try to branch out to make new friends, but of course at all the parties we go to, they are all full of architects. We have a tendency to stick together since everyone else who is not an architect gets tired of talking about buildings and CAD programs and other fascinating aspects of our jobs.

Thursday was to be our girlie night since A|Wear (a clothes store like Meier and Frank) was putting on a fashion show of their autumn line of clothes. All of the ticket money went to the Cancer Society and you got a goodie bag. Who does not love a goodie bag! Tullia, Karen, Catherine, Claire and myself went to the Mansion House where I had previously done my "African modeling" a year before. Our goodie bags were full of little things, but most importantly a bottle of champagne. There was free champagne after the event and you got to browse the clothes and shop a little. We had all eaten on the way after picking up a burger and chips at the chipper, but Catherine was starving so I took the girls back to our place so Catherine could eat some of Ben's yummy stir fry. We drank all our free champagnes so it ended up being quite a cheap night out.

Friday the heads were a little sore, and I should have taken Niall's advice, 'Don't drink anything with pain in the name". And there is pain in champagne. Since the layoffs at work were beginning to be told just who they were, we had to head to the pubs. Electric Picnic is a huge outdoor weekend concert that most of Dublin went out to so most of the pubs were half empty. After some food at Smyth's in the beer garden since the weather was actually quite nice, we went into Whelan's since Karen wanted to dance! Claire and I got on the shots to get our dancing skills up to mental parr to keep up with all the young kids on the dance floor. We danced the night away and at 3 when they kicked us all out we were not ready to call it a night!

Colin had promises of toast, butter and whiskey at his house, so Karen, Claire and myself headed to Colin's new apartment. He made us all toast and tea while we perused his extensive book and comic book collection. I tried some of his random whiskeys as I read a 3D Superman comic. He quietly strummed on his guitar as us girls entertained ourselves reading various things. Karen played coo-coo clock with his kitchen doors which sort of looked like a coo-coo clock. As the sun began to break the skyline it was time to head home and call it a night. I would need all the weekend to recover after another full filled week having the craic with our friends!