Dublinia 17th June

HA! If I thought I felt young at the last place, what about the Arctic Monkeys concert??

Dublin was great, and also very interesting. 17th of June, well we got there on the sunday morning, after leaving here around 5am.
The dinner at Mike's bro's place turned into a bit of a mission. He'd forgotten we couldn't stay, which of course was fun, but it also meant we couldn't slope off to bed early! At 11 we were still sat there making polite conversation (except I wasn't really any more - I was suffering, I'd been tired at 4pm because of the night before at the Whitehouse.) We got home to his around midnight so by the time we were in bed asleep it was past that, and then up at 5am. Anyone who knows me knows that I am completely rubbish when I am tired, grumpy and I don't want to talk, and if I drink then it makes me even more tired. NOT a good start to our epic one-dayer in dublin!!

By the time we got into Dublin centre (taxi, train, plane, bus, about 5.5 hours worth) it was around 10.30am and we had a breakfast. We wandered around for a few hours taking in the sights, I stand by my opinion that Dublin is not a pretty city!! It is also quite expensive for what it is and very much catered towards tourism.

We saw some nice sights and caught the bus to Malahide castle, where the monkeys were playing. We got there at 4pm as that was the time it had on the ticket, except I hadn't done my research properly...we joined the crowd of thousands of teenagers waiting to get in, and then when I asked what time the monkeys were on (it wasn't very full), I was told at quarter to ten! There were three other bands before them. This didn't really matter as I hadn't heard of the other bands, and I was already dead on my feet, and Mike and I had 30 euros between us to spend on drinks which were 5 euros each, and they only had beer....which was making me feel tired and bloated.
Anyway, the first band were good, the second (the corals) made me want to kill myself, supergrass were ok, Arctic Monkeys were excellent and Mike really enjoyed seeing them (which was the aim of it!). We left a bit early (being oldies) and sensibly missed the massive exodus out of there, and got the bus back into town, which got us back by about 11.30. We found a bar that was still open and looked like it was going to be open a while, and prepared to camp out. But somehow, because we'd had all the fun and we knew that was it for the night, and we were both a bit travelled and partied out, we started getting really ratty with each other. Well he kept on grilling me for stories and games, which he knows full well I'm not very good at telling. The music was loud and RnB, I was feeling a bit sick from all the beer so only really wanted to drink gin and lemonade, which pushed the round up to 12 euros a drink.
What we realised was that if we bought four rounds (highly likely with around 3 more hours of sitting around to do), we may as well have got a hotel room!! Except I would've been the one paying for it myself, whereas this way we were (or will) be splitting it.
We decided the airport was the lesser of two evils, and traipsed up to find the nightbus stand (we'd v cleverly found out which one went 24hours and on a sunday and got the street name). It was about a thirty minute walk up this really long street though (or was it that I was tired??) We just missed two which meant we had 50 minutes to wait for the next one - it's quite lucky we decided to leave early!!

Got to the airport around half two/three, slept on a floor next to the ticket desk until half four, checked in, moved to the gate, got another hours kip, by this time I was absolutely freezing as I was hungry and tired and had gotten cold waiting for the bus. We got the plane back.

We were both not feeling great, as you can imagine, but I crashed at Mike's afterwards, I should probably have gone home. Then got up and watched walk the line (thank god we'd booked monday off!!), and then I came home. We almost had a massive row though over a stupid song on the radio. Mike had been a bit picky at me all weekend, I had felt a bit hard done by as I was treating him and I didn't think that was very nice to behave like that to someone who was treating you. I think he was conscious I didn't enjoy the music as much as him, hated not having any money (as he said I had the wallet that weekend) and I was getting annoyed at him spending my money like water and not being very grateful about it. Anyway, we made it up but only yesterday after a bit of me stewing on a few things he'd said to me and then having it out with him before Claire's dinner!!

Not sure the weekend was a total success, looking back on it it was very fun, but when I was there I just wished we had more money, more time, and more music I could dance to as well!! I'll post up some picy's when I can.

Bit nervous about our other hols now, I almost said I wasn't coming to devon with him this weekend, but I think it'll be fine because it won't be so intense and we'll have more mooching around time (and a proper hotel to sleep in). Let's hope so. Odd thing this relationship milarky, what I'm finding is that the things you plan and build up to sometimes don't work out so well, the things that you think arent going to be all that great, usually are....