We spent the majority of the time rat-arsed (Whisky Museum, Guinness Storehouse, Temple Bar, St Paddy's parade), and it turns out our hotel was directly above possibly the liveliest nightclub in Dublin. This was fantastic when we checked it out, but less so three hours later when we wanted a bit of kip, and even more annoying when the fire alarm got set off at 4:20.
The St Paddy's parade was very confusing. I've got enough Irish friends to know if an event has an advertised starting time of 12:00 then you can rock up at 13:10 and still have bags of time, and this turned out to be bang on... and once it started, it seemed to have been envisioned and orchestrated by primary school children. The few parts of it which had any relation to Irish culture or history included military marching, but even this had no rhythm or co-ordination, and whenever the procession paused the soldiers turned around and chatted with each other... one even blew bubbles with his gum!
Before the parade we faced a difficult decision - were our last €10 to be spent on food, or on souvenirs? The outcome was overwhelmingly in favour of this shite.
Following up from my last post, I was contacted by a magazine who'd seen my story on the meningitis website and wanted to feature me in their next issue. I'm not sure why I felt reluctant to agree, but I asked for time to think before making a decision. I'm very glad I did, because I used that time to check out 'Pick Me Up' and found cover story gems such as: "RAPED by the devil", "Killer confessions: I wanted to EAT her alive" and, my personal favourite, a photo of a baby with the headline "my mummy thought I was a POO". I called them back to politely decline.
Love Emily x
