Al: We should have flown!

The first time I went to Dublin (Easter 2000) was a bit of an odyssey: I went with Al, and the journey was longer than ideal! Convinced it was a bargain, I decided we should take the train from Swansea to Fishguard, then the ferry to Rosslare (a four hour crossing), then the train up the coast to Dublin. Poor Al had to drive from Reading to Swansea too, so that wasn't much fun for him.

We stayed in a B&B in Ormond Quay, which was nicely placed for exploring the city. We spent our long weekend doing just that. There's a fair amount to do in Dublin. Temple Bar alone is full of bars and restaurants, which we sampled extensively. My favourite was The Porterhouse, a maze of cosy copper piping and small staircases - a much more impressive building than its poor sibling near Covent Garden.

Trinity College is also worth a look, or at least the Old Library and famous Book of Kells and its attendant exhibition of manuscript illuminations. Also, in TCD's grounds, I spotted what appeared to be a smaller replica of a globe sculpture I'd seen previously in the Vatican when I went to Rome, but with no explanation of why it should be there or what the connection was!

Eschewing our opportunity to visit the Guinness Brewery (Al had been before, and neither of us like the stuff), we enjoyed the more modern delights of the cinema. Firstly (yes, we went twice), to see Scream 3 as part of the Dublin Film Festival (you see? It was cultural!), primarily to steal a march on Nick, my film buff Swansea housemate; secondly, to see Fantasia 2000 at the Sheridan IMAX Theatre, which was my first IMAX experience. It was great, and I couldn't have chosen a better first film to see there. Sadly, Al had a thumping headache throughout and seemed to be clutching his temples for most of the film. I don't suppose he appreciated it much.

Our return trip was dull, dull, dull. Faced with a choice between a four hour wait in either Rosslare in the afternoon or Fishguard in the late evening, we chose the former. There's not much to do in Rosslare; I might go as far as to say "nothing". We spent those four hours in a pub, playing cards. Despite protestations to the contrary, I secretly agreed with Al's whinging: it would have been better to have flown.

My second visit to Dublin was much less tourism-oriented. It was just before my birthday in 2001, the day I left Tamar, and just before starting with Freeserve, and I was going to visit Christian, one of my Swansea housemates, who was working a contract there.

Not wanting the travel nightmare of my last visit, I flew, but very nearly had a different sort of horror journey; my trip from Chiswick to Stansted was excruciatingly slow, and instilled in me a powerful resolve to always be at an airport long before take-off. As it was, I just made it. By five minutes.

Christian and I spent a relaxing weekend, sitting in pubs, watching Friends and eating pizza, sitting in cafés, strolling about town. Our big night out was with my Tamar ex-colleagues, who had just finished a team-building week, and we sampled some of the Dublin nightlife, although we did visit The Porterhouse again, where they asked me for ID to get in (at 22, I'm not sure if this is an insult or a compliment).

Christian and I also nipped into TCD, so I could show him the globe sculpture, which he agreed was just like the one in Rome. He took some nice snaps of it using his new digital camera (yes, that's why I got one in the end!).

Dublin was just as lovely a second time, and it was my first € experience. I must admit, I missed the less solid, play-money feel of the punts of the previous year, but they do take up less space in your pocket, and that's what's important, right?