Um, yeah.

Yay! Friday! Hooray!

Did that distract you? Yeah, me neither. Although that is a happy thought.

Wish I were going to Venice and Brussels with Rachael and Lala, but 1) I haven't ever actually met either of them nor do I know them well through the Internets, and 2) foreign travel isn't in the cards right now. Sitting here looking out at all the green trees and the clouds (it's been raining on and off) I wish I were in Dublin, though.

I don't really have an exciting career, and it usually requires little to no travel, but 2 years ago I got a phone call out of the blue from my boss asking me if I could go to Dublin. Ireland, yes. The next day. I told him I had a doctor's appointment the next day but I could swing it after that, and 2 days later I was on a flight to Ireland.

It's a convoluted and, more essential to why I won't go into details, work-related story why I got sent there, but Dublin sure was fun. Despite there being... problems with the business-related aspects of why I went, the people I worked with there were exceedingly friendly, as was just about everyone. Dublin's a cool town. Plus you get the most fabulous accents (drunker you got, the less comprehensible. Fabulous.) I spent a week and a half there, then another week later on, and despite having to work part of the weekend and putting in late hours the rest of the time, I got some time to myself.

I'm not really a good tourist, because most of the thing I really like to do in unfamiliar places is to feel familiar and not like a tourist. I do that by walking around a lot and looking at stuff. So I got to walk all over Dublin and took random tour bus things and ate very well (oh, the food. Irish food is wonderful). Luckily I was staying in a very posh hotel right off St. Stephen's Green and about 100 steps from the end of Grafton Street, the big wander-through-the-shops area of Dublin. So, easy to get to just about everything.

The weather was similar to Oregon's, except more variable. So it already felt like home. It's a lovely walkable town with lots of interesting things and people and I wish I could move there and drink at the pub on Fridays and be one of the Dubliners. I'm trying to push K into a Real Honeymoon (tm) there but it really is a long flight and honestly? Kinda looks and feels like Portland. Yeah. Or Seattle. But older. (I like the sense of history about everything.) So it's not really an exotic location.

But it's a comfortable place. And to be honest, I don't like touristing for adventure. I like vacations to be laid-back and low-key. I could take him through St. Stephen's Green to see the ducks, past the Oscar Wilde statue, then over to the canal and the swans. Up and down Grafton street and then over to Guinness to play tourist and make fun of the ridiculous Like-Disnleyland-Only-Its-Beer tour they have. Through Trinity college to see all the old buildings (my favorite: the Dean who declared women would be let in "over my dead body." He's buried beneath one of the bigger promenades and women were admitted the year after his death. Bwhahahaha) and the child singers and the woman playing harp on the street corner. Oh, and a fabulous dinner or 3 or 7. And then a long slow evening at the pub.

I think a long slow evening at the pub is just the thing for tonight.