Dublin day 2….

So after getting back to the hotel around 1am earlier this morning unfortunately there was little time to have a lie in as we were setting off early to head into Dublin for the sightseeing bus tour. We got off a couple of stops away from where the sightseeing bus tour starts but spotted a bar doing Irish breakfast for 6 Euros so headed in there first.

We’d heard yesterday too that the volcano in Iceland had erupted again and there were severe delays to flight in the UK. At the moment it was mainly in Scotland however Obama had left earlier than they were due to and had flown out last night so all the traffic was back to normal in the city centre.

getting ready for the bus tour                On the double decker bus                 The Dublin spire

    

The weather while nice and sunny was a bit cold today, we stayed on the top deck of the bus apart from a few minutes when the rain showers broke through. It was a “Hop On Hop Off” and at 11 ish we hopped off and had a walk round the Temple Bar area of Dublin. This is a great place at night with restaurants, bars and street vendors. During the day its a little different and a lot quieter.

Says it all really!!                                     The temple bar                                          Green is everywhere!

    

We had a couple of drinks in the actual Temple Bar itself and were “treated” to a bagpipe serenade by some Scots guy in a kilt who sounded as though he was just practicing in the bar!

Bagpipes:

 

Bagpipes in the bar                   The best cider ever!                  Whisky menu!        Happy face in the bar

Brief tour of Temple Bar

After a couple of drinks and a chat with the girl serving we headed for a couple of pictures of the river and then back over to the bus stop to Hop On again. We stayed on the bus the whole tour then and didn't get off till the last stop.

The whole city was out yesterday!       Sign in the Hard Rock Cafe window!   No shortage of bars in Dublin

      

We grabbed the bus back to the hotel where we chilled out for a couple of hours before heading down to the Jury bar to this time meet up with people before the 2nd show tonight!

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Dublin show 1…

This venue is unique! its like no other arena I've seen! Its like an amphitheatre but its indoors. It has an area for standing on the floor but the first (and only) balcony is very close to the stage and as myself and James found out its fantastic place to see the show from.

 

Kevin, myself, and James took our place by the left hand side of the stage right in front of Dave K. Jackie and Dave were up in the balcony as Kevin had managed to get seated tickets for them. From the second that In The Flesh started i could tell the sound wasn't as it usually was. It sounded a touch muffled and was very VERY quiet. The crowd had obviously noticed too as at the quiet part before the beginning of Mother i heard chats of “ turn it up, turn it up” coming from the rear of the audience. With the exception of the sound the show was fantastic. The crowd were great and started to sing along at every chance they had.

For the second half of the show James and i decided to go and sit on the balcony, i had spotted four spare seats that had been free the whole of the first half. We made our way up there, Jackie and Dave spotted us and came to sit in the two other empty seats next to us. It was evident after the first 20 seconds that the sound up here was way better than down on the floor, I'm sure they had maybe tweaked something during the intermission and was told at the second show by my friend Shane on the tour that they had added more speakers for the second night.

 

 

 

It was fantastic to be more or less level with Dave K and Robbie while they were on top of the wall, I’ll add some pictures to the 2nd show review i do to give you and idea of the seating set up.

After the show we headed back to the hotel bar with Dave, Jackie and James. Kevin and Philippe joined us 20 minutes later, we both had a little  food at the hotel bar as neither of us had had much apart from the airline lounge food earlier in the day. We then took a taxi back to our hotel and hit the bed around 1am. We were off on the Dublin tour bus tomorrow.

Dublin Day 1, The luck and not so luck of the Irish!..

So after two excellent shows in Manchester, the second one with my dad who’s last show was The Beatles in 1963! Kami and i drove down to London for a night at home before flying out to Dublin the next morning. We’d stayed at my dads  for the last three nights, he really enjoyed the show and said it was totally different to what he was expecting! Phrases like “ There was some great guitar work” and “ that guy (Robbie) could do a show on his own” were heard and my dad left the venue speechless after seeing what i’d been seeing for the last ten years of my life!

We flew out of Gatwick to Dublin, i paid £14.00 roundtrip for my flight and due to Kami booking it a month or so later she paid £19.00! £5 more, scandalous!

We were up at 6:30am and sat in the airline lounge having breakfast by 8:30 for our 10am flight. I’d checked in online the day before, printed out our Boarding passes and both of us only had carry on luggage for the short two night stay in Dublin.

After an hour in the lounge, the gate was announced and opened and we made our way to board the flight, we presented our boarding passes at the gate and were asked to move along to the lounge. A second check was in place and the guy said to kami she wasn't allowed to proceed any further as she hadn't had her boarding pass stamped at check in! it was now 9:15 and boarding closed at 9:40. He pointed to the small print on Kamis boarding card  that said all Non EU  travellers had to have their boarding passes stamped at check in before coming through security. After a minute of pleading and realising the guy didn't care that we had genuinely missed the small print we had no option but to try get back out of airside, run to the check in, get the stamp and head back through security again for the flight.

We headed to the airport information desk only to be told is wasn’t as easy as the above as officially we had left the country! We had to be de-contained and go through the whole airport system again! we had ten minutes to do this and soon realised we weren't gonna make this flight. The lady at the info desk called to get someone to come and walk us back through customs and security and after seeing us sitting down for over an hour waiting for said person to come she decided to take us back through herself. As missing the flight was our own fault we also had to buy a new flight out to Dublin and the prices i was getting online that i was checking while we were waiting were coming up at over £200 each!! The “info lady” again being helpful called through to Ryanair and found we could get a flight for £100 each.

After taking us back through we purchased a new flight, headed back through security and 15 minutes later we were back airside waiting for the 1:30pm flight. Unlike the guy at the Ryanair gate the info lady was ever so nice and did what she  could for us, i went to the shop after getting through security and bought her a box f Cadburys Roses for her helpfulness. She was delighted as we took the box of chocolates to the desk to give her and said “ awww you didn't have to do that” to which i replied, “ i know we didn't have to but we wanted to”

We headed back to the airline lounge and sat and waited as the flight got moved from 1:30 to 2pm, then to 2:30pm and then to 3pm,  it was 3:30pm before we flew out but the good news was we were on our way! albeit 8 hours after arriving at the airport!

We had heard the day before the President Obama was due into Dublin today at 1pm, hence the reason for our delayed flight. As we landed at Dublin airport the cabin crew pointed out the reason for our delay!

Air force one

 

We took a taxi to the hotel, wasn't too bad traffic wise but we did notice cops were everywhere! The taxi driver had his radio on in the car and the broadcaster was telling how Obama had just taken off from a short stop in a small village in his Chinook helicopter, as we looked out of the window to the right we saw in the short distance a Chinook helicopter just starting to fly through the skies!

We were all meant to be meeting up at 5:00pm in the Jury Hotel bar just down the street from the o2 Arena. Jackie and Dave had arrived a couple of days earlier, Kevin and Philippe had arrived yesterday and our friend James from Newark had flown in earlier today but been delayed due to Obama's flight.

We freshened up at the hotel and then took a tax down to the venue, what we didn't realise was Obama was doing a speech right in the centre of Dublin and after 35 minutes (what should have been a 10 minute ride) in our taxi the driver turned the meter off and said he was packing in for the night after our drop off!

Jackie had texted earlier to say they were all leaving the bar and would meet us at the venue. After getting out of the taxi and walking towards the venue i realised something was missing out of my pocket, my camera!! Id left it in the backseat of the cab!! ARGHH!! today was NOT a good day. I called the hotel who in turn called the cab company and i heard back from the hotel 15 minutes later to say the taxi driver had found the camera and would drop it into the hotel later that night. Whew!

We met up with everyone outside the venue, Kevin was on the hunt for tickets for Jackie and Dave, Dave K had text Jackie to say tickets were like rocking horse shit his end due to their being a lot of guests at tonight's show. Kevin came back a while later with two nice piece of rocking horse shit and Jackie and Dave were all set for the show!