Whiles surfing the net, I came across this guys set-up at home.
My verdit?…neat, maybe one day i will have a set-up like this. I am sure he put in a lot of time and effort into this setup of his. Anyway here are some pictures I sourced from his website: http://www.13amp.org
I woke up around 5AM with a splitting headache. I was kind of expecting this invasion of my brain cell with this sort of pain, so I quickly rushed to the bathroom where I had a packet of pain-killers. I went back to sleep immediately and woke up at 6.30AM from my wake up call.
Breakfast was in “The Cellar”. My appetite was huge, as you probably know, from all that alcohol I had been drinking from the night before into the early hours of Tuesday. I quickly finish breakfast and went over to the conference rooms to setup my kit. Tuesday was a short day. The Directors had fishing and golf lined up for them from 3AM onwards, so the Directors Secretary bought me a days pass for a bus tour of Dublin city centre.
I caught the bus from just outside The Merrion and proceeded to take pictures. The bus tour was fabulous. I totally enjoyed it. It was windy as it was an open top bus, and at one point I lost my baseball cap I bought in Bangalore. I was gutted, but found solace in the fact that I became friends with an American Lady called Ebony.
Monday fond me up bright and early. I had a great night on Sunday. The conference organizer and the Directors Secretary I was supporting took me out to a restaurant about 5 minutes walk from the hotel we were staying in. I think it is called Pebles. The food was absolutely lovely. One thing I learnt about Irish cooking is that they never use frozen fish to cook. Everything is fresh from the sea. I was hoping to have my first pint of genuine Irish Guinness beer, but unfortunately, the restaurant did not serve beer.
Anyway after setting up the conference room with the laptops and projectors needed to the Directors presentation, I took the free time that I had to take pictures around the Hotel. I would just like to mention that the pictures have been taken with a Nokia N95-8G, which is quite impressive.
This building is just across the street from The Merrion Hotel.
The Merrion Hotel – A View From Outside. You wouldnt believe that this
building has such beautiful rooms in it.
The Coffee Lounge At The Merrion.
The conference was setup up in two parts. One room catered for a teleconference meeting, and the other room was for the conference “proper”
BAT Dublin Conference Room One
BAT Dublin Conference Room Two
Now I shall show you some pictures of my Hotel room. The one thing that caught my eye as soon as I entered the room was the height of the bed. Not that I am complaining. It was a great bed, absolutely perfect.
My Comfort Zone In My Hotel Room
My Entertainment Centre
The white cabinet on which the flat screen TV is resting on has a fuly loaded drinks bar tucked away in it!
My Bed
Also check out the BOSE CD player sitting on the right side of this picture, if I had known, I would have brought some “serious” Smooth Jazz CD’s. The aquality of sound that bashes out of those devices is wicked.
The Bathroom
OK, so things finally finished off at 7PM and I gathred my IT Kit and made tracks to my room, I was quite tired and was looking forward to an early night. Just as I got to my room, I got a call asking me to be at reception by 9PM. We were all going out for a meal at Johnnies. Now for those of you who are toourist in Dublin and have not been over to Johnnie’s…well, you guys are missing out “big time”.
The drive in a BMW 740 series] took about 35 minutes. I actually went on ahead of everyone else with the conference organizer from Number 20 just to make sure that everything was in place for the Directors when they got there. The joint totally blew me away. It was here I had my first genuine pint of Guinness. Wow, now this is what I call Guinness. I am now sure that the pubs in london dilute their Guinness one way or the other. from now onwards, if I ever have the urge to drink Guinness, I will either fly over to Dublin or have it sent to me by some special means. Check out the pictures taken at Johnnies below.
My flight from Heathrow was uneventful. The flight was delayed by 25 minutes, but hey, in the end we were up in the air and before i noticed the captain was annoucing our arrival into Dublin airport.
I was not expecting the airport to be that small. Mind you I was expecting Dublin to be a big city, but as my driver was telling me on the way to the Hotel, Dublin is a fairly small city. Since joining the EU, there has been a huge influx of workers from Europe currently working here. Everything here looks so different [obviously!].
The driver was kind enough to take me through a quick tour of the city.
I am staying at The Merrion Hotel, which, according to the driver, is located in a very strategic part of town. He adviced me to check out The Temple Bar. My next question to him was “how about the Guiness”. He just laughed and said I should not leave Dublin without sampling the beer. He said if I did leave without sampling the beer I would be doing myself serious harm.
My hotel room is just amazing. As usual, i have taken some pictures of the room and hotel for those interested. Watch out for Day Two log enteries which will have some pictures.
I have never been to Ireland, you will please pardon my excitement.
There is a conference being held there for a period of 4 days. Its a practice that when the top guys in BAT are having a conference in any part of the world there is the presence of an IT person there to assistance with any IT related things. This can range from Blackberry support, through VPN connection issues down to anything.
Yesterday, the PA to one of the top guys at work asked me to kindly step into her office so that we could book our tickets to Dublin. I will be going via Terminal One at Heathrow and will be flying with Air Lingus
I wonder what the Irish people are like? And what is all this facination about Guiness Beer? Well I hope I get some time to do some sightseeing whilst I am up there. Hey if any of you out there is Irish and has some tips for me, then please jot something here for me. Thanks
That reminds me, I need to ask the PA tomorrow what hotel we will be staying in.
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