Holiday prep!

We have an upcoming sailing trip so did a little bit of holiday prep over the last few weeks.  For me it was buying a new bikini in Superdry while for Ciaran it was attending a Radio Operator Course in the Irish National Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire. He attended evening classes for 4 days from 6pm to 9pm and then completed an exam at the end. After receiving notice that he had passed the exam he now awaits the arrival of his licence which is issued by the Department of Transport.

And so it looks like we are all set for our holiday!

We will fly to Dubrovnik in Croatia and then make our way across the border to Montenegro.  The day after our flight from Dublin, we will hook up with our crew in Tivat and head out sailing from there. We are onboard for 7 days with a crew change at that point. For the second week, the new crew will sail to Albania.  I'm looking forward to it - and you can look out for trip reports and pics when I blog about it here. For the meanwhile, you can also read a past trip report about our Caribbean sail

In other news, last weekend Dublin was heaving with American Football fans (40,000 to be exact!). The Aer Lingus Classic brought together the opening college game of Notre Dame and Navy. Notre Dame was the "home" team so Dame Street in Dublin was renamed Notre Dame Street and it was the scene of the biggest tail gate party Dublin has seen in the lead up to the game. It was spectacular with marching bands and Notre Dame branded posters everywhere - with the most massive one on the old Central Bank Building. I was actually in work that day but could see all the action on twitter along with Ciaran giving me a report while he wandered around the area. 

Unfortunately the weather was atrocious for the game with a lot of heavy rain. I had to get off the train at the stadium entrance and a lot of fans were soaking wet before they even got to their seats. I was wet myself but I did have waterproof trousers on. Among the busyness of the the stadium fans, I heard my name being called out as I walked against the traffic. Surprizingly it was a former colleague of mine who I had bumped in to the year previously when I was actually at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic of Nebraska v. Northwestern. What are the chances of meeting the same guy in the same place a year later!

I had heard there was going to be a Navy flyover just before the game, and at about 7.20pm we heard the loudest noise over our house. I ran to the door and saw 3 Ospreys fly over the house. Very exciting!

In upcoming cinema news, it is National Cinema Day this Saturday with all cinema tickets being just 4 euro. I've booked tix for The Equalizer 3 in Rathmines Omniplex but with Ciaran working all day, I may go and see an earlier showing of Barbie or Openheimer.  I went to see the new Mission Impossible movie about 2 weeks ago which was very good but I feel like Openheimer is probably the one that I most want to watch again. I'll let you know if I do end up going to one of them again......