Tribewanted: Vorovoro

I can’t believe I haven’t posted on this before, but better late than never.
The idea started way back in September when I suggested an Autumn gathering. There were already a few gatherings happening (inc. Chicago) so I decided to postpone to St Patricks Day. Although the deadline for signing up was supposed to be November, we had a few people sign up a couple of weeks before hand. I had booked 3 apartments in the city centre and prebooked tickets for the Guinness Brewery (sooo happy I did that too!). Other than that, the city and country had laid on the entertainment. The party started on the Thursday night when Julie and I met Dan, Cyndi, Jonny from the airport and then took them on a pub crawl (ostensibly to find a place to assemble everyone the next day). We met up with Carol that night in The Gravediggers and navigated home by the stars. The next day we went straight to the airport to meet the early arrivals. Most of the day was spent in the airport bar as people arrived in two’s and three’s. Eventually I loaded up my van with luggage and took it all into town to the apartments while the rest of the gang loaded into buses and taxi’s. The night was spent in “The oldest Pub in Dublin”(not true) and our apartments. The next day, with programmes and maps in hand, we took off into the festival. Myself and Fuzz set ourselves up in O’Neill’s to watch the rugby and then, after a freshen up, I gathered everyone together at The Hairy Lemon and went for dinner in Break for the Border. We had a table reserved overlooking the dancefloor and stayed there all night, eating, drinking and dancing. It was a short walk back to the apartments and most of us made it easily enough. On the Sunday we were up early’ish for a visit to the Jameson Irish Whiskey Distillery and then on to the Guinness Brewery. Unfortunately we were already losing people to early flights but the rest of us went for dinner in The Arlington Hotel where Carol had booked a table at the traditional entertainment night. Great Craic!
The Monday was a sombre day as our little family diminished in size until only Dan and Julie were left. They went off to explore the country a bit more and I colapsed from exhaustion (well actually I met some Australian friends for drinks and then went to work!). If everyone had half as good a time as I had then it was a success. Roll on 2008!