The Dubai move is getting closer by the day. Still haven't got a definite date yet but it's looking like early October at this stage. I have three weeks of training and meet and greets, two of which are in London and one in Dublin and then off to Dubai some time after that. I'm like a kid at Christmas, counting down the days till it all kicks off! Very very excited!! I have an induction day coming up at the end of August where I get to meet the other graduates from the IBEC programme that got places with Tourism Ireland. I already met some during a DIT post grad course I started there a few weeks ago and it'll be a great little network when we're done with it!
I was down in Kerry there last weekend with my cousin John. Drove down to Golden in Tipperary on Thursday night so we'd get a good run of the day on Friday. We hit the road early on Friday and after a quick stop off on Inch Strand we landed in Dingle for the night. John had a friend living in Dingle so we had local knowledge on hand. Ended up in a pub called An Droichead Beag for the night with live trad music and lots of 'the black porter'. Best night i've had in a long time!
The next morning wasn't the best morning i've had in a long time however. In fact, it was probably one of the worst mornings i've had in a long time (worth it though!). We headed west out of Dingle with the intention of ending up in Tralee that evening. A phone call from John's friend offering a short hike up a mountain made us turn around though. The perfect hangover cure I might add! We met Cian and the lads from the night before in Dingle and then drove 15 minutes towards Mt Brandon (second highest mountain in Ireland). I was assured that we weren't going the whole way up and thank god we weren't because the clouds were down and we couldn't even see anywhere near the top.
We started off on a pathway that lead us through some farmland and eventually a peat bog that some farmer had been cutting by hand. We eventually made it to a cliff edge and sat down for a break. The views were amazing, as you'll see below. I only had my phone with me so excuse the quality. Cian also pointed out a tiny patch of ground near the bottom of the cliff to the right where you could make out old stone walls. Apparently there used to be a village there that was only accessible by climbing a good way up mt Brandon and it's been derelict since the 40s. There was talk of going down to it but the weather wasn't great so we decided not to.
After a quick bowl of local seafood chowder and an ice cream in Murphys we hit the road and ended up in Tralee that evening. It was very different from the hustle and bustle of Dingle and seemed pretty dead. We had an early night and left early the next morning for Tipperary. We stopped off in Ballybunion along the way. I spent many a summer in Ballybunion so it was nice to see it again. Next stop was Newcastle West in Limerick to see some relations and then Tipperary to pick up my car. All in all,a great weekend.
Heading off to Basel this Friday for the brothers stag do. Should make for an interesting post next week, if i'm still in one piece considering what we have planned (worried Barry???)
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