Dublin

[redfiona99]

I had to get up at 5.30 in the morning to catch the flight. Once I was on it, it was a good flight, Aer Lingus are definitely on the recommended list. Their in-flight magazine had the best description of Viennese waiters I have ever read - "you sit down at your table and the waiter comes to take your order when he's ready."

Getting from the airport to UCD was easy enough, and the wonderful student organising committee pointed me in the right direction and I got registered for the conference. This was the last time that anything went right organisation-ways on Sunday.

So I eventually reached the halls of residence I was going to be staying in, after getting lost due to building works. Unfortunately, they were only letting us check in after 3 pm. This was going to prove a problem as the conference started at 2. They let us dump our bags and ablute though, so it wasn't too bad.

I went to the start of the conference, and then snuck out at ~3.30, thinking that the first rush would be over. I was wrong. So, after a 15~20 minute wait, I got given my room card. The numbering of the halls rooms was unique and caused great confusion, not just to me. Once I'd found the room I was supposed to be staying in, I discovered my key card didn't work. I went back to where I'd checked in, they said they couldn't fix it and I had to go to HQ, which I did. It was then discovered that they'd booked me into two places at once. That got sorted. With regard to the other problem, that they thought I was leaving on Thursday, they asked me to return the next day.

Managed to find a shop open on Sunday, and bought my usual travel snack of off-brand Jaffa Cakes, and discovered the odd thing about the way the Euro spends in Dublin. Things like hotels are expensive, things like Jaffa Cakes are not.

Get back to the conference in time for the official opening.

The evening food clashed with the football, but I got talking to some people so I didn't see any of it. I checked the score when I went to the toilet at it was ~ 20 minutes gone and it was already 1 - 0 to Spain.

I noticed that it had got worse when someone else returned and said it was 2 - 0. Then it got worse, and we were busy cheering up some very downhearted Italians who were bewailing "the humiliation". There was a particular hand action that went with that word, despite them being from up and down the country.


Important points:
5.30 am bad
Aer Lingus good
UCD campus and staff good
UCD computer system bad
Football bad



Woke up in time for breakfast, which was difficult since it involved 7 am, as the conference started at 8.30 in the morning. There are Swiss and Germans involved.

First talk was wonderful, as expected, because the speaker is one of those people who doesn't give bad talks. I was looking foward to the second one, but the hour and the darkness of the room (and the lovely, rich baritone of the second speaker) meant that snoozing happened.

After a mad rush to get the posters up (yes, I know, I've been to enough conferences to know that they don't actually mean that your poster must be up by 12 when they say it must be up by 12, but I still have the fear), there was the first set of parallel talks.

Then there was lunch which was viciously mayonaised so I ate the remainder of the day before's Jaffa cake stash. I also went to the accomodation reception to sort out the other problem, which is that they thought I was checking out on Thursday when I was actually checking out on Friday. The difference being somewhat important given that my next hotel/B&B room only became available on Friday.

The rest of the day went in a whirl of talks and posters and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Actually the talks were spectacular, including one by my boss (including about half a slide of my data, so nothing spectacular) and one by one of the big wigs.



Early mornings bad.
Talks good.
Alcohol bad.



See previous day. The only problem was that the conference was rationing the coffee and tea. While my description of scientists as alcoholic caffeine junkies is an exaggeration, it's only a slight one, and we were treated to the sight of various important professors walking around with caffeine withdrawal.

That night I got dragged out (voluntarily, I should add) to Dublin city centre, so I now know a few more good Guinness pubs (Keogh's, if anyone's wondering) by D, who was head of the student organising committee. If Ireland ever have a lack of tourism problem, they just need to clone D and they'd be having to restrict entry, the country would be that full.


Coffee vital for conferences.
Guinness actually drinkable in Ireland



I didn't have a proper hangover, I just had a too tired to function combined with mild fogginess. A fair few of the biochemists/bioinformatians skipped the first parallel session because it was hard chem on the one side and MRI on the other. I stayed around. I may have snoozed a little but at least one of the chem talks was interesting. More interesting once I was able to understand what the heck was going on after the last plenary on the Thursday but interesting even without that.

That night we weren't given any food, instead something that I think was either Tallisker or McAllen 16 year old whiskey. Unfortunately it was totally wasted on me, as I don't like whiskey, even the good stuff. I passed my glass on to one of the other scientists.

A group (thoroughly mixed in the way of conferences) of us travelled by bus into the city. On the bus were a vast raft of Italian teenagers, over in Ireland to improve their English. I couldn't understand a word, and L, who is Italian, said that I should consider myself lucky. Apparently teenagers are the same the world over.



I still don't like whiskey.
Teenagers are terrifying.
Chemistry, however, remains interesting.



The conference continues. I feel suitably refreshed because I had a long sleep and the minimum of alcohol the night before. It's just as well as it was the afternoon that I had to present my poster. It went well, a few interesting questions, and much mockery from the chemists.

The remainder of the talks went well, complete with some jokes at the expense of one of the big wigs. The final plenary is brilliant. I could have done with it being earlier in the week, mind. It would have made EPR a bit easier to get my head around.

The conference dinner came next, so we all went racing madly back to the halls of residence. The problem came when, contrary to promises (and meeting my somewhat pessimistic predictions), they hadn't fixed the whole checking out on Thursday thing. I'm not sure whether they just thought a lot of scientists are absent-minded, but who checks out before the conference dinner.

That got sorted and dinner continued.

The food was good. The entertainment, which was Irish dancing with a twist, was excellent. The entire room was doubled over with laughter.

The drink was cut off remarkably quickly (apparently uni/council by-laws), so roving bands of scientists went hunting for booze in Dublin town. I was going to join them but then it got late and the taxis became vanishingly rare, so I went went home instead. By then I'd managed to be talked into going for a hike on Saturday by yet another German.


Poster presentation went well.



On Friday, I met up with some old friends of my father's who took me round Trinity College.

First I dropped off my luggage at the left luggage in the big tourist shop with the green top just outside Trinity gate. It's only over-day, but the prices are very reasonable.

Trinity College is very pretty, and because it was the library (or possibly the college's) 350th anniversary, they had an exhibition of old books and documents, including a copy of the Irish Declaration of Independence (document name may be misremembered). There's something about rare documents. We also went to the National museum where I looked at bog bodies. And Bewleys, which really is as close as I've seen to a Viennese cafe outside of Vienna in terms of style.

It was an interesting day, and I must remember to send them a thank you e-mail. And convince my Mum that she wants to visit them.





Howth Head is up past Malahide on the DART (have I mentioned how awesome the DART is?), and is a very pretty walk, on a sunny day. I know this because, remarkably, it was a very sunny day when I went. Which, 10 k hike later, is how I ended up getting sunburnt in Ireland. I had good company - the aforementioned German and his post-doc - and there was good food on the way.

I'm glad we did the walk when it was sunny, because even with that, there were some right muddy patches, all of which I ended up in. They'd gone on a walk to Bray with the rest of their group the day before and it had bucketed down. One of those days where I'm glad I was looking at the pictures and not in them.





As I had most of a day to kill, because my flight only left at 20.10, so I pottered around Dublin doing touristy things. Mostly I really want to recommend the Dublina museum (http://www.dublinevents.com/dublin-places-to-visit/dublinia.php). It's wonderful. Simplified for kids but not dumbed down or inaccurate. Definitely on my shortlist for best museum.

I got to the airport just in time for the last three games of the Wimbledon men's final, which stopped the front of Dublin airport. For real, people on the service desks were doing one game on, one game off to watch it. I was upset for Murray that he lost. And, as I will always admit, I'd be fonder of Federer if he weren't Swiss.


Some pictures, hopefully in clickable thumbnail format:

O'Reilly Hall at UCD - I wish I'd got a decent shot of the rest of the campus because there's lots of pretty trees, and a lot of campus is the sort of 60s/70s concrete futurism that I like.

A photo from the walk round Howth Head - I solemnly swear it is just outside of Dublin. Yes, I know how sunny it is. How do you think I got the sunburn? As one of the Germans said, it looks more like California than Ireland.

As proof that I was in Ireland, this is what Christ Church Cathedral looked like the next day -