It finally happened.
I went to fookin' Dooblin!!! No, not the village in northern California, the real deal: Dublin, Irelend
It was a hair-raising experience getting a visa. The website says minimum two weeks; my boss gave me barely 10 day's notice. Long and short of it: Sylvia McLauglin from the Irish consulate in San Francisco called me to say that they always try to accommodate business travellers, and that a visa had been isssued, and next time would I give them four weeks' notice, please!!!
However, I did make it from San Francisco to London Heathrow, and was waiting there (yeah, I had go through a change of terminals, and a security check line longer than the one at the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, and a transit visa in the process) when Dreidre called from Dublin to say that they were having a taxi strike and that she had, bless her heart, arranged for a private taxi operator named Jim to pick me up at the airport. I was to share the cab with another gentleman, though, which, of course, was fine by me!
I arrived in Dublin via British Midlands (they stiff you 5 Euro for a sandwich) and deplaned to voice-mail from the 'other gentleman' who turned out to be none other than Paul, the trusty (as far as the English can be trusted) Outbound Marketing contact for EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa), based out of Weybridge, England. Jim, of course, was very much in attendance, and, since I had no checked baggage, we debouched towards Dublin town with remarkable alacrity.
EMEA Marketing had laid out dinner and entertainment downtown, which I was planning to miss as I had work to do and sleep to catch up with. Paul, however wanted to parttake of the festivities, and I ended up droppping him at a restaurant by Mansion House (which, by the way, is currently the mayor's residence) before continuing on to the village of Saggart, where we had been accommodated in princely style at the Citywest Hotel and Golf Resort.
But more about that in a later post...
[All posts ©opyright of the author. Syndication rights reserved.]
I went to fookin' Dooblin!!! No, not the village in northern California, the real deal: Dublin, Irelend
It was a hair-raising experience getting a visa. The website says minimum two weeks; my boss gave me barely 10 day's notice. Long and short of it: Sylvia McLauglin from the Irish consulate in San Francisco called me to say that they always try to accommodate business travellers, and that a visa had been isssued, and next time would I give them four weeks' notice, please!!!
However, I did make it from San Francisco to London Heathrow, and was waiting there (yeah, I had go through a change of terminals, and a security check line longer than the one at the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, and a transit visa in the process) when Dreidre called from Dublin to say that they were having a taxi strike and that she had, bless her heart, arranged for a private taxi operator named Jim to pick me up at the airport. I was to share the cab with another gentleman, though, which, of course, was fine by me!
I arrived in Dublin via British Midlands (they stiff you 5 Euro for a sandwich) and deplaned to voice-mail from the 'other gentleman' who turned out to be none other than Paul, the trusty (as far as the English can be trusted) Outbound Marketing contact for EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa), based out of Weybridge, England. Jim, of course, was very much in attendance, and, since I had no checked baggage, we debouched towards Dublin town with remarkable alacrity.
EMEA Marketing had laid out dinner and entertainment downtown, which I was planning to miss as I had work to do and sleep to catch up with. Paul, however wanted to parttake of the festivities, and I ended up droppping him at a restaurant by Mansion House (which, by the way, is currently the mayor's residence) before continuing on to the village of Saggart, where we had been accommodated in princely style at the Citywest Hotel and Golf Resort.But more about that in a later post...
[All posts ©opyright of the author. Syndication rights reserved.]
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