Two Birthday Weekends in Dublin

There have been a lot of celebrations and only a little to be sad about in Dublin over the last couple of weeks.

Saturday August 6th saw me celebrating my Pseudo Birthday! The weekend before I had celebrated my birthday with my family so I decided that I should also celebrate with my friends and.. well... why have one birthday a year when you can have two!?! Ha ha! The day started off well with me having a big conversation with a bunch of my friends back in New Zealand who were having a party but unfortunately it took a bad turn that afternoon when we lost to the Springboks but luckily the loss was sugar-coated by a couple of beers in the pub with friends. Later on that evening I met up with a bigger bunch of friends in the local bar for a celebration and I was presented by a gift voucher for Mandarin lessons from some of them! A gift that I am definitely looking forward to putting into use! Another highlight was a gorgeous chocolate cake which lovely Johnny made for me and brought into the bar - topped with yummy chocolate icing and candles of course!



The following Thursday saw me unfortunately having to say goodbye to my Mum. As I am sure those of you who know us can imagine, it was an emotional scene. It has been so great having my parents over here over the last month and a bit and I miss them a lot. It's always hard to say goodbye.

I couldn't mope around for long though as when I was on my way home from the airport I bumped into the Davidsons, family friends from New Zealand who were in Dublin for a couple of days! We happened to be catching buses from the same stop but had time to arrange to meet for lunch the next day before our buses arrived.



Then there was our win against the Aussies on Saturday!! Yeah! Go the All Blacks! :-) We watched it at our Kiwi mates Teresa and Brad's house with our Aussie friends Anita and Jez so needless to say it was good fun to watch!

Sunday it was Jez's birthday and the four of us Kiwis went over for afternoon tea to Anita and Jez's place in Maynooth, a little town about 30 mins by train out of Dublin. While the boys watched the cricket, the girls gossiped in the garden and we all had a relaxing afternoon being well-fed by Anita's brilliant cooking (mmmmm.... caramel mudcake with caramel icing.... mmmmm....).