Another Belfast Trip for Bex

Every year our Corporate Finance department in our Belfast offices goes down to Dublin for our various get togethers (Christmas Parties etc.) but this time we decided that we would go up to them. So lucky me got the job of organising all 30-odd of us to travel up to Belfast on the Friday via the train, have dinner together with the 18-odd from the Belfast office, and stay over in a hotel before travelling back by train. This may not sound too hard but when you are dealing with workaholics who have trouble leaving the office in time for their train, a bug that was going around the office and making a lot of people really sick, restaurants that didn't want to cater for a group of 48-odd, and a hotel that was generally not so helpful or indeed that nice, it ended up being a little stressful to deal with. However, despite the fact that I was quite sick with the bug myself, everything slotted into place in the end and we had a very pleasant evening and of course most of us didn't get to bed until the early hours of the morning! Those that are interested in seeing my fairly inebriated department can click on the photos below.



As the Firm was providing us with transport to and from Belfast, a few of us thought that we would take the opportunity to make a whole weekend out of the trip so we booked ourselves to stay on an extra night at the hotel. Staying up there was Úna, Monica, Roisin and myself - so it was a fun girly time. We did a Black Cab Tour which we would highly recommend. The stories we heard and places we saw were interesting if not a little scary and the murals in the areas that were the centre of what is referred to as 'the troubles' are pretty daunting. To top it off we were absolutely amazed (and horrified) to find out that our Cab driver had actually been shot through the neck during the troubles whilst doing his usual taxi-driver job! Thank goodness that a lot of those problems are over and long may the peace last!



Of course, being a group of girls, we also did a bit of shopping and in the evening a couple of our colleagues from the Belfast office came out with us for dinner and drinks again - another late one of course! All in all a very fun weekend although it did not help my viral cold/flu/whatever it was and I was dying with it the following week! Ah well, it was worth it!