Day 4: Sat 31 Aug - Dublin

As we had had a pretty full day yesterday, I slept better and felt more alive when I got up. We all had an early breakfast (0700 h) as Jane had to be at CCD at by 0830 for her meetings.  I went in with Jane, while Sylvain and Sadie went off on another tour, and found the Press Room and got my little flag to put on my name tag.  I came home on my own via City and had a little nanna nap (I think the travelling backwards on the Tram is playing havoc with me), then did some washing and some sorting out of papers, etc.  Tried to not eat too much during the day as we had a Reception and a Dinner to attend that night.

The farewell reception was for Henri Manasse and was a typical affair with finger food and drinks, speeches and replies.  Met up with a few other non MEPS personnel and had a bit of a chat. Stayed for a while as dinner didn’t start until 2000.

After the reception we took a slow walk to the Council Dinner venue but were still early so decided to check out the Thai reception which was at a different venue.  We eventually found it and had a drink and listened to the speeches then followed others to Trinity College for the Dinner.  The College is the oldest in Ireland and is an impressive one.  Had dinner in one of the old halls.  Food was better than last year and service was excellent.  Speeches were quite short really and it was all over by just before 2200.  We had to keep an eye on the time as the last tram left at 2300 and we didn’t want to be stranded in the city.  However, we made it to the tram top with plenty of time to spare and was in bed, after a shower, before midnight.  We had an entertaining ride home with crack-heads and drunks.  At no stage did we feel unsafe as all trams have at least one security guard on-board, and on this one there were two – and they were big boys – Maori type big, so I don’t think there would have been any trouble at all.  The trams are very neat and clean and devoid of graffiti – a refreshing change. 



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