Train to Dublin

So we were up at the crack of morning to shower, pack and enjoy one final full Irish breakfast at the Strangford Arms Hotel before embarking on the next leg of our journey to Dublin in Southern Ireland. The Strangford Arms Hotel was one of the best we have ever stayed at in terms of customer service. Everyone there at all levels went above and beyond to make our stay there comfortable and enjoyable, even turning a load of laundry around in a few hours yesterday for us so we could go into Belfast city for one last walk around. This one of Stephani was taken atop the muti-story parking lot.

It's a rainy, drizzly Ireland today aboard N I Railways en route to Dublin. Stephani dozes in and out as I snap little video clips on the iPhone of picturesque Irish fields, sheep, motorways and villages. Over hill and dale we go to Dublin aboard this wireless wonder of modern day connected travel.

Last night we had dinner at "Coast" restaurant in Holywood with my Uncle Norman and his Wife Laurie. I've been craving warm cottage pie since we landed and was delighted to see it on the menu. Marriage is treating uncle Norman well, he seems very happy and content and able to deal with the stresses of work with ease. While we were dining, he was fielding status updates from British Telecom HQ about an impending storm surge and anticipated flood. He was telling me about the last G8 Conference, which was held in Belfast last year. Apparently the city was given very short notice to outfit the hotel where the conference was taking place with very high speed fibre optic networking, but they made it happen in record time for the conference participants and the world's media.

Belfast continues to emerge from the troubles with a defiant, triumphant attitude. As they say around here, it's not the size of the dog in the fight you should be concerned with, its the size of the fight in the dog, and Northern Ireland is all about fight.  There are still small factions of hard liners here who hold out hope for a united Ireland, but I can't see that ever happening in our lifetime. David Cameron's coalition government has been putting a lot of focus on investing in Northern Ireland. The old Harland & Wolf shipyards are kept extremely busy building oil rigs bound for the North Sea, and the city has adapted to renewable energy, building thousands of wind turbines at H and W. The shipyard still works on some commercial shipping, mostly maintenance, and the Titanic Quarter as I mentioned recently is in the midst of the largest dockland economic redevelopment efforts in Europe. Titanic Studios sits across from where the Titanic was built, it is a full-scale soundstage complete with state of the art green screen systems. Game of Thrones is shot here among other shows.   Northern Ireland is going to be just fine.

Let's see what's going on down south in Dublin. We've switched from GB Pounds to crispy fresh Euros, will be pulling into the Jury's Inn real soon. More later..