TGIF

I'm a bit behind in my posts, so catching up now.  It's astounding how hard I have to wrack my brain to remember what I did yesterday.  Curse my feeble memory!

Anyway, I was determined to get to the Kilmainham Gaol before the hoards of tourists so on the way to the bus I just grabbed a coffee and Lemon Muffin from a cafe that had people spilling out the door waiting for their coffees.  Ireland is turning out to be a bit like America, where it's a battle to find a decent coffee.  The muffin was great, the coffee on the other hand was repulsive and so it went straight into the nearest bin.  I had to resort to McDonalds for a McCoffee (there is a first for everything).  It was at least a bit better than the one I threw away.

Going to Maccas meant that I missed the first bus to the Gaol, and a line up started for entry, just when I got there.  The tour guides for the gaol are usually well educated history buffs.  The tour provides an excellent run down on the social and political history of the time, but with a focus on the 1916 rebellion.  It was excellent, truly excellent.

From there I went across the road to a coffee shop at another attempt for a decent coffee.  Only to be disappointed, again.  I caught the bus back to the centre of town and by this time it was time for lunch and I spotted a Vietnamese restaurant that looked quite good, so I stopped there and had a Vermicelli salad.

As an aside, all the toilets have been decent and clean in Ireland, hence no toilet stories!  And, the others thing I have noticed (in comparison to Italy) is that there are tourist information offices everywhere.  And people ready and willing to help at nearly every corner.  It is a pleasant and welcome surprise, and something Italy can learn from!

From lunch I got on the hop on hop off tour for the Docklands area of Ireland.  It reminded me a lot of Melbourne's Docklands.  This went past the U2 graffiti wall, which anyone is allowed to graffiti as long as it relates to U2!

This photo's for you Todd:

The Docklands area houses some huge IT companies like Google, Linked In, etc. etc.  A specific tax law introduced to bring in investment to Ireland makes it attractive for these companies to channel their profits through Ireland, and their Headquarters are here too.  They only pay 12.5% tax.  So, it's got a lot of new modern looking buildings, but interesting Dublin doesn't have many high rises at all.  Not unlike Adelaide in that sense.

I went back to Central Dublin for and went to a Gallery then a spot of shopping before getting back on the Docklands bus as I had an appointment at 5.00 with Alessia from Google.  Nadia had arranged for a friend of hers to show me around the Google offices.  I felt bad for Alessia as she was doing this in her free time for me at 5.00 on a Friday, but she explained that it was a good excuse to get her away from the office.

Now, I thought the Milan Google offices were impressive, but the Ireland offices are nothing short of jaw-dropping.  There is a full gym (as good as any paid gym I've been to).  A swimming pool.  Amazing terraces, kitchens fully stocked (include chocolate bars) etc. etc.  The aesthetics are appealing, and bright on all floors.  I like that they use Macs, and not Windows!  But the thing that really appealed to me was when I had to use the toilets.  Wait for it ladies....they provide tampons and sanitary pads for the staff too!  Flabbergasted.  I think big companies can learn from Google, but I'd be really interested to know if it impacts staff retention rates.  

View from one of the floors:

Alessia took me to TGIF, which is like happy hour for the staff.  The beer is fully supplied along with hot food.  I had a Bulmers on Google!  Alessia and I spoke at length about various topics.  Such a lovely girl with ambitions, and  plans.  Impressive.  

I had a good look around and noted I was definitely the oldest one there.  Alessia said (at 28) that even she feels old.  It would be interesting to work in a place like that, I wonder what the dynamics would be like?  Most of the staff looked like they were 25, and Alessia said that a lot of people move to Ireland for work, so then their work becomes their life, they make friends at work, go to the gym at work etc.   She said she tries to maintain a life and friends outside of work and pays for gym membership, but you can see how the cycle would occur, and how the company probably gets more from their staff than the staff do from the company.