It’s weird the way things come to you sometimes…
I was looking at the clickthroughs for here in the last day and one came from the old Dublin Metroblog which I posted to for a short while last year. I always find it strange reading back old stuff I’ve forgotten I’ve written but, given that I’m in a very similar situation now and no closer to an answer, I thought I might repost it here…
I had a thought for here last week. Maybe it’s more of a question. Maybe it’s just me trying to use you rather than tax my own meagre brain.
Anyhew… I’ve been on the wagon since Christmas, not for any specific reason other than to detox a bit and just to see how it pans out (I did it for a year a while back when my wife was pregnant and thoroughly enjoyed most of the experience). Saturday evening rolled around and, babysitting in place we headed out to the cinema for a couple of hours.
Turns out the one movie we wanted to see was sold out so rather than sit through something we knew would turn out to be two hours of our life we’d never get back (I’m looking at you Fun With Dick & Jane…) we decided to do something else with our precious social time. But what?
Normally you could go out to the pub for a few drinks and the other staple, going to dinner, was out too as we’d already eaten. It brings me to the question I’ve been burning to ask:
What do you do in Dublin at night to socialise if you don’t drink?
Answers on a postcard…
I’m not one of those people who can’t be around drinkers if I’m sober but if you’ve ever done it you’ll know that there are few places less fun to be than town at 3am with a large, boisterous group of your 64-sheets-to-the-wind friends in amongs thousands of others in exactly the same headspace. It’s exactly like being Barney when he’s the designated driver the night Duffman comes to Moe’s.
That’s why it was so funny.
We came up with our own unique solution. I was, I’m ashamed to say, one of those who was blinded by the arrival of Starbucks here in Dundrum. Normally I’m a “think local, shop local, try to avoid the big multinational” kind of person but I do love my coffee. Turns out though that they’re open til 10 in the College Green one so we decamped there, had a couple of capuccinos and chatted the evening away like two carefree college students with designs on each other, which, give or take 15 years, we were.
How great would it be if there were coffee shops open til the wee small hours all over the city? Places of warm Java, large cookies and tea or decaf for the civilians…
R