The Cotton Family: November 2024

Dublin 2024

I left on Wednesday, October 30th. I was able to get a business class ticket which was wonderful! This is what the seat looks like on United for my flight from San Francisco to London:

Upon arrival, which was on October 31st, I rested a bit and then met the crew for dinner. After we all got in "Hocus Pocus" themed costumes and headed out to the Temple Bar area for drinks, live music and fun.

After one too many beers, we were all very hungry for some early morning pizza. I'm not sure if it was the best pizza ever or we were just really hungry!

Friday, November 1st: Most every morning I started my day off with breakfast in the hotel.

The Convention Center of Dublin is where I spent the next 8 days working. The building was huge and did have some great views. It was a short walk from our hotel.

On Friday, after a full day of work, we had our team building event. We try to do this at every meeting as many of us do not get to see each other too often. This activity included silver ring making using wax molds. We'll see how mine turns out after the ship it to us.

After we were all starving and split up for dinner. My small group went to Bad Bob's for a burger and live music which was great.

Saturday I worked all day and then had a dinner with a friend. Sunday, is my busiest day. I worked about 12 hours and then headed back to the hotel to try to go to bed early. Monday was also one of my busier days. I hosted a dinner that evening at a hotel. This picture was taken on our walk back to the hotel. You can see the convention center in the middle of the picture, the bridge to the right is in the shape of harp which is a common symbol in Ireland and of Guinness.

Tuesday, November 5th we had a game night. Nerds playing board games. I opted to play Blokus for awhile and then head to bed early.

Wednesday, November 6th was mostly a normal work day. Lots of election talk. That evening, I went to a reception before dinner. This is a picture of me with the famous Steve Crocker. He is one of the founding fathers of the internet. He was being honored by receiving the Jonathan B. Postel Award. Steve, Jon and Vint Cerf are considered to be the founding fathers. The award is in Jon's name as he suddenly passed away in 1998.

After the reception I went to dinner with my friend Mike. We had a fabulous dinner. Here are 2 examples of the dishes we had. Very fancy food and wine. Amazing gastric combinations. Chefs are amazing artists.

Thursday, November 7th: We are finally getting to the end of the work week. During the day I do not get to venture out much. There is just not that much time. Thursday evening we have a staff dinner which was very nice. Of course drinking one of the traditional beers of Ireland.

Friday we wrapped everything up at the convention center. The meeting went fine. That night I met up with my "fancy" dinner group. We get a bit dressed up and go to a fancier restaurant to celebrate the end of another IETF meeting week.

Saturday, November 9th: Today was my first day off. I went with my friends Mike and Russ to adventure outside the city. Starting with a walk to the rental car place, there is the huge spire in the city.

Here is a picture of me with Mike and Russ in the entrance to the visitor center for Newgrange.

Newgrange (https://www.newgrange.com/) in the Boyne Valley, is a 5000 year old Passage Tomb famous for the Winter Solstice illumination which lights up the passage and chamber.

We actually got to in the passage tomb in small groups. It was really amazing.

Here you can see the art carvings in the rocks.

After that we had a quick bite to eat at a small village pub. We found some old ruins of a castle that were now guarded by cows.

Sunday, November 10th: Today was my day to explore Dublin. I walked all around and also took the hop on/hop off bus tour. I love those tours because you get to see so much in short periods of time. You can then go back to various places you'd like to see more of. Below is an art installation dedicated to the Irish famine. There is also a fantastic museum on Irish Emigration but I didn't have time to go.

You can see in this picture the more modern buildings are just built around the older churches and structures.

A panoramic view of the city streets. There are a lot of pedestrians, buses and streetcars.

Not far from the large spire, "The Portal" connects Dublin to other cities from around the world. It is a live streaming camera. While I was looking, it was connecting to a city in Lithuania.

Here you have the largest obelisk in Europe and a church turned distillery.

Below is the original doorway to the Guinness factory and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Here you will find the Christ Church and also the most photographed door in Dublin.

Here I am at "The Temple Bar" in Dublin. Very famous spot in the city. When you walk the streets of Dublin, you'll see there is a pub just about on every corner. It is a very multicultural city. You hear many languages. They have trash in the river and homeless on the streets just like other big cities. They drink and smoke a lot. There is a lot of potatoes and beef. Sometimes the Irish accents are very thick to where you don't really understand what they are saying. But mostly friendly people.

For my last full day in Ireland I did a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher. After that we went to the coastal town of Galway. They had just started their Christmas Market. The Ireland countryside was beautiful. Cows, sheep and horses everywhere.