When I met Florence in Dubbers

On my 18th, maybe a teaspoon of that pint
was consumed

A couple of weeks ago I braved the 45 minute flight on what felt like a wind-up toy plane to Dublin to go bawl my eyes out to Florence, her machine and her magical harp. Admittedly, we stayed in a hostel called Paddy's Palace, getting picked up from the airport in a Paddywagon and I did in fact buy a t-shirt that wittily uses the word Craic, but in all honesty Dublin really surprised me.

The last time I went was for my 18th birthday, for a weekend getting horrendously intoxicated with the unbelievably vast student population and getting Irish jigs performed for me on stage in the famous Temple Bar. This time however, I made sure to try and do things outside the tourist arena, taking an amazing, (I'm not gonna lie) trip to Dublin zoo, the second oldest in Europe, and even taking a train ride to the coast for a fresh Irish seafood platter, (minus the Guiness flavoured oysters.) To be honest, I didn't want to go back to my bunk-bedded hostel from the zoo. It must've been one of Irelands only reasonably sunny days, and all of a sudden out pops an elephant from behind this gigantic enclosure and then I turn round and see orang-utans helping the zoo attendants mowing the lawn. Absolutely mental. The coast was incredibly fresh and breathtaking too, with every Irish man and his dog taking a stroll along the sands that could have been taken straight from the white stretches of Devon.

The main attraction was obviously going to be Florence. Minus the outrageously steep alcohol prices at the O2 arena I still managed to get suitably pissed enough to start emotionally sobbing, swaying and upright spooning as soon as she floated out in her magnificent cape.