Our view of Lansdowne Road
The Patrouille de France soars above us
 
Toulouse fans
Fast action
Penalty converted for Toulouse
The streaker gets taken off the pitch
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We make our way into town to go see the European rugby cup final, between Toulouse and Perpignan, which both eliminated Irish teams in the semi-finals... making it easier for us to get tickets. Parked in the city centre, we have a stroll towards Connell street, where we both discover the most recent landmark of the city: a tall metal spike has been built after this project won a contest. We then cross the river Liffey, and see the Ha'penny bridge. At Trinity College, we go inside the grounds before moving on to Grafton Street. This pedestrian city centre makes for an enjoyable walk, but only the local accent really enables me to know I'm in Ireland so far. Moving on to Stephen's Green, we step up the pace until we catch up with many groups of supporters, most of whom are in red and yellow - the Perpignan colours. It's quite amusing for Laurence to have me over just the week-end when the city signs read "Bienvenue" to welcome some 7000 French rugby fans. Landsdowne Road Park greets us at the end of the road - it is the oldest international sport venue, trivia knowledge I could not miss since Laurence always highlights these facts about Ireland or Dublin. I must say the place has charm and character, as it has been expanded over more than a century, but retained its quaint location on the side of a rail track and is not like other more anonymous oval grounds. The stadium gradually fills in - we have good seats at the front of the eastern terrace. The weather is amazing, as the wind provides a quick change between light showers and superb sunshine. The show before the game is bright and colourful, both on the pitch, around us with people handing out flags, and even above us as the Patrouille de France jets fly by. The game is quite exciting, even if the domination of Toulouse silences our section mainly made of Perpignan supporters. We are near many locals, who do sometimes cheer for Perpignan though, such as this rough man with a coarse voice who just shouts "Perpignan" randomly, at amusing times completely unrelated to any action in the game. Toulouse dominates with penalties, helped by having the wind in their back. Their opponents show a good hand game and bring nice moves right beneath our eyes, but fail in making the few last moves that could make the difference. At half time, Toulouse lead 19-0, so the team I've been supporting looks in a comfortable position. The second half provides greater suspense and action as Perpignan slowly catch up on the scoreboard, but they are unable to come up with a nice try as Toulouse has at the end of the first half, when one of their players managed to push back an opponent going for the tackle. There is even more fun and animation when a streaker jumps onto the field and runs across, to the amusement of the whole crowd. He gets seriously tackled by security and escorted off, his funny hat returned to him so he can cover himself somewhat. The game goes on, and ends in a gust of wind and rain, soon after beautiful sun. Perpignan needs a try and a penalty to catch up, but a penalty from Toulouse ten minutes from the end kills most of the suspense. A last minute try by Perpignan concludes a pleasant game, which we enjoyed all the more than the stadium and the crowd were so friendly and animated. Once the game is over, the crowd remains seated and cheers for the teams, especially when Toulouse receives the cup and runs around the stadium. A girl from a group asks me to take their picture, which I do before asking them to pose with Laurence - another fun moment to show his family and our colleagues back in London. Throughout the game, we've fooled around with some small movies I shoot with my camera, and have had more than a laugh. I take my last picture there in the men's room - everyone looks at me strangely when I start trying to get a shot of Laurence, until they realise I know him and we all chuckle. On the way back through Dublin, we see more of the city: Dail Eireann (Parliament) and the Temple Bar area in particular.
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Dublin 