The Weather

After an unusually warm spring, an unusually warm summer, an unusually dry fall, and an unusually warm and dry beginning of the winter it has to be said that I am very lucky with my first 10 months here. OR the Irish are not rightfully complaining about their climate. It's December and the other day I was taking a lunch time stroll without a wearing jacket. And just now I was playing tennis -although quite challenging not the most demanding exercise- in shorts and a t-shirt. The evening feels warm like a summer night, and the evergreens surrounding the tennis courts only add to the effect. Winter in Dublin, so far so good! 

Pre-Christmas in Dublin

Although I generally prefer to be on the move, the occasional weekend in Dublin could be most enjoyable, as is confirmed once again over the past days. With the previous weekend in the Netherlands and Christmas travels coming up I find myself comfortably enjoying a few days in what is becoming one of my favourite cities in Europe. And while plenty of time is spent relaxing and chilling out and reading and writing and sleeping and napping and eating and the like, a bit of exercise is warranted to make one fully appreciative of all the former. Hence Bo and I decided to set off to a brisk beach walk yesterday afternoon, hiking from Killiney to Bray. I am under the impression that the small stretch of land between the low cliff-like sandy hills is only accessible at low tide, whereas it comprises of rocks and stones that are still wet from the high tide that was undoubtedly preceding a few hours before. Rather strenuous because of the uneven surface the exercise proved to be quite a work-out and the reward in the embodiment of a huge burger and a pint of stout was a very welcome one indeed at the Porterhouse in Bray. Apart from the large variety of rubbish that the sea was returning to us main land inhabitants we did spot two remarkable mammals on the way. Whereas I first thought to have spotted two swimming dogs, it was really two seals that stuck their heads out of the waves (hence the Dutch word for seal – zeehond!!). After having watched Liverpool beat West Ham we left the Porterhouse and took a bus back home. Changing quickly in proper Christmas gear we set off towards the National Concert Hall where we enjoyed a performance of two century old Wexford Christmas Carols. Although the performance was all in all quite enjoyable, it featured some odd instruments including some sort of a musical box. The guy ‘playing’ the box did little else than turning a sling attached to it which resulted in a high pitched squeaky melody that was not exactly aligned which the otherwise very capable singer and the cello which was being played by a hot Irish girl in rather unattractive shoes. Bo and I enjoyed the more upbeat songs a lot more than the outstretched religious lamenting but all in all it was 20 Euros well spent. Another good night’s rest and an altogether more passive day today –insofar possible- with the only workout being an hour or so on the hybrid as I took James out for the ‘small circle’ i.e. up the Dublin mountains and circling back to Ranelagh. Despite my three layers of protective clothing I was still shivering after an intensive headwind climb uphill which didn’t leave me linger too long at my favourite viewpoint but rather had me thundering downhill swiftly enough, overtaking cars in an altogether most irresponsible but all so enjoyable sweeping rush home. With the adrenaline quickly receding from my blood I put James back in the shed, took a long hot shower, and sank in the couch next to the newly set-up Christmas tree. Weekends spent in Dublin, they aint that bad.

A random Thursday

Scrolling through my previous blog posts I realise that all I write is about weekends away in Ireland, weekends abroad, weekends in Dublin and the occasional remarkable evening in Dublin. Perhaps it is time for a taste of an ordinary day in my life, one that reflects the more day to day events that keep me going here. Let’s say last Thursday, which featured a nice confluence of idiosyncratic events that altogether let me fall asleep fully satisfied that night.

With Bo abroad for the week and a dentist appointment at half nine in the morning I could wake up at a time that tasted of weekend. I had had Koen over for a few days so while I nourished my breakfast cereals he gulped down three times my quantity in equivalents while preparing for his journey homeward later that day, endeavouring to fit three “onesies” into a small backpack. After breakfast we walked towards the junction in Ranelagh from which Koen would continue down the airport and I walked my casual walk towards the dentist. While the dentist would be in my top three of least favourable people to visit things could have been worse and I wasn’t all that depressed leaving the practise in the drizzle that had meanwhile commenced. Although it has already been nine months since I started my Dublin life I still try to hold on to the exciting feeling that I am living abroad and blending in with the local life. A small sparkle of this feeling suddenly emerged when I answered the dentist’s assistant’s questions about my address and contact number, realising that all were Irish and that the girl was Irish and the dentist was Irish and that I was living in Ireland and doing very ordinarily Irish things like going to the dentist. Holding on to these feelings keep making me appreciate my life abroad and are one of the biggest plusses of my current career phase.

Work was work as usual and sometime during the day Will from ASU asked whether I felt like replacing a team member that evening for a 5 a side football game. Will joins in occasionally during our Tuesday lunch session football games and thus knows how much I like the game. For that Thursday night I had had numerous plans and ideas, from drinks with Edel to Christmas drinks that a business partner from work was organising that night to the option I eventually thought to have settled for: taking a run around the block and having a relaxed evening afterwards (without drinks and at home). Well football brings the same positive externalities as a run does and it much more enjoyable which is why I told Will happily that I’d be there. Unfortunately I didn’t succeed in buying astro shoes in the hour after work before the game commenced which is how I found myself walking in studs on what normally is a tennis court. Apart from slightly painful and disastrous to the quality of my leather Puma King football boots, I couldn’t run or turn properly which all in all diminished my added value to the team considerably. All that was left for me was to take shots at the goal, which is what I did, and luckily to an extend that I am now invited to join the team for weekly games.

After the match Pieter would pass by and pick up my golf clubs that two former colleagues who were visiting for the weekend would like to make use of. Rather than them passing by we agreed to meet in Smyths in Ranelagh for a drink and while more and more people joined it was with great discipline that after three pints while the clock approached midnight that I called it a day and went home to sleep.

A random Thursday full of energising bits and pieces which make Dublin feel at home and me feel very happy to live there! 

London and surroundings with Dana

My visit to London wasn’t all about Vasiliki (see post below). On the contrary, the lion’s share of my time was spent with another living souvenir from the Indian subcontinent. Dana and I arrived at the same time at the international airport in New Delhi and were treated the same reception by a gang of Indian AIESECers who took us to their favourite hangout where they during the course of the afternoon smoked a package of cigarettes each. From that day late in August 2008 on I stayed in Delhi until my departure in February of the following year, whereas Dana’s programme took her to various places in India where she got to spend a month here and a month there, only to return to Delhi by the time the incessant heat had given way to more bearable late autumn temperatures. It was only four years later when I moved to London for a few months that we got back in touch and it was now with great pleasure that I got to spend another weekend in her presence. As we discovered during our weekend in the peak district that we share a common passion for hikes (link), Dana had spotted a 15 km walking route around Winsor castle. The perfect combination of exercise, fresh air, and plenty of scope to catch up while strolling along made for a lovely Saturday afternoon. The evening featured food in one of my favourite eateries in London, a tiny Pakistani restaurant tucked away in between units similar in appearance but all so much less tasty, and a good bottle of wine in an underground bar just off Brick Lane with great live music. Fully caught up on all the mutual gossip we’re good to go for another few months until the next hike, scheduled for either Ireland or the all famous lake district in ‘the north’ (of England). Dana love thanks for hosting me, it has been a genuine pleasure as always!

Vasiliki

In New Delhi we lived across the road from each other, in The Netherlands we lived in the same student house, and my apartment in London was a 10 minute bike ride away from hers. Apart from these coincidental but most appreciated months that our international routes overlapped, she spent some time in her native Greece whereas I briefly called myself an expat in China and now live in Ireland. Travel-wise our independent itineraries crisscross Europe in an apparently random and disorganised figure, coincidentally conjoining only to revert shortly afterwards to diverging dotted lines on a map. Last Sunday was one of those cherished moments that we got to catch up on what must have been at least half a year of absence. I loved the scene: a 5 minute stroll from Embankment, where she travelled my tube and I cycled to by Boris bike, in a snug red painted coffee house, right next to the window so that London’s metropolitan vibe was always right there but distanced enough not to interrupt our conversation. 2 hours of intense catching up, sharing stories of work, life, new loves and long forgotten memories, only to end when I had to catch my plane back home and she needed to go back to the bunch of friends she had over. Vasiliki, it was yet again a true pleasure seeing you, and I already look forward to our next time. Borders and distances do nothing to true friendships if not only enhancing them.

(photo below: London tube, autumn 2012)

Cork

After nine months in Ireland I am tempted to conclude that the blissful weather I’ve got to enjoy thus far is one of Dublin’s prerogatives rather than a nationwide inconsistency with the ominous muttering that can generally be heard when a native here is asked about the climate. Beyond the azure blue heavens of the capital the “Land of Fog and Gloom” features grey skies and continuous showers without imminent relief. Well, perhaps this is all a slight exaggeration, but the ceaseless lashing we had to endure this weekend in Cork was something I have rarely witnessed here. That was not to say that we did not enjoy our break away, on the contrary, it was another trip that was greatly valued!

Cork has a cosy vibe to it that makes it all snug and cute. The small coloured houses, the winding streets, the hills in the north of the city and the medieval spires of various churches make it a pleasant place to roam around. The centre is stocked with class restaurants and inviting pubs, whereas the suburbs feature brick stone chimneys and grey factories that make it very clear that Cork is more than an oversized village. Accommodation isn’t cheap and the value-for-money in our cramped two by three metre room was not overly impressive yet the central location of Sheila’s Hostel made up for everything. During an entertaining afternoon we chimed the bells of St Anne’s Church, visited the butter museum in which we saw a video from 1995 about how butter used to be made, had a great lunch at the English market, and did some brief yet efficient shopping. Exhausted from all this activity what was left of the daylight ceased with our siesta back in the cupboard that was our bed for the night and we were all energetic for an evening out and about.

Insider tips rather than the Lonely Planet, which for once seemed to have missed out on all the hotspots, we enjoyed a tremendous good wine in an old pharmacy turned wine bar, complemented by cheese, ham, sausage, fresh bread and numerous dips. Fully satisfied we followed up the Mediterranean bliss with rather more Irish delicatessen as pints of beer and glasses of whiskey and baileys only to drift away in a lovely satisfied sleep hours later. The morning featured the usually cosmic Irish breakfast in a Godfather-style restaurant tucked away in between to larger buildings yet fully packed despite the miserable weather, and a proper desert at one of the venues where we had already enjoyed treats the day before. Even the train ride back home was enjoyable; while the rain unsuccessfully yet incessantly tried to break through the window shielding us from the elements of nature just a foot away we enjoyed the pleasures of a good book and decent music while sipping from our imaginary coffee (the ATM at the train station as well as the coffee machine as well as the card reader from the coffee cart on the train were broken). Before going home and lighting up the fire we rounded off the weekend in style by enjoying a sizable burger and really the last pint of the weekend at a snug newly discovered pub just off Heuston Station. Cork, despite all the wet misery you’ve thrown at us, you have been wonderful! 

Madrid!

The bi-annual trip that is already becoming a much celebrated tradition took us this time to Madrid, capital of the kingdom of Spain and home to exactly the kind of joy enhancing traditions that we were on the lookout for. Imagine rich brunches in the bright sunshine, classy cocktail houses, crowded bars with 6 Euro buckets of beer, the world’s oldest restaurant with their exquisite choice of sucking pig and baby lamb, 1 Euro cans of beer in the streets and 12 Euro cocktails in classy venues with more than competent female bartenders... Despite the economic crisis Madrid buzzes with people enjoying life, outdoors in the streets and parks, indoors in the bars and restaurants. Watching El Classico on a big screen, squeezed in between supporters of both the Royal and the Catalonian sides, transcends any experience of watching this clash of titans beyond the borders of the Iberian Peninsula.

I was particularly appreciative of the fact that Spanish is not giving in to the slightest to English as the lingua franca, despite the many visitors, and that bilingual menus are a rarity beyond the very core of the touristic centre. The landlady of the ho(s)tel did not speak a word of English, which led me to chat to her in Italian whereas she would respond to me a slow Spanish that was fairly well understood. I am all too glad that my hard earned Italian skills come of use at times, also beyond the Alps!

As the tale goes that the ability to sleep little and party hard ties in with one’s juvenility this trip was the perfect yardstick to check whether I am still as young as I generally behave. As I had Griselda from Estonia over for a drink or two on Friday, my head did not touch the pillow until about 1 a.m. whereas the alarm clock woke me up from a deep satisfied sleep a mere two hours later. The odd experience of waking up and walking through a city in which people are still awake ended when I boarded the air coach to Dublin airport. Bar the occasional dozing off on the airplane it was not until four o’clock that night (new time!) that I fell asleep again, after a long night of drinking and dancing. 26 hours, I can still do it!

Griselda wasn’t the only ghost from the past suddenly popping up in my contemporary life that weekend, as my first experience in Madrid was a coffee with 5.5-year absent Lu who aroused distant memories of glorious times as an ESN mentor in Tilburg City.  

The trip was all in all one to be cherished, and Madrid was, however much she had to offer, only second to the company I was in, as weekends as such truly serve to catch up with good friends you don’t see too often. Trusting Madrid to be a trustworthy keeper of our adventures and experiences, let’s finish off with the best and worst of our experience. Gentlemen, it was a true pleasure!

Best value for money (1): The bucket with 10 beers for 6 Euros

Best value for money (2): Luijkx’ metro ticket

Worst value for money (1): Koen & Teun’s metro tickets

Worst value for money (2): Luijkx’ new ring

Best tips (1): Gabri

Best tips (2): Lu

Mostly spotted street: Gran Via

Most random place to drink beer: Building excavation

Best drink: Gin tonic with pepper and cucumber

Most beautiful elevator: in the hostel

Longest consecutive time awake: 26 hours

Longest consecutive time asleep: 10 hours

Best way to finish off in style: with a bucket of beer 2 hours before departure

Cherished forever: Our trip to Madrid and the lovely time we had

Lost forever: De pot (toen Luijkx hm had)