I was only back at work a week or so before my Scandinavian adventure continued – I was off to visit my friend Julia in Oslo and we were going to go together to Lillehammer for Christmas, along with her flatmate Sebastien, a Parisian also stranded in Norway for the festive season. I met a Norwegian at the Ryanair terminal that had to show me his passport to prove his nationality; he had one of the thickest north Dublin accents I’ve heard in a long time. Jules met me at the central bus station in Oslo, it was really good to see her again even though we’d just seen each other a little over a month ago. We caught up on all the goss on our way back home and she pointed out some Oslo sights in the dark. When we got back to her place I met Sebastien and we got ready for bed, helped Sebastien pack (boys are completely inept at this, they just stare helplessly at empty suitcases, then look up at you with a plaintive, querulous expression and ask, “What should I bring?”). Next morning we were up bright and early to catch the train to Lillehammer (which we almost missed) and then spent the next few hours reading (me a lovely book, the other two were studying for upcoming exams, yuk). Once in Lillehammer we checked in to our hostel and then had a quick squiz around “town” before it got dark, it was really small, cute and Scandinavian. We found out, to our horror, that it had been the warmest winter in Lillehammer for about fifty years, and thus there was very little snow and most of the activities we were planning to do were cancelled. No husky sledding, no deer spotting, nothing but skiing which I’ve hated ever since my parents used to drag me every year. We went to a deserted Olympic museum which was kind of interesting – the best part was the pretend winners’ podium that the three of us took our pictures on. Then we played in the snow (Seb had a very strong penchant for snowballing us and shoving snow down our tops and jeans) and took pictures of the gorgeous sunset. For some reason they are all beautiful in Norway. I don’t understand it – the sun sets the exact same way all over the world, but in some places the sunsets are unremarkable and in others they are stunning. Must be some sort of atmospherical thing.
Next day was Christmas – well it was for Seb and I, the Latins in the group, but for Jules it was just plain old Christmas Eve. The plan had been to get up and go skiing, but as the other two didn’t seem to be stirring despite the alarm clock I took advantage of their torpor and pretended to be similarly dozing so I could enjoy a delicious lie in. I didn’t have the remotest interest in a) skiing or b) getting out of bed so it turned out perfect for me.
When we’d eventually left our peaceful slumber we decided that we’d have Christmas dinner that night and go skiing the next day before heading back to Oslo. Jules and Seb went to a service in Norwegian (church being boring at the best of times, I don’t know how they kept their eyes open not understanding a word) and I went for a walk next to the enormous, magnificent and frozen lake in the twilight. The vistas were absolutely gorgeous, the wintry whites and blues and navies contrasting with the oranges, reds and yellows of the setting sun. As I was making my way back to the hostel I ran into the other two coming back from the church and we headed back to start working on our Christmas dinner – nay, feast. In true Christmas tradition we were going to stuff ourselves fuller than the sacrificial turkey. For starters caviar and salmon canapés, followed by roast chicken and vegies, then home made apple pie, rounded off by Christmas pudding (at Jules’s insistence that it just wouldn’t be Christmas without it). To make our Christmas a little more Scandinavian (and a little more jolly all around) we also made gløg, a Scandinavian mulled wine concoction that you make using wine and syrup you buy in the supermarket. Alcohol is hideously expensive in Norway, the cheapest bottle is probably around 50 Australian dollars so luckily I had brought some from Dublin. Actually I was being even more cheapskate than appears as I hadn’t even bought it – it was a bottle of red given W5 by a supplier as a Christmas gift! But it was Wolf Blass so at least it was drinkable.
What with all the food and gløg we had a very festive and fun Christmas, albeit in a tiny hostel in Lillehammer far away from friends and loved ones. Well, far away from most of our friends anyway! Jules and Seb exchanged gifts and they even brought some for me (thanks guys!). Seb gave me a little deer wearing a shirt with the Norwegian flag on it whom I dubbed Norge, and Jules gave me a present of weird and fascinating chocolate covered corn chips (Norwegians are weird in more ways than you can imagine) and a book, “The Kite Runner”, which I can now highly recommend. Fabulous, moving and inspiring book, but make sure you have a box of tissues handy. If you’re sensitive, better buy two boxes.
We revelled for a bit and went to bed as the other two were planning on skiing the next day. Jules was torn between two equally horrible prospects in the world of Julia: Not doing anything Christmassy on Christmas day or going on a holiday without doing an activity of some sort. In the end she figured she’d paid her homage to Christmas on Christmas Eve (just getting into the European swing of things surely) so skiing on Christmas Day won in the end. We travelled up to the ski field and the other two got kitted out and headed for the slopes. I did what I always do when others choose to ski – sit in the resort café and read a book. I was reading “100 years of solitude” which I kind of enjoyed but, well, it just wasn’t as great as everyone makes out. To be fair, I was reading it in English, so I am reserving judgement until my Spanish is good enough to read the original. Plus loads of books I love now I was indifferent to the first time I read them – “The Collector”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “A Cage of Butterflies” to name just a few. The latter I had to read three or four times before I liked it. Now that I think about it I don’t quite remember what made me read a book I didn’t like four times, but I imagine the intense boredom of the summer holidays in my school days may have had something to do with it. It was kind of a hard book to understand, lots of stuff about thought and the way minds work, and lots of jumping around in time from the future to the present, but by the time we were tested on it in class I’d read it at least five times and knew the thing forwards, backwards, inside out and back to front. I was the only one in my class to score A+! I pretended the high score was due to my natural intelligence and insight and tried not to reveal the truth that really I’m just a big dork.
Anyway I stayed in the warm with my book and caffeine until the other two came back, then the three of us went wandering in the snow; it didn’t take long for Seb to find a lovely powdery incline, some plastic supermarket bags, and soon the three of us were racing down the mountains on our makeshift sleds, trying not to get our bums too wet. Later back for more coffee when we realised we were about to miss the last bus back to Lillehammer – miss that and no train to Oslo, and no train meant no plane to Dublin for me the next day! We made the bus though, got back to the hostel, said goodbye to the manic-depressive-bipolar-schizophrenic creep of a hostel owner (that’s a whole other story) and headed for the bus station. The other two studied while we waited for the train (I know!!) while I continued with “100 Years of Solitude”. Back in Oslo and we were all pretty exhausted so off we went to bed pretty early.
Next morning off to the bus station where I said goodbye to Jules for the third time in about a year and a half. I think she’s the only person from back home I’ve seen since I left and I’ve seen her three times! Goes to show what a traveller she is! Good to know I’ve got another intrepid gadabout to keep me company. Goodonya Jules! Three hours from the centre of Oslo to Torp airport. Even after four days or so in Norway I still didn’t have any kroner (Jules had been acting ATM/Exchange Bureau for my visit, thanks again Jules!) and the airport snubbed my Euro, so it was a looong wait to get on the plane for something to eat! Moreover I had the misfortune of finishing my book about 10 minutes after I’d checked in, and my iPod batteries were dead...Deprived of music, food, reading material and shopping opportunities and lacking the energy to come up with an interesting daydream left precious little to fill the time before takeoff. Time passes however, regardless of whether or not it has been wasted, and eventually I was on the plane back to Dubh Linn.
What a relief to be home! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sick of travelling, but after working non stop since March, then traipsing around Spain and Italy, more work, Copenhagen, work again, then Oslo and Lillehammer, I was exhausted and on the verge of illness. Thankfully, my weary head knew that ahead of me lay six days of blissful emptiness. Shelly was in China and Laura in Spain so I had the apartment to myself, I had absolutely nothing planned, and was looking forward to slobbing out on the couch for days on end. And that’s exactly what I did. Lots of watching films, cooking delicious meals and baking muffins, walking in the glorious sunshine...ok, I made up that last bit. Walking in the bitter winter cold. Well, ok, not so much walking as furtively foraying to Tesco to forage for food (woah, alliteration-mania!). Didn’t see hide nor hair of anyone until NYE, which gave me some precious and sorely needed solitude. I think I must agree with Stephanie Dowrick when she says, “If I had to choose between a life of only solitude or a life in which no solitude was possible, I would be hard pressed not to choose solitude”. Not that I don’t love being around people, I do. But when there are people around you’re constantly reacting to stimulus, mostly willingly, sometimes perforce, but either way your mind is engaged with the others around you. It’s only when you get some time alone that you can really reflect on what is happening to you, or, more accurately, what you are doing. What you like and don’t like, what you will change in the future, what you enjoyed. Why you did this or that thing. During those days I came up with some ideas for how I would try and live 2007 – the main objective I decided would be to be more honest in every aspect of my life. Dedicate myself to being as true as possible. I know for this I will need courage, more than I have used before and possibly more than I have. To face and deal with the truth is often much harder than lying to yourself and others. But in the end it is always, always worth it, because a troubled conscience constricts like chains, but living with integrity rids you of this shadow and leaves you free to live a happy life. Of course I don’t strive for perfection; the hope that I might never tell another lie is itself a false one. But I hope that with each experience, each fork in the road, each decision between truth and falsehood, it becomes easier to grasp the courage to walk the path of truth, although it looks darker, longer, and harder going.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen (again)
Another few weeks of work later, and my next adventure was coming around the corner. Our company likes to take us (if we’ve been good little worker bunnies) on a Christmas trip each year and this year our destination was “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen” (that song must have been before my time, I certainly don’t remember it). I’ve been to Copenhagen before and initially that annoyed me a little bit; it would have been great to see a new city. But in the end I was glad as we didn’t do very much sightseeing and I might have been disappointed to spend a weekend in a new place and not really see it! We left on the Friday morning – I found everyone at the check in desk when I arrived at the airport and it was funny to see everyone in jeans and casuals after I’d seen them 40 hours a week for a year in suits and ties etc. Lots of idle chatter as we waited out the security queue (they’ve gotten a lot better recently but Dublin airport security can often be a very long-winded nightmare), and then the plane. I spent the time reading (“The Edge of Reason”, for about the zillionth time, but on a plane you need reading material you don’t really need to concentrate on). When we finally arrived in Lovely, Lovely Copenhagen it was Bloody, Bloody Raining (not surprising really). We were picked up at the airport and driven to our hotel to check in. The hotel had messed up our booking (despite the fact we had printed booking confirmations, and had rung up twice to confirm everything was ok). We sat in the bar and had something to eat and drink while they sorted us out, and eventually the (totally cute) receptionist told us it had been sorted and that everything we ate and drank was on them. Hurrah! Up to our rooms which were great. When I booked them (back in my Genesis PA days) I had requested rooms with a view of the Tivoli gardens (a kind of old-school theme park in the centre of Copenhagen). They gave me the standard line, “we’ll do what we can but we can’t guarantee anything”, which usually means “Haha. No.”. But to my utter surprise and amazement, they came through and we had totally stunning views of Copenhagen (including Tivoli) from our rooms. The hotel had a 60s motif which I totally loved – I felt like I was in an episode of Remington Steele with all the pastel backlighting and old school ice buckets and retro architecture. Not to mention the world’s most comfy beds! With warm and comfy duvets. Hurrah for Radisson SAS!
First night we went out for dinner to one of those cool, funky avant garde restaurants (we have some foodies in amongst our directors). We ended up going for the “Surprise Menu”, which is totally up my alley as I love surprises and trying new things. A food adventure in seven (yes seven) courses. We also ordered the accompanying “Surprise Wine Menu”, a different one for each course. The waiters were great and introduced each of the courses, and the sommelier was really funny and answered all of Roddy’s impertinent questions with good humour (atypical for the Danes, to be honest!). We ate lots of strange things like yummy crackly bread, crispy spaghetti and tomato sauce, spiced deer and avocado drops, but the best dish (unanimously) was the “cloud” thing – some kind of coconut flavoured dry ice concoction that came to the table steaming (well not really, but giving off that dry ice vapour) and sublimed when you put it in your mouth, so you had the totally weird sensation of it disappearing inside your mouth, and then you blew vapour out of your nose and mouth, dragon style. Totally cool. My colleagues are totally fun to be around, and we entertained ourselves and had a great time all night. After the restaurant (we were some of the last to leave, after all the food, the wine, the post-meal brandy, etc) back to the hotel bar for a cocktail (unbelievable but true – I drank a gin martini and really felt myself back in the 60s) and then up to our rooms to bed. It had been a long day and we still had Saturday and Sunday to go!
Saturday was another grey day, we got up somewhat early and after a yummy buffet breakfast did a very short bus tour of Copenhagen, and then got off to do what most people were wanting to do, shopping! We walked up and down the Strøget, which is the main shopping street in Copenhagen, and is also a pedestrian street. Everything felt much too expensive (and that’s pretty scary if you’re comparing to Dublin prices!) but eventually later I stumbled across a shop selling artistic prints. I had dearly wanted to buy some at the galleries in Spain, but I didn’t find anything suitable (the selection was parlous) but here was an entire shop full! After lots of browsing I finally selected one Miró and one Kandinsky which I really love. I had wanted to buy something of Egon Schiele’s, but they didn’t have any ones of his that I particularly liked, just the ones of half-naked women. For an artist with famed and renowned self-portraits, you’d think they would include one or two.
After that I went back to the hotel to lie down for an hour or so before dinner. The Saturday night was to be our big gala night and we were all to dress to the nines. I was wearing a fabulous emerald green dress I’d picked up for a song at Wild Child (a vintage clothing store in Temple Bar) and the incredibly high heels I’d worn to Rodrigo’s wedding. The dress was a little tight, but wearable, and I looked pretty good (I hope) although I wasn’t wearing anything designer. That night we were off to a totally hip restaurant in the Tivoli Gardens called “The Paul”, after the chef, Paul...something or other. There were no signposts or directions to the restaurant and we spent a while wandering about in the magical and lovely Tivoli Gardens but becoming increasingly frustrated and late. Eventually we found the restaurant and were shown in to our private dining room (by the totally hot waiter) where we chomped through (I kept the menu, so you are getting this straight from the horse’s mouth):
1. Starters of Gruyere profiterole, aged Parmesan and Ventrechè, roasted Marcona almonds, Date and chorizo mayonnaise branflakes (don’t remember that one!), olive vert Italiano grande and olive Nero baked with pimento del Piquillo.
2. Roasted lobster with pommes puree. Lobster reduction and pork crackling.
3. Roasted monkfish with veal sweetbread from Dønnerup Gods. Onion soubise and poached Butan onion. Clipped cress.
4. Bloc de foie gras (that was my faaaavourite – so delicious), Poached pork cheek with Autumn truffles from Alba. Green apple, sprout leaf and honey.
5. Jerusalem artichokes and roasted forest mushrooms. Watercress leaves. Aged Parmesan.
6. Duck roasted with its own sausage. Coco blanco, hazelnut and golden sultanas. Maple syrup and raspberry vinegar reduction. Parsley.
7. Aged Munster with fennel confit. Cumin knœkbrød.
8. Rice and cherry brûlée, Champagne granité. Cherry and roasted almond ice cream.
9. Teas and coffees with: nougat française, winter spices, pear and cranberry gel, blackberry sphere with dark chocolate, lavender flower truffle and honey crisp.
The (totally cute who Gary was trying to set me up with) waiter introduced most of the courses but Paul himself came out to tell us about some of them, including the foie gras and poached pork cheek. He seemed like a really fun guy but I bet he’s probably a nightmare to deal with in the kitchen! All of it was even more delicious than it sounds (I swear) but at the end of it all I felt as if I had eaten my own weight in delicacies. We ate, drank, exchanged Kris Kringle presents (here they call it Kris Kindle, weird) and had a good time. Afterwards back to the hotel bar for cocktails (are you picking up a pattern here?) but we were all kind of wrecked from so much eating (strange but true, apparently it takes a lot of energy to shovel food in your mouth) that we headed off to bed soon after. The next day up and about early for some more shopping (purely window for me) until we headed back to the airport to catch the plane home. I was pretty wrecked by this point and wasn’t sure how I was going to come in to work on Monday! I did though, and so did everyone else (bar Ceara who had scheduled that day off ages ago) and we all survived. It had been a great weekend, even if it felt like we didn’t stop eating the whole time! It was also a stark contrast to my last experience of Copenhagen – my second European city, fresh from Melbourne and still thinking in Aussie Dollars, eating Macdonald’s because it was the only food I could afford and staying at the cheapest hostels sharing rooms with 9 or so other people!
First night we went out for dinner to one of those cool, funky avant garde restaurants (we have some foodies in amongst our directors). We ended up going for the “Surprise Menu”, which is totally up my alley as I love surprises and trying new things. A food adventure in seven (yes seven) courses. We also ordered the accompanying “Surprise Wine Menu”, a different one for each course. The waiters were great and introduced each of the courses, and the sommelier was really funny and answered all of Roddy’s impertinent questions with good humour (atypical for the Danes, to be honest!). We ate lots of strange things like yummy crackly bread, crispy spaghetti and tomato sauce, spiced deer and avocado drops, but the best dish (unanimously) was the “cloud” thing – some kind of coconut flavoured dry ice concoction that came to the table steaming (well not really, but giving off that dry ice vapour) and sublimed when you put it in your mouth, so you had the totally weird sensation of it disappearing inside your mouth, and then you blew vapour out of your nose and mouth, dragon style. Totally cool. My colleagues are totally fun to be around, and we entertained ourselves and had a great time all night. After the restaurant (we were some of the last to leave, after all the food, the wine, the post-meal brandy, etc) back to the hotel bar for a cocktail (unbelievable but true – I drank a gin martini and really felt myself back in the 60s) and then up to our rooms to bed. It had been a long day and we still had Saturday and Sunday to go!
Saturday was another grey day, we got up somewhat early and after a yummy buffet breakfast did a very short bus tour of Copenhagen, and then got off to do what most people were wanting to do, shopping! We walked up and down the Strøget, which is the main shopping street in Copenhagen, and is also a pedestrian street. Everything felt much too expensive (and that’s pretty scary if you’re comparing to Dublin prices!) but eventually later I stumbled across a shop selling artistic prints. I had dearly wanted to buy some at the galleries in Spain, but I didn’t find anything suitable (the selection was parlous) but here was an entire shop full! After lots of browsing I finally selected one Miró and one Kandinsky which I really love. I had wanted to buy something of Egon Schiele’s, but they didn’t have any ones of his that I particularly liked, just the ones of half-naked women. For an artist with famed and renowned self-portraits, you’d think they would include one or two.
After that I went back to the hotel to lie down for an hour or so before dinner. The Saturday night was to be our big gala night and we were all to dress to the nines. I was wearing a fabulous emerald green dress I’d picked up for a song at Wild Child (a vintage clothing store in Temple Bar) and the incredibly high heels I’d worn to Rodrigo’s wedding. The dress was a little tight, but wearable, and I looked pretty good (I hope) although I wasn’t wearing anything designer. That night we were off to a totally hip restaurant in the Tivoli Gardens called “The Paul”, after the chef, Paul...something or other. There were no signposts or directions to the restaurant and we spent a while wandering about in the magical and lovely Tivoli Gardens but becoming increasingly frustrated and late. Eventually we found the restaurant and were shown in to our private dining room (by the totally hot waiter) where we chomped through (I kept the menu, so you are getting this straight from the horse’s mouth):
1. Starters of Gruyere profiterole, aged Parmesan and Ventrechè, roasted Marcona almonds, Date and chorizo mayonnaise branflakes (don’t remember that one!), olive vert Italiano grande and olive Nero baked with pimento del Piquillo.
2. Roasted lobster with pommes puree. Lobster reduction and pork crackling.
3. Roasted monkfish with veal sweetbread from Dønnerup Gods. Onion soubise and poached Butan onion. Clipped cress.
4. Bloc de foie gras (that was my faaaavourite – so delicious), Poached pork cheek with Autumn truffles from Alba. Green apple, sprout leaf and honey.
5. Jerusalem artichokes and roasted forest mushrooms. Watercress leaves. Aged Parmesan.
6. Duck roasted with its own sausage. Coco blanco, hazelnut and golden sultanas. Maple syrup and raspberry vinegar reduction. Parsley.
7. Aged Munster with fennel confit. Cumin knœkbrød.
8. Rice and cherry brûlée, Champagne granité. Cherry and roasted almond ice cream.
9. Teas and coffees with: nougat française, winter spices, pear and cranberry gel, blackberry sphere with dark chocolate, lavender flower truffle and honey crisp.
The (totally cute who Gary was trying to set me up with) waiter introduced most of the courses but Paul himself came out to tell us about some of them, including the foie gras and poached pork cheek. He seemed like a really fun guy but I bet he’s probably a nightmare to deal with in the kitchen! All of it was even more delicious than it sounds (I swear) but at the end of it all I felt as if I had eaten my own weight in delicacies. We ate, drank, exchanged Kris Kringle presents (here they call it Kris Kindle, weird) and had a good time. Afterwards back to the hotel bar for cocktails (are you picking up a pattern here?) but we were all kind of wrecked from so much eating (strange but true, apparently it takes a lot of energy to shovel food in your mouth) that we headed off to bed soon after. The next day up and about early for some more shopping (purely window for me) until we headed back to the airport to catch the plane home. I was pretty wrecked by this point and wasn’t sure how I was going to come in to work on Monday! I did though, and so did everyone else (bar Ceara who had scheduled that day off ages ago) and we all survived. It had been a great weekend, even if it felt like we didn’t stop eating the whole time! It was also a stark contrast to my last experience of Copenhagen – my second European city, fresh from Melbourne and still thinking in Aussie Dollars, eating Macdonald’s because it was the only food I could afford and staying at the cheapest hostels sharing rooms with 9 or so other people!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Bella Roma
I met Mum and Dad by accident on the travelator in the airport, and together we took the bus to the Ryanair terminal (situated, as always, in the least convenient place on earth). We caught up on the goings-on of the last days, and started to think about all the things we were going to see in Italy – Rome, Florence, Pisa, and whatever else we could fit into the ten days I was there. I knew I wouldn’t get to see everything I wanted, but was hoping to make it to Florence at least to see Michaelangelo’s Davide.
First things first on touchdown we were picked up at the airport by Andrea, Dad’s colleague at the Universita di Roma. We drove down the highway at 140 kph, the three of us simultaneously worried and calmed by Andrea’s assurances that we weren’t really speeding that much, most people in Rome drive much faster than that. We drove to Andrea’s house where his wife Nicoletta had prepared a delicious authentically Italian dinner for us – she is a wonderful cook, and she shared some of her secrets with me – one of them being www.lacucinaitaliana.it. As well as being interesting and sensible people, Nicoletta and Andrea have two really sweet kids, Maria Theresa and Davide. They were so excited to see us – nothing like when I was a child. I used to hate it when my parents’ friends came over, and I would hide in my room until dinnertime, eat a silent meal with everyone, and make my excuses to get away as soon as possible. I just never knew how to relate to adults – they only asked boring questions about school and made judgements about everything you said or did (“A pretty girl like you should wear skirts more often dear” or “What do you mean you don’t like maths? It’s really useful” etc.). After they asked what grade you were in for the 10th time and criticised your wardrobe they went back to pretending you didn’t exist (natural adult attitude to non-biologically related children). Anyway Davide and Maria Theresa were great, and we got along just fine even though they didn’t speak any English or Spanish and my Italian is limited to “pizza”, “caffe latte” and “grazie”. If I spoke really slow Spanish or they spoke really slow Italian we could figure it out (with a lot of hand gestures). They got me Calvin and Hobbes books and were fascinated with my iPod. I even helped Maria Theresa once with her Italian grammar homework (hurrah for Latin being the root of so many languages!).
The next day we went to Palestrina, a village in the mountains which is older than Rome itself. Like many things in Rome it is old and beautiful but additionally has a museum which, among other fascinating pieces, has an amazing mosaic depicting the flooding of the Nile. We bought some fresh home made pasta at a pasticceria and took it home for lunch – it was incredible, just so tasty. Andrea and Nicoletta don’t live in Rome, but in Zagarolo, which I imagine is some kind of suburb in the outskirts. Anyway they have a house out in the sticks with an amazing view of lush verdant hills and trees. The house itself is kind of small by Australian standards, but a good size by European ones. What I love about it is (surprise surprise) that it’s totally crammed with books. Shelves of books in every conceivable space – some I don’t know how they reach. One day I’m going to have my own place and it’s going to be the same – wall to wall library.
The following days Dad and Andrea spent working while Mum and I explored Roma. We were staying in a rather nice apartment in a dodgy part of Rome (near Termini) so we were glad to get into some of the more salubrious areas. Pretty much first up was the Colosseum. The outside of it is cool and imposing, but to be honest the inside is a bit of a yawn. They don’t let you see the really good bit where the gladiators used to be since September 11 in case someone wants to blow it up (like they couldn’t blow it up from the outside). There’s a really pretty arch just next to the Colosseum (can’t remember the name) which I found much more interesting than the Colosseum itself.
We saw different bits of the Foro Romano a few times (it’s soooo big) but I didn’t get to see the statue of Romulus and Remus being suckled by the she-wolf as we spent ages trying to find it and never could. Mum eventually found it somewhere after I’d already gone back to Dublin. We went to the Bocca della Verite and I stuck my hand in it just like Audrey Hepburn (who I was beginning to develop an unhealthy obsession with – if I said “Audrey Hepburn is so classy” one more time I swear my mother would have knocked me unconscious). We ate gelato next to the Fontana di Trevi (one of my favourite parts of Rome) and wondered at the sheer cheek of the Catholic Church appropriating a beautiful pagan temple (the Pantheon) and making it into another freakin’ church. By the way did you know Raphael is buried there? I didn’t. Another cool thing about the Pantheon – it has a hole in the roof. Apparently it’s really gorgeous when it rains. The Pantheon is basically an enormous dome with the big columns out the front (you know the ones). They constructed it by making a big pile of sand and building the dome around it. When they were done the Pantheon was full of sand that had to be evacuated, but being a lateral thinker, whoever was in charge of the construction had hidden coins in the pile, and advised the citizens that they could keep whatever they found. Bet it was empty in record time. We went walking in Villa Borghese (a big beautiful park in Rome) which has loads of statues of famous people from history (I got my picture taken next to Aleksandr Pushkin). We went to the Piazza d’Espagna and sat on the famous stairs. I could see myself as a teen hanging out there – it’s the Roman equivalent of the clocks at Flinders Street station. We had a glance in the windows on Via Condotti and sighed, wishing one day to be able to afford all that crap. Not to buy it of course, but imagine the things you could do if you had enough money to spend 2000 euro on a scarf? Nicoletta also showed us a small, totally unremarkable church save for one tiny detail – it’s home to a Caravaggio! It’s so weird, there’s so much art, history and culture in Rome you’re basically tripping over it. I bet half the Romans don’t even know that painting is there. The Roman point of view is unique – never before have I seen 19th century art in a modern art museum (though they did have some contemporary art too!). We found Michaelangelo’s sculpture of Moses in another “blink and you’ll miss it” type church.
Of course one of the most stunning things we saw in Roma was the Vatican. If you know me at all you’ll know I’m not a big fan of the Catholic Church – I’m not against God, Jesus, Mary, or any of that (though I’m not a believer) but organised religion really pisses me off and the Vatican is a prime example of why. I just can’t fathom how anybody thinks it’s right that Catholic churches all pass around the plate for ordinary people to contribute what they can to help the poor and the Church, while the pope builds up a private collection of priceless artworks and houses them in enormous wings (if your house has wings, that’s a pretty sure sign you’re too filthy rich for your own good) of buildings with marble floors and gold-leaf rooves. I’m no communist, but that is ridiculous. On the upside, greedy and despotic religious and political leaders are a tourist’s goldmine. Even better, Nicoletta’s friend is an official Roman tour guide who agreed to take us around the place. We got to the museum at 7:30 (well, ok, we were a little late) for the museum opening at 7:45. Actually it only opens at 7:45 for official Roman tour guides – for the plebs (of which there was already a queue at least 20 metres long) it opened at 8:30. I was hopping and jumping to get to the Sistine Chapel but to get there we walked through what seemed like miles and miles of beautiful hallway bedecked in ancient Roman and Greek sculptures and artefacts. Rosana explained that these artworks, as they were bought as part of private collections of each of the popes and not for public museums, were collected simply on the basis of aesthetics and not for any political, historical or archaeological significance. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, collected by many popes over many years. The floor was unbelievable – five or six different colours of marble (some stolen from the Colosseum and other pagan Roman sites) making delicious curving patterns, fleur-de-lis, and other shapes for what seemed like at least a kilometre. We walked through a hallway with intricate maps of different parts of Italy painted on the walls – startlingly accurate for their time. Past a dark hallway covered in stunning Flemish tapestries, past another hallway with antique furniture. Actually thinking back it was slightly “Charlie and the chocolate factory”-esque! The most surreal part of this adventure was the fact that the three of us were alone in the halls of wonder, the only sounds the padding of our sneakers, Rosana’s low murmured explanations of the meaning or history of the artworks, and the occasional sharp intake of breath from my mother or I.
Eventually we made it to the end of the halls and, again thanks to Rosana, took a short cut down some service stairs or something and suddenly, without warning, we were there – the Sistine Chapel. This was a serious “sharp intake of breath” moment. There were three other tourists and another tour guide sitting in there, but other than that and one surly security guard we were all alone. The chapel was hauntingly silent; Rosana let us gaze for a few minutes in the quiet before she began to explain. It’s stunning – even though you can’t make out the fine detail as the roof is so high, the painting is amazing and poor Michaelangelo ruined both his back and his sight completing it. He didn’t mind though - in his mind he was not working for the pope but directly for God. The chapel does not have very much natural light so he only had a few hours a day in which to work – when the sun went to bed down he went to mix colours for the following day. I didn’t know this before but the roof actually depicts the story of Genesis. It begins at one end of the chapel and continues to the altar, with the famous panel of God giving life to Adam pretty much in the centre. Apparently this was not the original idea the pope had for the ceiling but in the usual artistic ‘you can’t mess with divine inspiration” way Michaelangelo just painted his own thing. And as we can all see, Mikey was right, the ceiling is awesome (in the literal sense of the word) and we’re still all crazy about it centuries later. In fact, I was kind of lucky to see it now after the restoration (which took 10 years!). I saw a picture of the ceiling pre-restoration and it was very grey and murky with much of the detail obscured. Obviously after centuries of dust, candle burning and probably more than one post-religious crisis cigarette smoked by popes or cardinals, you can understand how the roof got a little dirty. Another thing I never knew about the Chapel – the roof is not the only Michaelangelo painting in it! The back wall behind the altar is covered in an enormous painting by Michaelangelo, completed after the ceiling and with even brighter colours (as he got paid more this time around). This one skips straight from the beginning to the end – from Genesis on the ceiling he decided to paint Judgement Day on the wall. Michaelangelo was a little more cynical and disillusioned by this time and this is not a particularly happy or hopeful painting, although there is some hope in it. There are also many stories about this painting including Michaelangelo painting one cardinal he didn’t like in it in hell with a snake biting his balls – what a way to be immortalised in history! Just goes to show, don’t piss off an artist. Apparently this cardinal took umbridge to the way Michaelangelo was depicting people without their clothes (bloody prude). The pope sided with Michaelangelo though, and the cardinal was left with poison balls. Ha ha!
We looked at the ceiling for ages and then Rosana took us back through more hallway with more unbelievable artefacts and left us at the entrance of the museum, with explicit instructions of how to get to San Pietro. She also told us lots of stories about the basilica using a guidebook so that we wouldn’t miss out on the history of the place. It was so generous of her to give up her time to show us around, get up early in the morning and take a whole morning to give us a private tour and she absolutely refused to be paid! I hope that she will get some cosmic reward for her generosity – good people deserve good things to happen to them. I got so much more out of my visit thanks to her vast and deep knowledge of Roman history. Mum and I made our way back through the long hallways to the Chapel – but what a different experience this time! Instead of walking calmly down the passages taking in the beauty, we were jostling through the crowds, unable to see the sculptures very well let alone the floor, and thinking how lucky we had been earlier. However this time around they had opened another wing with mini-mosaics – these were so amazing and practically impossible to describe in words. Imagine a small pill-box, a circle say, 3cm in diameter. And imagine somebody (clearly with too much time on their hands) making a mosaic on the lid of this pill-box, with impossibly tiny, tiny, minute, miniscule pieces illustrating trees, chickens, landscapes – so detailed that even the people in them had eyes and other facial features. They have to be seen to be believed. Then we went into another recently opened room full of Raphael paintings. Flipping brilliant. They are a series of three – one depicting rationality, one faith, and one justice (I think). The three pillars of something. I can’t remember exactly. They were great anyway. Then some queueing, and walking, and San Pietro. To be honest I was less impressed with the basilica than the chapel – there is a certain point at which the level of opulence of a place ceases to amaze and starts to quite disgust me. San Pietro ran for that point, leapt over it, and kept racing along. It was bigger, showier and more lavish than the eyes could take in and the mind comprehend. The best thing in it was of course La Pietà, which you couldn’t really see properly as it has been kept behind a glass wall after some crazy went after it with a knife. Pity. In the postcards it looked dead brilliant. I also like Michaelangelo’s point of view regarding sculptures – he didn’t create them, the sculptures were trapped within the block of granite and he was simply working to get them free. What a wonderfully skilful rescuer he was!
Other than the sights I spent time hanging around with Mum and Dad, reading, trying to shake the cold I’d been carrying around for three weeks or so (I think I had finally got rid of it by the end) eating lots of delicious food (particularly gelato and espresso, yum) and relaxing. I actually didn’t do as much relaxing as I wanted to – Rome has a bit too much get up and go to spend your day lazing about, and I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to visit a new city and not do loads of sightseeing. You only have so much life and so many chances to see new things, so in my world you have to take as many chances as you can (without making yourself sick or crazy). Not to mention after so many weeks and months of cloud, wind, cold and rain in Dublin, I was loving spending time in t-shirt weather. Sunshine! Hurrah! It makes such a difference to your mood and motivation when the sun is shining. I didn’t do very much shopping – I only bought some Italian leather gloves (absolutely gorgeous and cashmere lined, which I immediately lost on my return to Dublin, goddamnit) and an Italian coffee maker, which doesn’t work so well on my electric stove top, but at least now I can have decent coffee at home (no more Nescafe, yay!). I was sad that Pisa and Fiorentina were no gos, but there’s plenty of time for me to go back and see them another time – it’s not like I’ll never go back to Italy, and now that I’ve thrown a penny into the Fontana di Trevi, it’s practically assured I’ll be back.
Saying goodbye to Mum and Dad was hard as usual, but actually by that point I was kind of ready to go home. I missed Dublin and my routine, I was tired from all the travelling and I needed a rest. I took the bus from Termini to Chiampino, which was an absolute zoo, and a totally chaotic one at that. All the check in desks had separate lines but in the crowd it was impossible to tell which line led to which desk; the last thing I needed was to queue for two hours to find I was in the line for Amsterdam or Malaga (although they wouldn’t have been bad places to end up). Eventually after asking a million people and navigating myself and my backpack through the multitudes, I found my queue, stuck on the iPod and waited. After check-in and security, the interminable wait until boarding which I filled buying and consuming an indigestible sandwich and buying some Italian spirits at the duty free (soooo much cheaper than Ireland). Then finally the plane back to Dublin. What a relief to be home! A lovely hot shower, and bed, preparing to go back into the fray punctually at 9 the next morning.
First things first on touchdown we were picked up at the airport by Andrea, Dad’s colleague at the Universita di Roma. We drove down the highway at 140 kph, the three of us simultaneously worried and calmed by Andrea’s assurances that we weren’t really speeding that much, most people in Rome drive much faster than that. We drove to Andrea’s house where his wife Nicoletta had prepared a delicious authentically Italian dinner for us – she is a wonderful cook, and she shared some of her secrets with me – one of them being www.lacucinaitaliana.it. As well as being interesting and sensible people, Nicoletta and Andrea have two really sweet kids, Maria Theresa and Davide. They were so excited to see us – nothing like when I was a child. I used to hate it when my parents’ friends came over, and I would hide in my room until dinnertime, eat a silent meal with everyone, and make my excuses to get away as soon as possible. I just never knew how to relate to adults – they only asked boring questions about school and made judgements about everything you said or did (“A pretty girl like you should wear skirts more often dear” or “What do you mean you don’t like maths? It’s really useful” etc.). After they asked what grade you were in for the 10th time and criticised your wardrobe they went back to pretending you didn’t exist (natural adult attitude to non-biologically related children). Anyway Davide and Maria Theresa were great, and we got along just fine even though they didn’t speak any English or Spanish and my Italian is limited to “pizza”, “caffe latte” and “grazie”. If I spoke really slow Spanish or they spoke really slow Italian we could figure it out (with a lot of hand gestures). They got me Calvin and Hobbes books and were fascinated with my iPod. I even helped Maria Theresa once with her Italian grammar homework (hurrah for Latin being the root of so many languages!).
The next day we went to Palestrina, a village in the mountains which is older than Rome itself. Like many things in Rome it is old and beautiful but additionally has a museum which, among other fascinating pieces, has an amazing mosaic depicting the flooding of the Nile. We bought some fresh home made pasta at a pasticceria and took it home for lunch – it was incredible, just so tasty. Andrea and Nicoletta don’t live in Rome, but in Zagarolo, which I imagine is some kind of suburb in the outskirts. Anyway they have a house out in the sticks with an amazing view of lush verdant hills and trees. The house itself is kind of small by Australian standards, but a good size by European ones. What I love about it is (surprise surprise) that it’s totally crammed with books. Shelves of books in every conceivable space – some I don’t know how they reach. One day I’m going to have my own place and it’s going to be the same – wall to wall library.
The following days Dad and Andrea spent working while Mum and I explored Roma. We were staying in a rather nice apartment in a dodgy part of Rome (near Termini) so we were glad to get into some of the more salubrious areas. Pretty much first up was the Colosseum. The outside of it is cool and imposing, but to be honest the inside is a bit of a yawn. They don’t let you see the really good bit where the gladiators used to be since September 11 in case someone wants to blow it up (like they couldn’t blow it up from the outside). There’s a really pretty arch just next to the Colosseum (can’t remember the name) which I found much more interesting than the Colosseum itself.
We saw different bits of the Foro Romano a few times (it’s soooo big) but I didn’t get to see the statue of Romulus and Remus being suckled by the she-wolf as we spent ages trying to find it and never could. Mum eventually found it somewhere after I’d already gone back to Dublin. We went to the Bocca della Verite and I stuck my hand in it just like Audrey Hepburn (who I was beginning to develop an unhealthy obsession with – if I said “Audrey Hepburn is so classy” one more time I swear my mother would have knocked me unconscious). We ate gelato next to the Fontana di Trevi (one of my favourite parts of Rome) and wondered at the sheer cheek of the Catholic Church appropriating a beautiful pagan temple (the Pantheon) and making it into another freakin’ church. By the way did you know Raphael is buried there? I didn’t. Another cool thing about the Pantheon – it has a hole in the roof. Apparently it’s really gorgeous when it rains. The Pantheon is basically an enormous dome with the big columns out the front (you know the ones). They constructed it by making a big pile of sand and building the dome around it. When they were done the Pantheon was full of sand that had to be evacuated, but being a lateral thinker, whoever was in charge of the construction had hidden coins in the pile, and advised the citizens that they could keep whatever they found. Bet it was empty in record time. We went walking in Villa Borghese (a big beautiful park in Rome) which has loads of statues of famous people from history (I got my picture taken next to Aleksandr Pushkin). We went to the Piazza d’Espagna and sat on the famous stairs. I could see myself as a teen hanging out there – it’s the Roman equivalent of the clocks at Flinders Street station. We had a glance in the windows on Via Condotti and sighed, wishing one day to be able to afford all that crap. Not to buy it of course, but imagine the things you could do if you had enough money to spend 2000 euro on a scarf? Nicoletta also showed us a small, totally unremarkable church save for one tiny detail – it’s home to a Caravaggio! It’s so weird, there’s so much art, history and culture in Rome you’re basically tripping over it. I bet half the Romans don’t even know that painting is there. The Roman point of view is unique – never before have I seen 19th century art in a modern art museum (though they did have some contemporary art too!). We found Michaelangelo’s sculpture of Moses in another “blink and you’ll miss it” type church.
Of course one of the most stunning things we saw in Roma was the Vatican. If you know me at all you’ll know I’m not a big fan of the Catholic Church – I’m not against God, Jesus, Mary, or any of that (though I’m not a believer) but organised religion really pisses me off and the Vatican is a prime example of why. I just can’t fathom how anybody thinks it’s right that Catholic churches all pass around the plate for ordinary people to contribute what they can to help the poor and the Church, while the pope builds up a private collection of priceless artworks and houses them in enormous wings (if your house has wings, that’s a pretty sure sign you’re too filthy rich for your own good) of buildings with marble floors and gold-leaf rooves. I’m no communist, but that is ridiculous. On the upside, greedy and despotic religious and political leaders are a tourist’s goldmine. Even better, Nicoletta’s friend is an official Roman tour guide who agreed to take us around the place. We got to the museum at 7:30 (well, ok, we were a little late) for the museum opening at 7:45. Actually it only opens at 7:45 for official Roman tour guides – for the plebs (of which there was already a queue at least 20 metres long) it opened at 8:30. I was hopping and jumping to get to the Sistine Chapel but to get there we walked through what seemed like miles and miles of beautiful hallway bedecked in ancient Roman and Greek sculptures and artefacts. Rosana explained that these artworks, as they were bought as part of private collections of each of the popes and not for public museums, were collected simply on the basis of aesthetics and not for any political, historical or archaeological significance. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, collected by many popes over many years. The floor was unbelievable – five or six different colours of marble (some stolen from the Colosseum and other pagan Roman sites) making delicious curving patterns, fleur-de-lis, and other shapes for what seemed like at least a kilometre. We walked through a hallway with intricate maps of different parts of Italy painted on the walls – startlingly accurate for their time. Past a dark hallway covered in stunning Flemish tapestries, past another hallway with antique furniture. Actually thinking back it was slightly “Charlie and the chocolate factory”-esque! The most surreal part of this adventure was the fact that the three of us were alone in the halls of wonder, the only sounds the padding of our sneakers, Rosana’s low murmured explanations of the meaning or history of the artworks, and the occasional sharp intake of breath from my mother or I.
Eventually we made it to the end of the halls and, again thanks to Rosana, took a short cut down some service stairs or something and suddenly, without warning, we were there – the Sistine Chapel. This was a serious “sharp intake of breath” moment. There were three other tourists and another tour guide sitting in there, but other than that and one surly security guard we were all alone. The chapel was hauntingly silent; Rosana let us gaze for a few minutes in the quiet before she began to explain. It’s stunning – even though you can’t make out the fine detail as the roof is so high, the painting is amazing and poor Michaelangelo ruined both his back and his sight completing it. He didn’t mind though - in his mind he was not working for the pope but directly for God. The chapel does not have very much natural light so he only had a few hours a day in which to work – when the sun went to bed down he went to mix colours for the following day. I didn’t know this before but the roof actually depicts the story of Genesis. It begins at one end of the chapel and continues to the altar, with the famous panel of God giving life to Adam pretty much in the centre. Apparently this was not the original idea the pope had for the ceiling but in the usual artistic ‘you can’t mess with divine inspiration” way Michaelangelo just painted his own thing. And as we can all see, Mikey was right, the ceiling is awesome (in the literal sense of the word) and we’re still all crazy about it centuries later. In fact, I was kind of lucky to see it now after the restoration (which took 10 years!). I saw a picture of the ceiling pre-restoration and it was very grey and murky with much of the detail obscured. Obviously after centuries of dust, candle burning and probably more than one post-religious crisis cigarette smoked by popes or cardinals, you can understand how the roof got a little dirty. Another thing I never knew about the Chapel – the roof is not the only Michaelangelo painting in it! The back wall behind the altar is covered in an enormous painting by Michaelangelo, completed after the ceiling and with even brighter colours (as he got paid more this time around). This one skips straight from the beginning to the end – from Genesis on the ceiling he decided to paint Judgement Day on the wall. Michaelangelo was a little more cynical and disillusioned by this time and this is not a particularly happy or hopeful painting, although there is some hope in it. There are also many stories about this painting including Michaelangelo painting one cardinal he didn’t like in it in hell with a snake biting his balls – what a way to be immortalised in history! Just goes to show, don’t piss off an artist. Apparently this cardinal took umbridge to the way Michaelangelo was depicting people without their clothes (bloody prude). The pope sided with Michaelangelo though, and the cardinal was left with poison balls. Ha ha!
We looked at the ceiling for ages and then Rosana took us back through more hallway with more unbelievable artefacts and left us at the entrance of the museum, with explicit instructions of how to get to San Pietro. She also told us lots of stories about the basilica using a guidebook so that we wouldn’t miss out on the history of the place. It was so generous of her to give up her time to show us around, get up early in the morning and take a whole morning to give us a private tour and she absolutely refused to be paid! I hope that she will get some cosmic reward for her generosity – good people deserve good things to happen to them. I got so much more out of my visit thanks to her vast and deep knowledge of Roman history. Mum and I made our way back through the long hallways to the Chapel – but what a different experience this time! Instead of walking calmly down the passages taking in the beauty, we were jostling through the crowds, unable to see the sculptures very well let alone the floor, and thinking how lucky we had been earlier. However this time around they had opened another wing with mini-mosaics – these were so amazing and practically impossible to describe in words. Imagine a small pill-box, a circle say, 3cm in diameter. And imagine somebody (clearly with too much time on their hands) making a mosaic on the lid of this pill-box, with impossibly tiny, tiny, minute, miniscule pieces illustrating trees, chickens, landscapes – so detailed that even the people in them had eyes and other facial features. They have to be seen to be believed. Then we went into another recently opened room full of Raphael paintings. Flipping brilliant. They are a series of three – one depicting rationality, one faith, and one justice (I think). The three pillars of something. I can’t remember exactly. They were great anyway. Then some queueing, and walking, and San Pietro. To be honest I was less impressed with the basilica than the chapel – there is a certain point at which the level of opulence of a place ceases to amaze and starts to quite disgust me. San Pietro ran for that point, leapt over it, and kept racing along. It was bigger, showier and more lavish than the eyes could take in and the mind comprehend. The best thing in it was of course La Pietà, which you couldn’t really see properly as it has been kept behind a glass wall after some crazy went after it with a knife. Pity. In the postcards it looked dead brilliant. I also like Michaelangelo’s point of view regarding sculptures – he didn’t create them, the sculptures were trapped within the block of granite and he was simply working to get them free. What a wonderfully skilful rescuer he was!
Other than the sights I spent time hanging around with Mum and Dad, reading, trying to shake the cold I’d been carrying around for three weeks or so (I think I had finally got rid of it by the end) eating lots of delicious food (particularly gelato and espresso, yum) and relaxing. I actually didn’t do as much relaxing as I wanted to – Rome has a bit too much get up and go to spend your day lazing about, and I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to visit a new city and not do loads of sightseeing. You only have so much life and so many chances to see new things, so in my world you have to take as many chances as you can (without making yourself sick or crazy). Not to mention after so many weeks and months of cloud, wind, cold and rain in Dublin, I was loving spending time in t-shirt weather. Sunshine! Hurrah! It makes such a difference to your mood and motivation when the sun is shining. I didn’t do very much shopping – I only bought some Italian leather gloves (absolutely gorgeous and cashmere lined, which I immediately lost on my return to Dublin, goddamnit) and an Italian coffee maker, which doesn’t work so well on my electric stove top, but at least now I can have decent coffee at home (no more Nescafe, yay!). I was sad that Pisa and Fiorentina were no gos, but there’s plenty of time for me to go back and see them another time – it’s not like I’ll never go back to Italy, and now that I’ve thrown a penny into the Fontana di Trevi, it’s practically assured I’ll be back.
Saying goodbye to Mum and Dad was hard as usual, but actually by that point I was kind of ready to go home. I missed Dublin and my routine, I was tired from all the travelling and I needed a rest. I took the bus from Termini to Chiampino, which was an absolute zoo, and a totally chaotic one at that. All the check in desks had separate lines but in the crowd it was impossible to tell which line led to which desk; the last thing I needed was to queue for two hours to find I was in the line for Amsterdam or Malaga (although they wouldn’t have been bad places to end up). Eventually after asking a million people and navigating myself and my backpack through the multitudes, I found my queue, stuck on the iPod and waited. After check-in and security, the interminable wait until boarding which I filled buying and consuming an indigestible sandwich and buying some Italian spirits at the duty free (soooo much cheaper than Ireland). Then finally the plane back to Dublin. What a relief to be home! A lovely hot shower, and bed, preparing to go back into the fray punctually at 9 the next morning.
Friday, November 03, 2006
The Real City
Practically everyone told me not to bother with Madrid. It's boring, they said, and not very pretty. I figured I had better see it anyway, being the capital of Spain and as a rather large city there must be something to do, even if it's hanging out in Starbucks drinking chai tea lattes all day.
By the time we got off the bus from Bilbao it was well into the night, and we hopped straight on the metro to Gran Via, where our hotel was. We came up out of the underground station and immediately my spirits soared as we looked out onto the avenue - I felt as if I had stepped out of the subway in NYC onto Broadway. Immediately to our left an enormous theatre emblazoned with billboards for "The Producers", all the stores and restaurants were still open despite the fact it was past midnight, and the whole place was buzzing and humming. We dumped our bags in the hostel and tried to drag ourselves out on the town for the night - but in the end decided it would be better to rest our weary heads, be bright eyed the next morning, and really go to town the next night, which would be Halloween and loads of fun. We got chatting to an English couple who had just moved to Madrid; they didn't speak a word of Spanish and were looking for work and a place to live. That gave me hopes for my eventual move to Spain - if you can find work without a word of Spanish then I certainly shouldn't have a problem!
The next day we "saw Madrid" and on route stopped into loads of stores - I went mad shopping as clothes are crazy prices compared to Dublin! Even Julia was in heaven as everything is incredibly expensive in Norway. The architecture in Madrid is beautiful and interesting, although not quite as great as Barcelona. It's hard for a city so old to be ugly. We went to the Reina Sofia, where my mission was to see the Guernica up close and personal. I had seen it before in pictures but obviously it just doesn't compare at all to the real thing. There's something magical about seeing a painting that someone has made with their own two hands, a canvas which has been pored over for months, taking shape from a white sheet piece by piece until it becomes a masterpiece that can move emotions just by looking at it. A reproduction can only be a shadow of the original. Plus the Guernica is enormous. And it is a real masterpiece - the sheer terror, the uncertainty, the gore and destruction leaps out of the canvas and makes you feel what the people of Guernica must have felt that day.
Aside from the Guernica there were also loads of other fabulous pieces, notably Miró and Kandinsky who are among my favourites, and lots more I can't remember. One installation in particular that I loved was by an artist whos name I also can't remember; it was an enormous metronome (bigger than me) and on the top of the pendulum was an eye. If you looked at the eye from the left of the metronome, it was open; if you looked from the right, it was shut. I began by walking from side to side watching the eye open and close, but soon found it was easier to stand directly in front of it swaying left to right. Thus although the metronome is perfectly still, it works by influencing the viewer to provide the regulated movement. Brilliant.
We stayed until the gallery closed, and I got lost on the way back to the reception (it's a big building, and quite scary when it's empty) and then back to the hostel to prepare for Halloween night. We met two Yankee girls studying Spanish in Seville, and the four of us got all pretty (none of us had costumes, but who cares, we just wanted to have a good time) and set off to the clubs. One of the girls we were with was totally into Spanish pop music, and was singing along to all the songs (which were cheesy as hell, just like the English ones), and they played "Gasolina", which I always love to hear as it reminds me of when I was last in Argentina. Later we set off to "La Latina" which is an area in Madrid with lots of bars and such for a drink with some guys that the American girls knew. They took us to a great club decked out in Halloween decorations and we danced the night away. Jules fell in love with one of the guys, and Jenny was talking to her man, while Dierdre and I amused ourselves for a while. In true Spanish fashion, we stayed out till all hours, and at about half six when we made it back to the hostel Jules and I went to San Gines, a famous chocolateria in Madrid, for chocolate con churros and to dissect the night that was. The place was packed from wall to wall and the staff couldn't serve everyone fast enough (at half six/seven am! I love Madrid!) but by some miracle Jules and I found a seat where we enjoyed our liquid chocolate and fried sugary dough (oh my god yummy). After we’d ingested obscene amounts of sugar and fat, we headed back to the hostel and tumbled into bed.
We woke up (I use the term loosely) later in the day to check out the Palacio Real, the old palace of the Kings and Queens of Spain. It was spectacular, I must admit, but running on about three hours of sleep I was incredibly blasé about what I was seeing – another tapestry, nice chair, cool throne, whatever. Afterwards I was tired and grumpy and so headed back to bed for the afternoon while Jules went to the Prado. I really wanted to check it out but in that state I wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all so I figured my time was better spent sleeping.
Somewhere in the mix there we went to Toledo, which is a couple of hours from Madrid. Toledo is an incredible little walled city which literally makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time into a fantasyland of swashbuckling pirates, blushing maidens, duelling, chests of gold dubloons, and maps of deserted islands marked with an ‘X’. There are only two drawbacks – the stores sell nothing but overpriced souvenirs and (very expensive but real) swords; and the streets are so narrow, short and windy and the buildings are so tall that it is impossible to find your way around, even with a well-marked map. At one point we were searching for the cathedral (absolutely huge, beautiful, and full of priceless art) when we realised we had been circling it for the last 5 minutes. Toledo is well worth a visit though, if you can stomach the tourist-trappy aspect which is very hard to ignore.
Eventually our time in Madrid came to a close, Jules went to catch the bus to Valladolid from which she was going to London, and I went to Starbucks and spent the day drinking Chai Tea Lattes with a copy of "El Jueves". Normally I’m dead-set against Starbucks as a propagator of extremely bad coffee, but seeing as I was in Madrid, a city which reminded me so much of New York, being in Starbucks felt right somehow (although Starbucks coffee is deplorable, it’s a damn sight better than the filter stuff that you get everywhere else in the Big Apple). Then off to the airport to catch my flight to Roma. I’d never been to Italy before, and was practically trembling with excitement at the prospect of so much history, culture and art. I was also looking forward to staying in the same place for more than two or three days! My cold was proving impossible to shake and I badly needed rest and relaxation. But how could I relax when there was a new city to explore?
By the time we got off the bus from Bilbao it was well into the night, and we hopped straight on the metro to Gran Via, where our hotel was. We came up out of the underground station and immediately my spirits soared as we looked out onto the avenue - I felt as if I had stepped out of the subway in NYC onto Broadway. Immediately to our left an enormous theatre emblazoned with billboards for "The Producers", all the stores and restaurants were still open despite the fact it was past midnight, and the whole place was buzzing and humming. We dumped our bags in the hostel and tried to drag ourselves out on the town for the night - but in the end decided it would be better to rest our weary heads, be bright eyed the next morning, and really go to town the next night, which would be Halloween and loads of fun. We got chatting to an English couple who had just moved to Madrid; they didn't speak a word of Spanish and were looking for work and a place to live. That gave me hopes for my eventual move to Spain - if you can find work without a word of Spanish then I certainly shouldn't have a problem!
The next day we "saw Madrid" and on route stopped into loads of stores - I went mad shopping as clothes are crazy prices compared to Dublin! Even Julia was in heaven as everything is incredibly expensive in Norway. The architecture in Madrid is beautiful and interesting, although not quite as great as Barcelona. It's hard for a city so old to be ugly. We went to the Reina Sofia, where my mission was to see the Guernica up close and personal. I had seen it before in pictures but obviously it just doesn't compare at all to the real thing. There's something magical about seeing a painting that someone has made with their own two hands, a canvas which has been pored over for months, taking shape from a white sheet piece by piece until it becomes a masterpiece that can move emotions just by looking at it. A reproduction can only be a shadow of the original. Plus the Guernica is enormous. And it is a real masterpiece - the sheer terror, the uncertainty, the gore and destruction leaps out of the canvas and makes you feel what the people of Guernica must have felt that day.
Aside from the Guernica there were also loads of other fabulous pieces, notably Miró and Kandinsky who are among my favourites, and lots more I can't remember. One installation in particular that I loved was by an artist whos name I also can't remember; it was an enormous metronome (bigger than me) and on the top of the pendulum was an eye. If you looked at the eye from the left of the metronome, it was open; if you looked from the right, it was shut. I began by walking from side to side watching the eye open and close, but soon found it was easier to stand directly in front of it swaying left to right. Thus although the metronome is perfectly still, it works by influencing the viewer to provide the regulated movement. Brilliant.
We stayed until the gallery closed, and I got lost on the way back to the reception (it's a big building, and quite scary when it's empty) and then back to the hostel to prepare for Halloween night. We met two Yankee girls studying Spanish in Seville, and the four of us got all pretty (none of us had costumes, but who cares, we just wanted to have a good time) and set off to the clubs. One of the girls we were with was totally into Spanish pop music, and was singing along to all the songs (which were cheesy as hell, just like the English ones), and they played "Gasolina", which I always love to hear as it reminds me of when I was last in Argentina. Later we set off to "La Latina" which is an area in Madrid with lots of bars and such for a drink with some guys that the American girls knew. They took us to a great club decked out in Halloween decorations and we danced the night away. Jules fell in love with one of the guys, and Jenny was talking to her man, while Dierdre and I amused ourselves for a while. In true Spanish fashion, we stayed out till all hours, and at about half six when we made it back to the hostel Jules and I went to San Gines, a famous chocolateria in Madrid, for chocolate con churros and to dissect the night that was. The place was packed from wall to wall and the staff couldn't serve everyone fast enough (at half six/seven am! I love Madrid!) but by some miracle Jules and I found a seat where we enjoyed our liquid chocolate and fried sugary dough (oh my god yummy). After we’d ingested obscene amounts of sugar and fat, we headed back to the hostel and tumbled into bed.
We woke up (I use the term loosely) later in the day to check out the Palacio Real, the old palace of the Kings and Queens of Spain. It was spectacular, I must admit, but running on about three hours of sleep I was incredibly blasé about what I was seeing – another tapestry, nice chair, cool throne, whatever. Afterwards I was tired and grumpy and so headed back to bed for the afternoon while Jules went to the Prado. I really wanted to check it out but in that state I wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all so I figured my time was better spent sleeping.
Somewhere in the mix there we went to Toledo, which is a couple of hours from Madrid. Toledo is an incredible little walled city which literally makes you feel like you’ve stepped back in time into a fantasyland of swashbuckling pirates, blushing maidens, duelling, chests of gold dubloons, and maps of deserted islands marked with an ‘X’. There are only two drawbacks – the stores sell nothing but overpriced souvenirs and (very expensive but real) swords; and the streets are so narrow, short and windy and the buildings are so tall that it is impossible to find your way around, even with a well-marked map. At one point we were searching for the cathedral (absolutely huge, beautiful, and full of priceless art) when we realised we had been circling it for the last 5 minutes. Toledo is well worth a visit though, if you can stomach the tourist-trappy aspect which is very hard to ignore.
Eventually our time in Madrid came to a close, Jules went to catch the bus to Valladolid from which she was going to London, and I went to Starbucks and spent the day drinking Chai Tea Lattes with a copy of "El Jueves". Normally I’m dead-set against Starbucks as a propagator of extremely bad coffee, but seeing as I was in Madrid, a city which reminded me so much of New York, being in Starbucks felt right somehow (although Starbucks coffee is deplorable, it’s a damn sight better than the filter stuff that you get everywhere else in the Big Apple). Then off to the airport to catch my flight to Roma. I’d never been to Italy before, and was practically trembling with excitement at the prospect of so much history, culture and art. I was also looking forward to staying in the same place for more than two or three days! My cold was proving impossible to shake and I badly needed rest and relaxation. But how could I relax when there was a new city to explore?
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Basking in the Basque Country
San Sebastian - gorgeous beaches, delicious food, relaxing atmosphere - but very little to actually do. This suited me just fine as I just wanted to relax and the beautiful beach weather (26 degrees at the end of October...weird) meant we could stretch ourselves out on the fine yellow sand and absorb the relaxing warmth and harmful UV rays. The vista was as good as any you'd find in Hawaii, marred only occasionally by groups of naked, obese, middle aged men chatting. Skin hardened by the sun and tough as leather, they stood to allow the rays equal access to all parts of their bodies, save the small areas inadvertantly concealed by overhanging rolls of fat.
The San Sebastian highlights were - seeing Jules again after 11 months, lying on the beach, eating pastries, shopping, and the sun. Lowlights - customer service in Spain (uniformly abysmal, the waiters treat you as if you are something scraped off the bottom of a scummy barrell that's been sitting in the bottom of a damp cellar for 150 years), coffee with UHT milk and getting my hair cut. I hadn't cut it since last December and as I'd had such a brilliant haircut in Buenos Aires (Guille is a genius) I thought they'd do a better job in Spain than Ireland. They didn't. It's ok I guess, it doesn't look bad, but Guille gave my hair a certain je ne sais quoi that made it perfect even when I just got out of bed...I'll have to wait until I go back to BA before I can recapture that magic I guess.
We were staying in a pension in San Sebastian's old quarter, which, handily, is where all the bars are. We ate loads of pinxos (canapés basically) and drank plenty of cañas (beer) as we had no kitchen (glorious, glorious lack of facilities!). We must have looked like guiris (foreigners) as everyone was speaking to us in English! My friend Maria later told me it was because of the two telltale guiri signs: running shoes, and large bottles of water, both of which we had at any given moment.
We went on a day trip to Biarritz, which is basically just a French version of San Sebastian (better food and service, but more expensive). The whole Basque coast is incredibly beautiful, and the Basque language is funny (lots of "k"s and "x"s). Little Basque kids are so cute!
From San Sebastian to Bilbao, only for the morning to check out the Guggenheim. I love modern art and I was in my element checking out all the installations (one of which was made out of steam) and the building itself is a work of art. Bilbao looks clean and pretty, and it's a shame we didn't spend more than a few hours there, but we were anxious to get a couple of days in the capital city before I headed off to Roma and Jules left for London.
The San Sebastian highlights were - seeing Jules again after 11 months, lying on the beach, eating pastries, shopping, and the sun. Lowlights - customer service in Spain (uniformly abysmal, the waiters treat you as if you are something scraped off the bottom of a scummy barrell that's been sitting in the bottom of a damp cellar for 150 years), coffee with UHT milk and getting my hair cut. I hadn't cut it since last December and as I'd had such a brilliant haircut in Buenos Aires (Guille is a genius) I thought they'd do a better job in Spain than Ireland. They didn't. It's ok I guess, it doesn't look bad, but Guille gave my hair a certain je ne sais quoi that made it perfect even when I just got out of bed...I'll have to wait until I go back to BA before I can recapture that magic I guess.
We were staying in a pension in San Sebastian's old quarter, which, handily, is where all the bars are. We ate loads of pinxos (canapés basically) and drank plenty of cañas (beer) as we had no kitchen (glorious, glorious lack of facilities!). We must have looked like guiris (foreigners) as everyone was speaking to us in English! My friend Maria later told me it was because of the two telltale guiri signs: running shoes, and large bottles of water, both of which we had at any given moment.
We went on a day trip to Biarritz, which is basically just a French version of San Sebastian (better food and service, but more expensive). The whole Basque coast is incredibly beautiful, and the Basque language is funny (lots of "k"s and "x"s). Little Basque kids are so cute!
From San Sebastian to Bilbao, only for the morning to check out the Guggenheim. I love modern art and I was in my element checking out all the installations (one of which was made out of steam) and the building itself is a work of art. Bilbao looks clean and pretty, and it's a shame we didn't spend more than a few hours there, but we were anxious to get a couple of days in the capital city before I headed off to Roma and Jules left for London.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Zaragoza in three paragraphs
Next day up at six to catch the early bus to Zaragoza, which Joaqín had informed us left "a little after 7, maybe 7:15 or 7:20". Such are the bus timetables in Campo. We were waiting dutifully at the bus stop (unmarked of course) at 7:10, and waiting and waiting...bus finally rolled up at 7:50 and so began four hours of intermittent sleep punctuated by bickering couples, the guy behind me nudging my seat, and having to change buses midway as ours was broken. Some beautiful views coming out of Campo though.
Zaragoza itself isn't really that spectacular - made even less so by rain and our frayed nerves. After we'd booked into a hostel we started to do the touristy thing - the Basilica of St Pilar (absolutely stunning) and a Muslim/Latin palace called the Alfajoreria...or something. Also beautiful and fascinating but by this point we were all so tired from the wedding and travelling and lugging our bags around that we were practically ready to kill each other. Plus Mum got one of her mammoth migraines so Dad and I went out for dinner by ourselves.
Plan next morning was to leave clean but not particularly interesting Zaragoza for San Sebastian. We ate breakfast and wandered the main streets of Zaragoza, I bought a book I've been dying to read for ages ("The Perfume" by Patrick Susskind) and a transformer for my phone charger (I wouldn't bother but my mother would go mental without a mobile) and then there I was on the bus to San Sebastian next to a mute with a distinct and powerful smell of body odour. At least I had my favourite Spanish magazine, El Jueves, to take my mind off it.
Zaragoza itself isn't really that spectacular - made even less so by rain and our frayed nerves. After we'd booked into a hostel we started to do the touristy thing - the Basilica of St Pilar (absolutely stunning) and a Muslim/Latin palace called the Alfajoreria...or something. Also beautiful and fascinating but by this point we were all so tired from the wedding and travelling and lugging our bags around that we were practically ready to kill each other. Plus Mum got one of her mammoth migraines so Dad and I went out for dinner by ourselves.
Plan next morning was to leave clean but not particularly interesting Zaragoza for San Sebastian. We ate breakfast and wandered the main streets of Zaragoza, I bought a book I've been dying to read for ages ("The Perfume" by Patrick Susskind) and a transformer for my phone charger (I wouldn't bother but my mother would go mental without a mobile) and then there I was on the bus to San Sebastian next to a mute with a distinct and powerful smell of body odour. At least I had my favourite Spanish magazine, El Jueves, to take my mind off it.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Going to the chapel of Love
The next day was an unexpected one in Barcelona - I had thought we were going to Campo right away, but in fact we were going to wait and follow another car whos driver had been to Campo before and knew how to get there. So we took advantage of the beautiful sunny weather (an unheard of luxury in Dublin in October) to walk in and around the Ramblas and go coat-shopping (my shopping mission on this trip was to buy a good winter coat). I saw two Gaudi buildings (brilliant) and found some Dali and Miro prints (but left it until Madrid to buy them, as I was sure I'd be able to find them in the museums). We ate delicious tapas in the sunshine and went home for a rest before the long drive to Campo. We were just about to leave when we find out the guy we are supposed to be following to Campo has never been there before, wouldn't have the first clue how to get there, and now we'd be driving in pitch black. It later transpired that he has a GPS, so our fears were calmed somewhat.
Long story short, we arrived in Campo with only one (small, and quickly corrected) wrong turn and arrived just as the Ronda was beginning. Campo is a small village about four hours' drive from Barcelona, and like the other villages in the region, they have a Ronda the night before the wedding - a few guys in traditional dress, some instruments, strong, melodic voices, and songs dedicated to the happy couple. We stood in the narrow street outside Cris's family's houses and and listened to the songs, sung in traditional style, making fun of Ro, Cris, their families, Argentines, themselves, and anyone else that happened past. They were hilarious - only the jokes are, of course, impossible to translate, so it's a case of "you had to be there". We listened and laughed and ate and drank (incidentally my first jamón in spain and it was delicious) I talked to an Irish couple and their son (from Cork) and met a load of people whos names I didn't remember five minutes later (always the case when you meet a hundred people in half an hour). I saw my aunt and uncle again, Ro of course, who I hadn't seen in 10 years, and met Cris for the first time. All that family around (old and new) was pretty magical. So was the juxtaposition of the Spanish with the Argentines (also quite funny). At about midnight we made our way to the local, which, although pretty and cosy, was smothered in a thick blanket of cigarette smoke (I've become unaccustomed to this in Dublin). My eyes tired quickly of that and I went home relatively early.
The next morning, a lovely relaxing lie-in (first in months) and a leisurely breakfast. We all took our time until someone casually asked what the time was and we realised Ro and Cris were getting married in an hour. I showered like lightning, smeared on some makeup, on with the dress (loaned to me by my colleague Una, thanks a million) and shoes (Penneys, 13 euro, two inch heels, and absolutely fabulous) and I was ready to go. Even the males remarked on how fast I was ready.
It was a gorgeously sunny day, perfect for an outdoor wedding, not too hot and not too cold. We were just commenting on how lucky that was when Cris informed us it had nothing to do with luck; her mother had made a pilgrimage to the monks of Santa Clara with a dozen eggs from her own hens for them to pray for good weather on her daughter's wedding day. Well, the monks came through, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the wedding took place in a lush enclave of verdant trees with a backdrop of the majestic Pyrénées.
The wedding itself matched the natural beauty of the surroundings; simple, elegant, and moving. After the judge had (eventually) married them (thanks to some nudging from his sidekick who helpfully pointed out he had forgotten the "I now pronounce you husband and wife" part) there were some heartfelt speeches which had the whole audience in floods of tears. I must admit I'm not really into the idea of marriage; the nuclear family just isn't that important in the 21st century, the wedding rituals and traditions are fraught with misogynistic undercurrents (the "pure", ie. chaste bride in a white dress being given away by her father who hands ownership of her over to her new husband) and I hate the ridiculous way some people get totally carried away with the wedding part of the marriage and forget about the marriage part (the most important part). Not to mention weddings are often over-formal and stuffy. However Cris didn't wear white, but gorgeous orange, the atmosphere was relaxed and buoyant, and it was clear how in love with each other the bride and groom were and that this day was about declaring that love and pact of friendship in front of their family and friends. Clearly there is something charming about weddings that a cynic like myself needs to recognise, if, like in this case, it's done with love as the prime motivator.
After the wedding, the speeches, and the floods of tears (and after I had done a great job of aerating the soil with my two inch heels) we made our way around the corner for a bite to eat. As usual everything was delicious and we ate up, unawares of the magnitude of the feast awaiting us at the reception. After a short walk down to the restaurant, we chomped our way through soup, lobster, fish, lamb, sorbet, wedding cake, alfajores and liqueur (clearly a digestif was sorely needed by this point). Following those four hours of continuous and gleeful gluttony, down to the basement where the party continued with dancing, music, and an open bar. We all tried to dance but the DJ was clueless - insisted on playing slow numbers with no beat. We persisted valiantly however, and I mastered the art of the porrón (glass contraption with which you pour wine through a spout directly into your mouth without touching your lips - harder than it looks). At about 1 am we were served a delicious supper (as we were all clearly starving) but after a while the smoke started to really bother me and I snuck out early with my parents. I can't believe I used to go out to bars and clubs in Melbourne where people are allowed to smoke. I cannot stand it. Your eyes and throat fill with smoke, the air is viscous and lacking in oxygen, and the horror doesn't end when you step outside - you have to go home, change your clothes, have a shower and wash your hair before you can breathe easy.
The next morning, tired of being a fat lazy piglet, I woke at 11 (delicious sleep in) and went for a run. What a place to run though - at the feet of the Pyrénées, the vista was magnificent and the air as pure as you can get - so long as you didn't meet anyone on the way, who would invariably be smoking or in a car blowing exhaust in your face. But every silver lining has a cloud, and at 700 m above sea level, running in Campo is slightly harder than a jog to Stephen's Green. I felt like a new woman afterwards though and well disposed to listening to the dissection and post mortem of the previous night by the people who had stayed on after I'd hit the sack. The conversation was most enlightening however - I can now say with complete confidence that you really do learn a lot more if you keep your mouth shut. For instance, in this case I learned that in their unguarded and basic state, men really are crude and vulgar creatures. Bless them in all their simplicity. Points for best quote of the night go to the Spanish girl who asked Luis, in her slightly inebriated state, to, "Cojeme un poquito". Luis, being Argentine, raised an eyebrow at this request but although he is the perfect gentleman he couldn't resist replying, "Te cojo todo lo que quieras".
After that much needed caffeine we sat down to lunch where I finally got together the courage to speak to people...it really is infuriating, as I'm sure everyone I met over those few days thinks I'm timid, shy , stupid or snobby. It's just that I don't have the vocabulary to be my usual exuberant, opinionated, stubborn, narcissistic, ebullient self in Spanish. I usually resort to speaking when spoken to, which, although when well executed can come across as mysterious and enigmatic, but when coupled with my obvious discomfort at having to speak at all is revealed as a simple lack of confidence. This wouldn't be so frustrating were it fact; but the truth of the matter is that I have loads of self-confidence (some might say an over-abundance) and having to present a distorted image of myself is irritating and makes me feel like I'm wearing an ugly mask. Or like my personality is being asphyxiated by a large downy pillow. Perhaps my personality could do with some asphyxiation (you decide) but that's quite beside the point.
After lunch we bade farewell to the wedding party who were off to continue the festivities in Buenos Aires and then had the afternoon and evening by ourselves in Campo to relax. Campo is lovely and soothing during the daytime when the views give pleasure to the eyes and walking does your body and soul good, but in winter it gets dark pretty early and on a Sunday night in a small pueblo in the middle of nowhere in a catholic country like Spain, you have to make your own fun. My parents proved too tired to have an interesting conversation with, and so on discovering I had exhausted my only reading material on the way to Barcelona I was at a loss until I pulled out Dad's Mac and began to organise all the music on my iPod. This, unbelievably, kept me entertained for hours on end and I spent the evening reliving the 60s through to the 90s, from the Beatles through U2 and INXS to the Hilltop Hoods and DJ Format.
Long story short, we arrived in Campo with only one (small, and quickly corrected) wrong turn and arrived just as the Ronda was beginning. Campo is a small village about four hours' drive from Barcelona, and like the other villages in the region, they have a Ronda the night before the wedding - a few guys in traditional dress, some instruments, strong, melodic voices, and songs dedicated to the happy couple. We stood in the narrow street outside Cris's family's houses and and listened to the songs, sung in traditional style, making fun of Ro, Cris, their families, Argentines, themselves, and anyone else that happened past. They were hilarious - only the jokes are, of course, impossible to translate, so it's a case of "you had to be there". We listened and laughed and ate and drank (incidentally my first jamón in spain and it was delicious) I talked to an Irish couple and their son (from Cork) and met a load of people whos names I didn't remember five minutes later (always the case when you meet a hundred people in half an hour). I saw my aunt and uncle again, Ro of course, who I hadn't seen in 10 years, and met Cris for the first time. All that family around (old and new) was pretty magical. So was the juxtaposition of the Spanish with the Argentines (also quite funny). At about midnight we made our way to the local, which, although pretty and cosy, was smothered in a thick blanket of cigarette smoke (I've become unaccustomed to this in Dublin). My eyes tired quickly of that and I went home relatively early.
The next morning, a lovely relaxing lie-in (first in months) and a leisurely breakfast. We all took our time until someone casually asked what the time was and we realised Ro and Cris were getting married in an hour. I showered like lightning, smeared on some makeup, on with the dress (loaned to me by my colleague Una, thanks a million) and shoes (Penneys, 13 euro, two inch heels, and absolutely fabulous) and I was ready to go. Even the males remarked on how fast I was ready.
It was a gorgeously sunny day, perfect for an outdoor wedding, not too hot and not too cold. We were just commenting on how lucky that was when Cris informed us it had nothing to do with luck; her mother had made a pilgrimage to the monks of Santa Clara with a dozen eggs from her own hens for them to pray for good weather on her daughter's wedding day. Well, the monks came through, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the wedding took place in a lush enclave of verdant trees with a backdrop of the majestic Pyrénées.
The wedding itself matched the natural beauty of the surroundings; simple, elegant, and moving. After the judge had (eventually) married them (thanks to some nudging from his sidekick who helpfully pointed out he had forgotten the "I now pronounce you husband and wife" part) there were some heartfelt speeches which had the whole audience in floods of tears. I must admit I'm not really into the idea of marriage; the nuclear family just isn't that important in the 21st century, the wedding rituals and traditions are fraught with misogynistic undercurrents (the "pure", ie. chaste bride in a white dress being given away by her father who hands ownership of her over to her new husband) and I hate the ridiculous way some people get totally carried away with the wedding part of the marriage and forget about the marriage part (the most important part). Not to mention weddings are often over-formal and stuffy. However Cris didn't wear white, but gorgeous orange, the atmosphere was relaxed and buoyant, and it was clear how in love with each other the bride and groom were and that this day was about declaring that love and pact of friendship in front of their family and friends. Clearly there is something charming about weddings that a cynic like myself needs to recognise, if, like in this case, it's done with love as the prime motivator.
After the wedding, the speeches, and the floods of tears (and after I had done a great job of aerating the soil with my two inch heels) we made our way around the corner for a bite to eat. As usual everything was delicious and we ate up, unawares of the magnitude of the feast awaiting us at the reception. After a short walk down to the restaurant, we chomped our way through soup, lobster, fish, lamb, sorbet, wedding cake, alfajores and liqueur (clearly a digestif was sorely needed by this point). Following those four hours of continuous and gleeful gluttony, down to the basement where the party continued with dancing, music, and an open bar. We all tried to dance but the DJ was clueless - insisted on playing slow numbers with no beat. We persisted valiantly however, and I mastered the art of the porrón (glass contraption with which you pour wine through a spout directly into your mouth without touching your lips - harder than it looks). At about 1 am we were served a delicious supper (as we were all clearly starving) but after a while the smoke started to really bother me and I snuck out early with my parents. I can't believe I used to go out to bars and clubs in Melbourne where people are allowed to smoke. I cannot stand it. Your eyes and throat fill with smoke, the air is viscous and lacking in oxygen, and the horror doesn't end when you step outside - you have to go home, change your clothes, have a shower and wash your hair before you can breathe easy.
The next morning, tired of being a fat lazy piglet, I woke at 11 (delicious sleep in) and went for a run. What a place to run though - at the feet of the Pyrénées, the vista was magnificent and the air as pure as you can get - so long as you didn't meet anyone on the way, who would invariably be smoking or in a car blowing exhaust in your face. But every silver lining has a cloud, and at 700 m above sea level, running in Campo is slightly harder than a jog to Stephen's Green. I felt like a new woman afterwards though and well disposed to listening to the dissection and post mortem of the previous night by the people who had stayed on after I'd hit the sack. The conversation was most enlightening however - I can now say with complete confidence that you really do learn a lot more if you keep your mouth shut. For instance, in this case I learned that in their unguarded and basic state, men really are crude and vulgar creatures. Bless them in all their simplicity. Points for best quote of the night go to the Spanish girl who asked Luis, in her slightly inebriated state, to, "Cojeme un poquito". Luis, being Argentine, raised an eyebrow at this request but although he is the perfect gentleman he couldn't resist replying, "Te cojo todo lo que quieras".
After that much needed caffeine we sat down to lunch where I finally got together the courage to speak to people...it really is infuriating, as I'm sure everyone I met over those few days thinks I'm timid, shy , stupid or snobby. It's just that I don't have the vocabulary to be my usual exuberant, opinionated, stubborn, narcissistic, ebullient self in Spanish. I usually resort to speaking when spoken to, which, although when well executed can come across as mysterious and enigmatic, but when coupled with my obvious discomfort at having to speak at all is revealed as a simple lack of confidence. This wouldn't be so frustrating were it fact; but the truth of the matter is that I have loads of self-confidence (some might say an over-abundance) and having to present a distorted image of myself is irritating and makes me feel like I'm wearing an ugly mask. Or like my personality is being asphyxiated by a large downy pillow. Perhaps my personality could do with some asphyxiation (you decide) but that's quite beside the point.
After lunch we bade farewell to the wedding party who were off to continue the festivities in Buenos Aires and then had the afternoon and evening by ourselves in Campo to relax. Campo is lovely and soothing during the daytime when the views give pleasure to the eyes and walking does your body and soul good, but in winter it gets dark pretty early and on a Sunday night in a small pueblo in the middle of nowhere in a catholic country like Spain, you have to make your own fun. My parents proved too tired to have an interesting conversation with, and so on discovering I had exhausted my only reading material on the way to Barcelona I was at a loss until I pulled out Dad's Mac and began to organise all the music on my iPod. This, unbelievably, kept me entertained for hours on end and I spent the evening reliving the 60s through to the 90s, from the Beatles through U2 and INXS to the Hilltop Hoods and DJ Format.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
The Odyssey
The last week or so at work before my holidays was typically stressful. Handholding the temp doing my old job, trying to learn my new job, dealing with the typical IT crises (read: small problems that people make a big deal out of) and trying not to stress about making the plane on time. Not to mention, much as I love my parents and how much I enjoyed showing them the city I live in, having them around meant sleeping on the floor in the living room and living with five people (though, mercifully, it meant the burden of nourishing myself could be temporarily handballed to my more than capable father). Finally I was able to bid a quick goodbye to my colleagues and rushed out of the office at 15:00, anxious for my holidays to begin. Before they could though, a marathon (12 hour) journey by tram, bus, foot, aeroplane and car to Rodrigo's apartment in Barcelona.
I checked in at the Iberia desk (though my ticket had "British Airways" printed on it in at least three places in several garish colours) and eventually boarded the plane, seated between two serious looking businessmen. The three of us studiously ignored each other all the way to Madrid as is customary on all manner of public transport in the Western hemisphere.
10 minutes to touchdown at Barajas, and a crackly but friendly disembodied voice announced the connecting flights from Madrid. My flight to Barcelona was not included. Only then did it occurr to me that I had to disembark, collect my luggage, locate the check-in desk, check in, find my departure gate, and get on my next flight in 50 minutes. Oops. Fortunately the late hour meant the airport was relatively empty, and I was able to powerwalk off the plane and run down to the luggage claim.
Madrid Barajas has more than 20 baggage belts, all of which are numbered.Usually this would help, but whoever designed the layout for the airport had their own weird, totally impenetrable logic. After going through numerous doors, peering through floor to ceiling glass panes and following arrows seemingly pointed at walls of solid brick, I finally located baggage belt number 15, although I had the feeling of being a kind of 21st century "Alice in Wonderland". My bewildered almost-panic was of course, completely in vain as the tape revolved for almost 15 minutes with the same two green and black bags before our luggage began to appear.
Now with only 30 minutes until my flight to BCN, I began to worry. I grabbed my pack and ran for the "Salida" (exit). More arrows and two flights of stairs later, I found the Iberia information centre, who pointed out the check in, which proceeded at a reasonable pace and now to find my departure gate.
There are two types of airports. The first includes airports like Beauvais, Hobart, Rio de Gallegos and Dublin. These have all the prerequisites of airports - check in desks, security checks, coffee vendors, and planes. Not much else. The other kind of airport, LAX, Ezeiza, Heathrow, Barajas and their ilk are the size of a middling town in a second world country, can sustain a population of 50,000 for a week, where the departure gates are not only lettered and numbered but colour coded, and the time from check in to departure gates is measured in minutes and those in double figures. I started at a fast walk, was soon jogging and then broke into a run, following the red squares to gate H06, dodging people, baggage, prams, security guards and postcard stands for what seemed like about 5 kilometres. Gate H06 was predictably located at the end of a very long pier of departure gates, but thankfully they were still boarding the aircraft when I appeared, hot, sweaty, ruddy and panting, heart in mouth and passport in hand. I got on the plane (again in a middle seat, those Iberia people must really hate me) between a sour looking woman and a youngish man who offered me chewing gum (a nice gesture, politely declined as I could smell the sugar in the chewing gum from where I was sitting). Finally I relaxed, finished the (incredibly boring) book I had bought for the trip, and tried to sleep the rest of the way.
By the time I made it to Barcelona, I had been travelling by foot, train, but and plane for 11 hours, I hadn't eaten in 13 hours, and I felt less like I was on vacation and more like someone had taken to me with a solid oak cricket bat. Unfortunately this was not the end of my travels as we got lost on our way home from the airport and subsequently spent 20 minutes looking for a parking space at 3am. We finally parked about four blocks from the apartment and walked back in the freezing cold with my luggage. We sat down to a quick meal of cheese sandwiches, prawns and potatoes, I had a shower and finally sweet, sweet bed.
I checked in at the Iberia desk (though my ticket had "British Airways" printed on it in at least three places in several garish colours) and eventually boarded the plane, seated between two serious looking businessmen. The three of us studiously ignored each other all the way to Madrid as is customary on all manner of public transport in the Western hemisphere.
10 minutes to touchdown at Barajas, and a crackly but friendly disembodied voice announced the connecting flights from Madrid. My flight to Barcelona was not included. Only then did it occurr to me that I had to disembark, collect my luggage, locate the check-in desk, check in, find my departure gate, and get on my next flight in 50 minutes. Oops. Fortunately the late hour meant the airport was relatively empty, and I was able to powerwalk off the plane and run down to the luggage claim.
Madrid Barajas has more than 20 baggage belts, all of which are numbered.Usually this would help, but whoever designed the layout for the airport had their own weird, totally impenetrable logic. After going through numerous doors, peering through floor to ceiling glass panes and following arrows seemingly pointed at walls of solid brick, I finally located baggage belt number 15, although I had the feeling of being a kind of 21st century "Alice in Wonderland". My bewildered almost-panic was of course, completely in vain as the tape revolved for almost 15 minutes with the same two green and black bags before our luggage began to appear.
Now with only 30 minutes until my flight to BCN, I began to worry. I grabbed my pack and ran for the "Salida" (exit). More arrows and two flights of stairs later, I found the Iberia information centre, who pointed out the check in, which proceeded at a reasonable pace and now to find my departure gate.
There are two types of airports. The first includes airports like Beauvais, Hobart, Rio de Gallegos and Dublin. These have all the prerequisites of airports - check in desks, security checks, coffee vendors, and planes. Not much else. The other kind of airport, LAX, Ezeiza, Heathrow, Barajas and their ilk are the size of a middling town in a second world country, can sustain a population of 50,000 for a week, where the departure gates are not only lettered and numbered but colour coded, and the time from check in to departure gates is measured in minutes and those in double figures. I started at a fast walk, was soon jogging and then broke into a run, following the red squares to gate H06, dodging people, baggage, prams, security guards and postcard stands for what seemed like about 5 kilometres. Gate H06 was predictably located at the end of a very long pier of departure gates, but thankfully they were still boarding the aircraft when I appeared, hot, sweaty, ruddy and panting, heart in mouth and passport in hand. I got on the plane (again in a middle seat, those Iberia people must really hate me) between a sour looking woman and a youngish man who offered me chewing gum (a nice gesture, politely declined as I could smell the sugar in the chewing gum from where I was sitting). Finally I relaxed, finished the (incredibly boring) book I had bought for the trip, and tried to sleep the rest of the way.
By the time I made it to Barcelona, I had been travelling by foot, train, but and plane for 11 hours, I hadn't eaten in 13 hours, and I felt less like I was on vacation and more like someone had taken to me with a solid oak cricket bat. Unfortunately this was not the end of my travels as we got lost on our way home from the airport and subsequently spent 20 minutes looking for a parking space at 3am. We finally parked about four blocks from the apartment and walked back in the freezing cold with my luggage. We sat down to a quick meal of cheese sandwiches, prawns and potatoes, I had a shower and finally sweet, sweet bed.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Seven Sleeps to Spain!
Of course, as usual, a million things have happened since the last blog that I don't have the time or energy to relate it all, but in a nutshell - I have a new life. It has been transformed beyond all recognition from what it was a few posts ago. Along with my new flat I have a new job - Market Research Account Manager with W5 Marketing Intelligence Ltd. I also have so much on my social plate it's all beginning to spill off the sides. On top of that I've started Adult Literacy Tutor training and creative writing classes on top of my Wednesday salsa class. In short - I barely have five minutes to scratch my nose these days.
Firstly my new job. While I loved my old job, it really was time for a change. Challenging and interesting as admin is, I like to keep learning all the time, and after a while in the same job you tend to get stuck in a bit of a rut. Last thing I need is to be bored at my job - nothing could be worse for motivation. Anyway, as my contract was up end of this month, W5 (Genesis's wholly owned subsidiary) decided to employ me. I'm up to my eyeballs in market research - customer satisfaction, focus groups, surveys, clients and respondents. At the moment I'm learning the practical side of the job - survey implementation, reporting, the mechanics of SurveyWriter (the online software we use to deliver our online research). This can be a little tedious at times but of course you have to learn the slightly more boring part of the job before you can move on to the more interesting part - questionnaire design, presenting to clients, project co-ordination. Basically I've no experience, study or training in Marketing at all and am slightly bemused at the idea that they trust me to do this job. But learn it I will. And they've already got me proofing all the proposals, tenders and presentations - and you know I always relish any opportunity to hunt down and kill grammatical errors! My main projects to start off with will be Jurys and Microsoft. Both these projects are in the process of growing from smallish little reports into larger, more important projects so I've come in at a dynamic, fascinating time for these projects, and they're great for me to learn on. Jurys is one of our big clients too, (and, might I say, one of our most demanding) so if I can handle them on my own (not yet, but it will happen) I'll know I can do anything.
Of course, learning a new job is always tough. I've been putting in a lot of long hours over the last week and a half but loving every second. We had a temp in to do my old job before Irene came back finally (thank God for Irene) so I had to hold her hand (figuratively, thank goodness) while trying to learn my new job at W5. Now that Irene is back I can trust her to take care of it all and can concentrate on my new job, which is making things a lot easier. But the people at work are fabulous as always, stimulating, motivated, intelligent, funny, kind-hearted and generous - so for the moment, my working life, while long, is fulfilling and entertaining. What more can a girl ask for?
She can ask for some friends to fill up some of the time while she's not at work. Three months ago, I was in a social rut. The same old friends, same old places. Old friends are golden, but sometimes you need something new - new stimulus, so you know you're alive and not trapped in some kind of Nietzchean eternal circular universe. How am I going to make new friends though? I asked myself. When you're five, you can make friends with someone simply on the basis that they live across the street from you. You can bond over a shared love of cherry flavoured Hubba Bubba. Twenty years later, things are slightly more difficult. Everyone already has their own set of friends, they don't have any openings, they're not taking any applications, they're not interviewing for any positions. Plus, being in the same geographical position as someone else often isn't enough to base a friendship on, even for a summer. So, how to achieve my goal? The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple.
Attitude.
That's it. Just attitude. I changed nothing about myself or my life other than the fact that I had made an internal decision to be more open about meeting new people. I went to no extra effort, hatched no crazy schemes, had no Hollywood teen movie makeover. And it worked like a charm. In fact, it worked so well that I'm almost longing for the days of yore when I used to have time to crack a book once in a while, lie on the couch and daydream a time, or even cook, do laundry and go grocery shopping! A good lot of people have passed into my life in the last 90 days or so. Some of them have come and gone (the downside of living in a global community is half the time you get close to someone, they go home to France or Germany or Poland or Spain or Italy or China or whatever) but thankfully lots are here to stay. There's Tania, the little Russian doll from Moscow with whom I've seen more of Ireland in the last three months than in my whole first year in Ireland, Dan, the gorgeous San Franciscan/Korean with a heart of gold, Melinda, the Swiss with the perfect Argentine accent when she speaks Spanish (thanks to her Porteño ex-boyfriend), Eimear, the crazy Aussie I picked up in Clarks that time, Denise, her mad-as-a-cut-snake Irish housemate, Nadia, the Aussie/Chinese/Russian that loves doof-doof music and wants to live in Rathmines, Pascal, the Franco-German gentleman of a bygone era who plays the guitar like a dream, Nicolas, the party guy with one eye on every girl in the place, Peter, the relaxed Belgian who's full of surprises, all Marie's friends I met at her party in Lyon...need I go on? Suddenly a night on the couch in front of a crappy romantic comedy is a fast-fading memory. But life is for living, so I'm not wasting a moment of it.
When I'm not with my friends, I'm at class. Monday nights is Adult Literacy Tutor training. I've been looking for something to volunteer for for ages, and this is perfect for me. I think I'd be a fairly good tutor (I'm a good listener and a competent-ish teacher) and literacy is something I'm passionate about. Unfortunately the delivery of the training course leaves a lot to be desired. It is lacklustre and snail-paced, dissipating my enthusiasm for the subject into a pool of boring handouts and ceaseless waffle only tangentially related to the matter at hand. One simultaneous highlight and lowlight of the course is one of the tutors giving the course. His name is John but give him a hand puppet and he is (note, not resembles, but actually becomes) Mr. Garrison from the immensely popular adult cartoon, “South Park”. He has the personality of a cold trout, he's completely effeminate, and he says things like “If we would all learn to listen to each other the world would be a better place”. But the dead giveaway is the fact that he ends most of his sentences with “mmmkay?”. I swear I am not making this up.
Tuesday nights is Creative Writing. Well, Tuesday nights should be creative writing. It was due to start this Tuesday gone, and I had it down to start at half seven. As Irene was starting back on Wednesday morning, I was late leaving the office as I was preparing everything for the handover the following morning. I got out of the office at ten to seven but figured I could still make it if I caught the bus. I walked briskly to the stop, and then realised I had left my wallet at the office and had no change for the bus. Reluctant to make the trip to fetch my wallet and back, I took a deep breath and started jogging for home (the class is round the corner from my house). Luckily I had changed into my new sneakers (I asked the sales guy for ones with loads of cushioning, so I feel like I'm walking/running on balloons!) but I was still in my work pants and skivvy. I was only planning to jog a little way, maybe up until the canal, but I found when I got there I was hardly puffed, so on I went - up Camden Street, Wexford Street, Aungier Street, George's Street, dodging people, prams, street lights, bus stops, the occasional bike. I made it to the Liffey in less than 20 minutes. I was halfway up Capel Street when I finally packed it in, but considering two years ago I bet I couldn't have run 3 minutes without getting puffed, I'm pretty proud of myself. I made it to the college by 7.25, amazed that I had gotten there not only on time but early. On the door of the college was a sign. “Creative Writing: Tuesdays, 6:15 pm to 7:45 pm”.
Holy Mother of God.
“You're too late to go in now, better come back next week”.
I won't share with you the steady stream of curses running though my brain and exploding from my mouth at this juncture, for fear my mother will revert to her usual refrain, “We spent all of that money on private schooling to have you talk like you live in a gutter”. I'm sure your imaginations will do justice to the situation. Next week then!
Last night I met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in a few months. We went to the Porterhouse for a pint and chatted non-stop for hours. It was great - good beer, a pub crooner mangling all the most interesting Beatles songs, dim lighting and animated, wide-ranging and captivating conversation. I had missed that a lot - though I've met a lot of fun people lately, it's different when you just “click” with someone, or with a group of people. That inexplicable feeling that descends when you're with them - an almost tangible sense of well-being, of contentedness. You can relax, be free. Who needs Valium or Prozac when you have good friends around you?
Tomorrow another exciting day - my parents are coming! They'll be in Dublin a week checking up on my lifestyle, making sure I'm eating enough fruit and vegetables, fussing over me and ordering me around (you know, normal parent stuff). Next Thursday we'll be heading off for Barcelona, and then touring the north of Spain. To pile more fun and coolness on top of all that, one of my coolest bestest friends from back home, Julia, will be meeting me in Bilbao and we'll be heading down towards Madrid together! Wicked partying, here we come! Then to Rome, where I will be doing nothing but drinking coffee, eating pizza, revelling in ancient ruins and checking out all the hot Italian boys (for whom I have a strong weakness). After three weeks of fun in the (hopefully) sun - back to Dublin and Jurys, Microsoft and piles of statistics!
By the way - I finally got paid the money I was owed from ACS. Here's hoping that's an end to that. I'm still having awesome fun at salsa class, no longer the worst in the class, yay! I'm in the middle of "To Kill a Mockingbird" - now that I'm reading it I can't believe I've never read it before now - it's brilliant! Anyway, it's late and I have to get some sleep as I'm getting headshots done tomorrow for the W5 website and I need my beauty sleep! Good night world...
Firstly my new job. While I loved my old job, it really was time for a change. Challenging and interesting as admin is, I like to keep learning all the time, and after a while in the same job you tend to get stuck in a bit of a rut. Last thing I need is to be bored at my job - nothing could be worse for motivation. Anyway, as my contract was up end of this month, W5 (Genesis's wholly owned subsidiary) decided to employ me. I'm up to my eyeballs in market research - customer satisfaction, focus groups, surveys, clients and respondents. At the moment I'm learning the practical side of the job - survey implementation, reporting, the mechanics of SurveyWriter (the online software we use to deliver our online research). This can be a little tedious at times but of course you have to learn the slightly more boring part of the job before you can move on to the more interesting part - questionnaire design, presenting to clients, project co-ordination. Basically I've no experience, study or training in Marketing at all and am slightly bemused at the idea that they trust me to do this job. But learn it I will. And they've already got me proofing all the proposals, tenders and presentations - and you know I always relish any opportunity to hunt down and kill grammatical errors! My main projects to start off with will be Jurys and Microsoft. Both these projects are in the process of growing from smallish little reports into larger, more important projects so I've come in at a dynamic, fascinating time for these projects, and they're great for me to learn on. Jurys is one of our big clients too, (and, might I say, one of our most demanding) so if I can handle them on my own (not yet, but it will happen) I'll know I can do anything.
Of course, learning a new job is always tough. I've been putting in a lot of long hours over the last week and a half but loving every second. We had a temp in to do my old job before Irene came back finally (thank God for Irene) so I had to hold her hand (figuratively, thank goodness) while trying to learn my new job at W5. Now that Irene is back I can trust her to take care of it all and can concentrate on my new job, which is making things a lot easier. But the people at work are fabulous as always, stimulating, motivated, intelligent, funny, kind-hearted and generous - so for the moment, my working life, while long, is fulfilling and entertaining. What more can a girl ask for?
She can ask for some friends to fill up some of the time while she's not at work. Three months ago, I was in a social rut. The same old friends, same old places. Old friends are golden, but sometimes you need something new - new stimulus, so you know you're alive and not trapped in some kind of Nietzchean eternal circular universe. How am I going to make new friends though? I asked myself. When you're five, you can make friends with someone simply on the basis that they live across the street from you. You can bond over a shared love of cherry flavoured Hubba Bubba. Twenty years later, things are slightly more difficult. Everyone already has their own set of friends, they don't have any openings, they're not taking any applications, they're not interviewing for any positions. Plus, being in the same geographical position as someone else often isn't enough to base a friendship on, even for a summer. So, how to achieve my goal? The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple.
Attitude.
That's it. Just attitude. I changed nothing about myself or my life other than the fact that I had made an internal decision to be more open about meeting new people. I went to no extra effort, hatched no crazy schemes, had no Hollywood teen movie makeover. And it worked like a charm. In fact, it worked so well that I'm almost longing for the days of yore when I used to have time to crack a book once in a while, lie on the couch and daydream a time, or even cook, do laundry and go grocery shopping! A good lot of people have passed into my life in the last 90 days or so. Some of them have come and gone (the downside of living in a global community is half the time you get close to someone, they go home to France or Germany or Poland or Spain or Italy or China or whatever) but thankfully lots are here to stay. There's Tania, the little Russian doll from Moscow with whom I've seen more of Ireland in the last three months than in my whole first year in Ireland, Dan, the gorgeous San Franciscan/Korean with a heart of gold, Melinda, the Swiss with the perfect Argentine accent when she speaks Spanish (thanks to her Porteño ex-boyfriend), Eimear, the crazy Aussie I picked up in Clarks that time, Denise, her mad-as-a-cut-snake Irish housemate, Nadia, the Aussie/Chinese/Russian that loves doof-doof music and wants to live in Rathmines, Pascal, the Franco-German gentleman of a bygone era who plays the guitar like a dream, Nicolas, the party guy with one eye on every girl in the place, Peter, the relaxed Belgian who's full of surprises, all Marie's friends I met at her party in Lyon...need I go on? Suddenly a night on the couch in front of a crappy romantic comedy is a fast-fading memory. But life is for living, so I'm not wasting a moment of it.
When I'm not with my friends, I'm at class. Monday nights is Adult Literacy Tutor training. I've been looking for something to volunteer for for ages, and this is perfect for me. I think I'd be a fairly good tutor (I'm a good listener and a competent-ish teacher) and literacy is something I'm passionate about. Unfortunately the delivery of the training course leaves a lot to be desired. It is lacklustre and snail-paced, dissipating my enthusiasm for the subject into a pool of boring handouts and ceaseless waffle only tangentially related to the matter at hand. One simultaneous highlight and lowlight of the course is one of the tutors giving the course. His name is John but give him a hand puppet and he is (note, not resembles, but actually becomes) Mr. Garrison from the immensely popular adult cartoon, “South Park”. He has the personality of a cold trout, he's completely effeminate, and he says things like “If we would all learn to listen to each other the world would be a better place”. But the dead giveaway is the fact that he ends most of his sentences with “mmmkay?”. I swear I am not making this up.
Tuesday nights is Creative Writing. Well, Tuesday nights should be creative writing. It was due to start this Tuesday gone, and I had it down to start at half seven. As Irene was starting back on Wednesday morning, I was late leaving the office as I was preparing everything for the handover the following morning. I got out of the office at ten to seven but figured I could still make it if I caught the bus. I walked briskly to the stop, and then realised I had left my wallet at the office and had no change for the bus. Reluctant to make the trip to fetch my wallet and back, I took a deep breath and started jogging for home (the class is round the corner from my house). Luckily I had changed into my new sneakers (I asked the sales guy for ones with loads of cushioning, so I feel like I'm walking/running on balloons!) but I was still in my work pants and skivvy. I was only planning to jog a little way, maybe up until the canal, but I found when I got there I was hardly puffed, so on I went - up Camden Street, Wexford Street, Aungier Street, George's Street, dodging people, prams, street lights, bus stops, the occasional bike. I made it to the Liffey in less than 20 minutes. I was halfway up Capel Street when I finally packed it in, but considering two years ago I bet I couldn't have run 3 minutes without getting puffed, I'm pretty proud of myself. I made it to the college by 7.25, amazed that I had gotten there not only on time but early. On the door of the college was a sign. “Creative Writing: Tuesdays, 6:15 pm to 7:45 pm”.
Holy Mother of God.
“You're too late to go in now, better come back next week”.
I won't share with you the steady stream of curses running though my brain and exploding from my mouth at this juncture, for fear my mother will revert to her usual refrain, “We spent all of that money on private schooling to have you talk like you live in a gutter”. I'm sure your imaginations will do justice to the situation. Next week then!
Last night I met up with an old friend I hadn't seen in a few months. We went to the Porterhouse for a pint and chatted non-stop for hours. It was great - good beer, a pub crooner mangling all the most interesting Beatles songs, dim lighting and animated, wide-ranging and captivating conversation. I had missed that a lot - though I've met a lot of fun people lately, it's different when you just “click” with someone, or with a group of people. That inexplicable feeling that descends when you're with them - an almost tangible sense of well-being, of contentedness. You can relax, be free. Who needs Valium or Prozac when you have good friends around you?
Tomorrow another exciting day - my parents are coming! They'll be in Dublin a week checking up on my lifestyle, making sure I'm eating enough fruit and vegetables, fussing over me and ordering me around (you know, normal parent stuff). Next Thursday we'll be heading off for Barcelona, and then touring the north of Spain. To pile more fun and coolness on top of all that, one of my coolest bestest friends from back home, Julia, will be meeting me in Bilbao and we'll be heading down towards Madrid together! Wicked partying, here we come! Then to Rome, where I will be doing nothing but drinking coffee, eating pizza, revelling in ancient ruins and checking out all the hot Italian boys (for whom I have a strong weakness). After three weeks of fun in the (hopefully) sun - back to Dublin and Jurys, Microsoft and piles of statistics!
By the way - I finally got paid the money I was owed from ACS. Here's hoping that's an end to that. I'm still having awesome fun at salsa class, no longer the worst in the class, yay! I'm in the middle of "To Kill a Mockingbird" - now that I'm reading it I can't believe I've never read it before now - it's brilliant! Anyway, it's late and I have to get some sleep as I'm getting headshots done tomorrow for the W5 website and I need my beauty sleep! Good night world...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Moving on up
Moving. Difficult at the best of times, our experience was unmitigated disaster. It started off well, as we found our new flatmate fairly fast. We set up a few interviews with some young professional girls (we had a flood of responses to the ad we put up on Daft, as the room is a very good price for what it is) the first with a Spanish engineer called Laura. We liked her very much but felt we should at least meet a few more people so as not to just take the first girl we met. We talked to a couple of nice girls, but after each we just said to ourselves, “She's cool, but I like Laura better”. So in the end we cancelled all our other interviews and just called Laura and asked her to move in. She agreed, thankfully, to put up with us and for the moment everything was rosy.
Meanwhile, finding replacements for us at the old Bolton street flat was proving harder than previously thought. Normally we'd never have problems finding someone, but this time was somewhat different as we were looking for three girls at the same time (Marie was moving back to France four days after we were due to move) and Sabrina was quite picky about who she would live with. No men, no students, no smokers, nobody under 21, blah blah blah. Usually it takes about a week to find someone suitable, so we thought three weeks would be plenty of time. But Sabrina took so long to decide who she wanted that by the time she picked people they'd already found another place. It was a stressful time for us all, showing people the flat every day (it's quite exhausting after an eight hour day at work to smile and joke with strangers in your living room) and worrying about finding a replacement to cover the rent (not to mention get our deposit back). In the end, we found three people in time, but only just.
Finally, or so we thought, it was time to move. By this time I hadn't seen the flat in more than a month. When I did see it, it was only half finished, I only had a quick glance, and Shelly and Laura hadn't seen it at all. I wasn't even sure where the bedrooms were or what was in the apartments or anything. Whether we would even have a microwave. At this point I was ringing the agents every second day asking when the flat would be ready and when we could sign the lease. They gave me the standard response, i.e. “We're not sure yet - when we know we'll call you to set up a time”. Finally it rolled around to Wednesday the 6th. I called the agents as usual, only to be told, “We called you yesterday” (a lie, no voicemail or missed call) “Only the people that called back can move in on Friday”. You can imagine how I felt at that point. I lost the plot at the poor woman on the phone. “You told me we could move on the 8th, we planned to move on the 8th, now we have nowhere to live, I've called seven times in the last couple of weeks, nobody could tell me anything as of Monday and now suddenly a delay of a couple of hours means we can't move in?” Rant rant rant. All the builders' fault apparently - true, but typical buck-passing. The apartment wasn't ready, wasn't fit for human habitation and that's just all there was to it.
I put the phone down, stomped around the office for a bit making “Grrr” noises until someone asked me what was wrong and then I had another rant. Then I sat at my computer and wrote a scathing email to the lettings department with the subject “***URGENT - Attn: Lettings Manager***”. I don't remember exactly what I put but I remember the first line was something along the lines of “Your website boasts about professionalism and personalised service but throughout my dealings with your company I have experienced neither of these”, so you can see the general tone of the correspondence. I sent it off in a big huff not expecting a response (despite my at least 30 calls to their office between trying to see the apartment and trying to sign the lease, nobody from the agent had ever called me back).
To her credit, at half nine the next morning, Carina, the manager rang my direct line. By this point I had calmed down somewhat, but reiterated my concerns (mainly that no information had been available until the previous day and when there finally was, it was bad news, and also my newfound state of homelessness). She reassured me that we were top priority to move in as early as possible the next week. Monday, Tuesday? I asked. She wouldn't pin down a day.
Right so. I told Shelly and Laura the bad news (very difficult) and we tried to sort out where we were going to live until Monday. We called the girls who were going to move into our flat and asked if they could move in on Monday. They agreed, so we were fine until then. Laura was a different story, but in a big pinch she stayed at her boyfriend's house (he shares a room with another guy). So we were ok until Monday.
That weekend was Marie's last in Dublin, so we went out to celebrate/commiserate. We went out to dance at Odeon, and to eat at a Chinese restaurant Shelly knows on Parnell St. We had fun and didn't cry.
Monday rolled around and I called the agent again, pleading with them via ESP to give me good news. They didn't. We'd be moving in Friday. Definitely Friday, or maybe Friday? Definitely Friday she said. I was angry but at least we had a definite day. In the meantime we had to figure out what the hell we were going to do with ourselves and our luggage until then. I was fine as I have lots of friends with convenient rooms or couches in the city centre that I could stay at. I ended up at my friend Eimear's, who provided me with:
a) a bed
b) a room to myself
c) a house in Ballsbridge (the Toorak of Dublin for the Melbournites, the Puerto Madero of Dublin for the Porteños) next to the biggest Tesco in Dublin at which works not one but two cute guys and
d) a towel.
Plus her place is close to work. So sweet. In fact, I almost had it easier there than at Bolton Street. Shelly stayed on the Bolton Street couch (squashy, but bearable for four days) and poor Laura still at Derek's. That week was harder on me than I thought it was going to be. Silly me, I thought I'd just be having a good time with Eimear and her housemates who are all really fun. I had this big idea that it was going to be like one big long slumber party. I did have fun, but I underestimated the stress of living out of a suitcase, negotiating unfamiliar bus routes, being a “guest”, having to co-ordinate with other people what time I was going to arrive home, not having anything in the fridge (well, to be frank that's not much of a change from my regular life). The weirdest thing was not having keys to anywhere. Well, I had work keys, but I had handed over my keys to Bolton Street and hadn't got keys to my new apartment, and I felt more “homeless” without keys than without four familiar walls. Even when I stay in a strange place I still have my keys - a symbolic representation of my home.
I muddled through the week slightly more dishevelled than usual, and finally made it to Friday. I tried to leave work early, and achieved a half hour gain and left at 17:00. I caught the 18 back to Ballsbridge and got chatting to a lovely woman with the cutest pigtails and an even cuter daughter. We compared “moving out” stories, flute lesson stories, and general anecdotes and jokes. We had great craic until she and her daughter got off in Sandymount. I got back to my temporary home in Ballsbridge, had something to eat and chatted a bit with Eimear and Denise before I called a cab to take all my stuff back to Parnell st. What a relief to finally have a home!
Shelly had called me at work to gush about the apartment but I didn't have time to talk to her, so I didn't really have a clue what the place was like. I walked in and it was - well, it was a new apartment! Everything beige and totally characterless, but new and clean! And we can make the character over time. We had a dining table to seat six, couches to seat four (or six if you wanna get up close and personal), a coffee table, dishwasher, washing machine, brand new oven, microwave and stove, an enormous fridge and freezer (well, enormous when you compare it to the miniscule bar fridge we were using in the previous apartment) and, wait for it, DOUBLE BEDS! Well, Shelly and I have doubles and Laura has a king size bed. My bed is just about as big as my room, but what the hell else do I need to put in there? Laura has an ensuite with shower (oh my god) which means we'd gone from four girls and one bathroom to three girls and two bathrooms - a much nicer equation. The shower pressure is great too, and the bath is spacious enough for a good relaxing soak.
So that's what we got. Here's what we didn't get: duvets, pillows, cutlery, crockery, cleaning equipment, pots and pans, knives, kitchen utensils, and lots of other bits and pieces. So Friday night I ate with chopsticks Shelly brought and slept on my double mattress in my sleeping bag. Welcome to my new apartment!
On Saturday morning the three of us went SHOPPING! Homewares all the way. We went to Talbot street where all the bargain basement stores are and bought the lot. The best buys I think were the duvets at 12 euro fifty and the 16 piece crockery set for 10 quid. Hurrah for us. I think we spent about 100 euro each and came loaded. The rest of the day was spent organising the apartment and cleaning it from top to bottom, so we were exhausted by the end, but it was worth it in the end, as we finally had a usable, neat apartment! To celebrate I had bought a bottle of bubbly (el cheapo from Tesco, but hey, I'm no Paris Hilton) and we drank it out of glasses (we didn't have the budget for champagne flutes). Cheers to new beginnings.
Meanwhile, finding replacements for us at the old Bolton street flat was proving harder than previously thought. Normally we'd never have problems finding someone, but this time was somewhat different as we were looking for three girls at the same time (Marie was moving back to France four days after we were due to move) and Sabrina was quite picky about who she would live with. No men, no students, no smokers, nobody under 21, blah blah blah. Usually it takes about a week to find someone suitable, so we thought three weeks would be plenty of time. But Sabrina took so long to decide who she wanted that by the time she picked people they'd already found another place. It was a stressful time for us all, showing people the flat every day (it's quite exhausting after an eight hour day at work to smile and joke with strangers in your living room) and worrying about finding a replacement to cover the rent (not to mention get our deposit back). In the end, we found three people in time, but only just.
Finally, or so we thought, it was time to move. By this time I hadn't seen the flat in more than a month. When I did see it, it was only half finished, I only had a quick glance, and Shelly and Laura hadn't seen it at all. I wasn't even sure where the bedrooms were or what was in the apartments or anything. Whether we would even have a microwave. At this point I was ringing the agents every second day asking when the flat would be ready and when we could sign the lease. They gave me the standard response, i.e. “We're not sure yet - when we know we'll call you to set up a time”. Finally it rolled around to Wednesday the 6th. I called the agents as usual, only to be told, “We called you yesterday” (a lie, no voicemail or missed call) “Only the people that called back can move in on Friday”. You can imagine how I felt at that point. I lost the plot at the poor woman on the phone. “You told me we could move on the 8th, we planned to move on the 8th, now we have nowhere to live, I've called seven times in the last couple of weeks, nobody could tell me anything as of Monday and now suddenly a delay of a couple of hours means we can't move in?” Rant rant rant. All the builders' fault apparently - true, but typical buck-passing. The apartment wasn't ready, wasn't fit for human habitation and that's just all there was to it.
I put the phone down, stomped around the office for a bit making “Grrr” noises until someone asked me what was wrong and then I had another rant. Then I sat at my computer and wrote a scathing email to the lettings department with the subject “***URGENT - Attn: Lettings Manager***”. I don't remember exactly what I put but I remember the first line was something along the lines of “Your website boasts about professionalism and personalised service but throughout my dealings with your company I have experienced neither of these”, so you can see the general tone of the correspondence. I sent it off in a big huff not expecting a response (despite my at least 30 calls to their office between trying to see the apartment and trying to sign the lease, nobody from the agent had ever called me back).
To her credit, at half nine the next morning, Carina, the manager rang my direct line. By this point I had calmed down somewhat, but reiterated my concerns (mainly that no information had been available until the previous day and when there finally was, it was bad news, and also my newfound state of homelessness). She reassured me that we were top priority to move in as early as possible the next week. Monday, Tuesday? I asked. She wouldn't pin down a day.
Right so. I told Shelly and Laura the bad news (very difficult) and we tried to sort out where we were going to live until Monday. We called the girls who were going to move into our flat and asked if they could move in on Monday. They agreed, so we were fine until then. Laura was a different story, but in a big pinch she stayed at her boyfriend's house (he shares a room with another guy). So we were ok until Monday.
That weekend was Marie's last in Dublin, so we went out to celebrate/commiserate. We went out to dance at Odeon, and to eat at a Chinese restaurant Shelly knows on Parnell St. We had fun and didn't cry.
Monday rolled around and I called the agent again, pleading with them via ESP to give me good news. They didn't. We'd be moving in Friday. Definitely Friday, or maybe Friday? Definitely Friday she said. I was angry but at least we had a definite day. In the meantime we had to figure out what the hell we were going to do with ourselves and our luggage until then. I was fine as I have lots of friends with convenient rooms or couches in the city centre that I could stay at. I ended up at my friend Eimear's, who provided me with:
a) a bed
b) a room to myself
c) a house in Ballsbridge (the Toorak of Dublin for the Melbournites, the Puerto Madero of Dublin for the Porteños) next to the biggest Tesco in Dublin at which works not one but two cute guys and
d) a towel.
Plus her place is close to work. So sweet. In fact, I almost had it easier there than at Bolton Street. Shelly stayed on the Bolton Street couch (squashy, but bearable for four days) and poor Laura still at Derek's. That week was harder on me than I thought it was going to be. Silly me, I thought I'd just be having a good time with Eimear and her housemates who are all really fun. I had this big idea that it was going to be like one big long slumber party. I did have fun, but I underestimated the stress of living out of a suitcase, negotiating unfamiliar bus routes, being a “guest”, having to co-ordinate with other people what time I was going to arrive home, not having anything in the fridge (well, to be frank that's not much of a change from my regular life). The weirdest thing was not having keys to anywhere. Well, I had work keys, but I had handed over my keys to Bolton Street and hadn't got keys to my new apartment, and I felt more “homeless” without keys than without four familiar walls. Even when I stay in a strange place I still have my keys - a symbolic representation of my home.
I muddled through the week slightly more dishevelled than usual, and finally made it to Friday. I tried to leave work early, and achieved a half hour gain and left at 17:00. I caught the 18 back to Ballsbridge and got chatting to a lovely woman with the cutest pigtails and an even cuter daughter. We compared “moving out” stories, flute lesson stories, and general anecdotes and jokes. We had great craic until she and her daughter got off in Sandymount. I got back to my temporary home in Ballsbridge, had something to eat and chatted a bit with Eimear and Denise before I called a cab to take all my stuff back to Parnell st. What a relief to finally have a home!
Shelly had called me at work to gush about the apartment but I didn't have time to talk to her, so I didn't really have a clue what the place was like. I walked in and it was - well, it was a new apartment! Everything beige and totally characterless, but new and clean! And we can make the character over time. We had a dining table to seat six, couches to seat four (or six if you wanna get up close and personal), a coffee table, dishwasher, washing machine, brand new oven, microwave and stove, an enormous fridge and freezer (well, enormous when you compare it to the miniscule bar fridge we were using in the previous apartment) and, wait for it, DOUBLE BEDS! Well, Shelly and I have doubles and Laura has a king size bed. My bed is just about as big as my room, but what the hell else do I need to put in there? Laura has an ensuite with shower (oh my god) which means we'd gone from four girls and one bathroom to three girls and two bathrooms - a much nicer equation. The shower pressure is great too, and the bath is spacious enough for a good relaxing soak.
So that's what we got. Here's what we didn't get: duvets, pillows, cutlery, crockery, cleaning equipment, pots and pans, knives, kitchen utensils, and lots of other bits and pieces. So Friday night I ate with chopsticks Shelly brought and slept on my double mattress in my sleeping bag. Welcome to my new apartment!
On Saturday morning the three of us went SHOPPING! Homewares all the way. We went to Talbot street where all the bargain basement stores are and bought the lot. The best buys I think were the duvets at 12 euro fifty and the 16 piece crockery set for 10 quid. Hurrah for us. I think we spent about 100 euro each and came loaded. The rest of the day was spent organising the apartment and cleaning it from top to bottom, so we were exhausted by the end, but it was worth it in the end, as we finally had a usable, neat apartment! To celebrate I had bought a bottle of bubbly (el cheapo from Tesco, but hey, I'm no Paris Hilton) and we drank it out of glasses (we didn't have the budget for champagne flutes). Cheers to new beginnings.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
I'm so dizzy my head is spinning
Does this happen to everyone or is it just me? My life fluctuates wildly between incredibly intense and exceedingly mundane. Friday was one of the latter days - filled with filing and other tasks that do not require massive energy input. By Friday afternoon I was completely wiped from the week, and although I had been looking forward to it all week, I decided to give Hope's party a miss and jumped into bed at half nine instead. I was out for the count until half nine on Saturday morning when I went to SuperValu to get breakfast and pottered around until it was time to go to the gym. Though I'm going pretty regularly, I've been slack about actually working out; most days I do a quick run and hop in the sauna. The last couple of weeks I've pushed myself a bit harder, especially as I'm planning a mountainous trek for early next year either in Northern Ireland or Scotland (Scottish Highlands here I come, if I can afford it) and I'm going to have to have strong legs for that. I made it through the Andes, but just barely!
After the gym a long, hot shower (I loooove the showers at my gym) and I made myself pretty to go out to the Karma bar and meet Nic and the others. Nic's moving (well, has moved now) to Galway and we were going out for drinks to celebrate his last night in Dublin. The Karma bar was pretty cool looking but practically devoid of people. I met Carlos, Heidi's boyfriend. He's Mexican and lots of fun, but he had a sore throat and so wasn't up for a long night. Tania, my new Russian friend came, and we caught up as we walked to Whelan's. We got there as the band (Ito) was still playing, and we managed to sneak in to hear the last few songs. They were pretty good, and had a totally cool retro vibe. We danced lots and drank a bit, and generally went mad. I had my eye on the lead guitarist from the band, but Tania got talking to him first and after that I didn't have a chance! After the band: a DJ playing some funky rock, and more dancing and crazyness ensued.
We stayed till about 2, when Shelly insisted we go home (rock isn't really her thing, and I bet she hated every minute since we got there, poor thing!). We said goodbye to Nic (except for Tania, who was wrapped up in her Brazilian lead guitarist, hehe) and headed home. Meanwhile, at Whelan's, my friend Ruairi had texted me inviting me to a party on at his place. Not his party, but at his house. Even though it was 2 am, I was hardly ready for the night to end, so to the horror of my flatmates I left them at Bolton Street and made my way to Ruairi's (only 5 minutes away, don't worry). I got there, said hi to Alan (who, by the way, I am on good terms with again. I still don't know exactly what happened there, as he told me he'd been angry with me and then he told me he'd never been angry with me, but that I had “changed”, whatever that means. Sure, I've changed, it's called growing up! But I got the impression he didn't particularly like who I'd changed into. Oh well, it doesn't matter, as long as we're friends again!). Alan introduced me to his friend Raymond, who happened to be from Sydney. Unusually, I didn't pick this up straight away, as his accent wasn't that strong, probably given the fact he'd spent half his life in Ireland. We chatted for a while about Life, the Universe and Everything (my favourite subjects) and then went inside to dance. The cool thing about parties at Alan's/Ruairi's is that the music is always sensational. It's always stuff I've never heard before, but it's always interesting and sometimes incredibly great.
Got sick of dancing after a bit, and went to find Ruairi (who, after all, had invited me in the first place, so only polite to say hello no? Besides, obviously, I wanted to see him!). His reaction to my presence simultaneously surprised and delighted me. He exclaimed, with fervour,
“I'm so glad you're here”, and enveloped me in a giant bear hug. Gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it?
We chatted for a bit, and I met Wendy, from Northern Ireland somewhere (can't remember the town unfortunately). Turns out she'd been to Australia (like every young Irish person) and had stayed in Collingwood (poor darling). And then I saw him.
My fantasy life is rich and varied, but sometimes includes a (totally fictional) tall, dark and handsome Italian named Luca. Naturally, when I saw a tall dark and handsome stranger at this party, my interest was piqued. When I found he was Italian, I was intrigued. And when he told me his name was Luca, my knees went a little wobbly and my head got a little light. Was I literally meeting the man of my dreams?
In short, before you get carried away, no. Unfortunately fantasy will always remain just that. But we had a fun conversation over red wine (me) and cigarettes (him), and at 0600 he walked me home, and the real Luca turned out to be just as good a kisser as the fantasy one! I left him at my front door, and although I gave him my number, I hold out no hope he'll ever call. If I'm honest, I have to admit that a teeny part of me hopes I never see him again. That way, he'll remain the gorgeous, mysterious semi-stranger with the magic lips forever, and I'll never learn that he snores or have to pick up his dirty shirts off the floor.
I slept a few hours until about 11 when I dragged myself out of bed and went to forage (well, to the supermarket) for food. Marie and I were feeling wrecked and therefore completely in the mood for some dreadful romantic comedies. We got three and took them home. First up in our movie marathon was “Never Been Kissed”, which I've already seen but who cares? You know what's going to happen the first time you watch it, so it doesn't make a difference how many times you've seen it! After that, for some insane reason I still don't understand, we felt the need to go to the gym (remember I'm running on four hours sleep after partying all night). But not only did we make it to the gym I actually did a pretty good workout before surrendering to the sauna. After the sauna and a hot shower I felt like a new woman, full of adrenaline and/or endorphins and generally ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, the natural high wore off on the way home and by the time I made it back to Bolton street we basically resigned ourselves to spending the rest of the night shackled to the couch.
Second on the list was one of my favourite movies growing up, “The Breakfast Club”. As we watched it again I relived my love of it as a teen and remembered all the lines that had had me on the floor with laughter. I didn't remember so much crying in it though! I had also forgotten how incredibly gorgeous Judd Nelson is in that movie. After “The Breakfast Club” we watched “Ever After”, the Cinderella story with Drew Barrymore. This movie has very little to recommend it other than the man who plays Prince Charming, but by this point my brain was so addled that was about as highbrow a movie as my cognitive processes were able to handle.
After the movie, straight to bed and out faster than the proverbial light.
Now, given Sunday was a fairly quiet and mundane sort of a day, in my current lifestyle, this means Monday was certain to be insane. It didn't disappoint.
I had let everyone know that I'd be in mid-morning on Monday because I was off to the Circuit Court to get the papers stamped so I could take my ex-boss to court for the money he owes me since last November. They had told me the court opened at 10, so I thought, fabulous! I can sleep in! About 0800 on Monday I get a text from my boss Gary. She and Una, another colleague , were off to Cork that day for a Bord Gais meeting. She texts me “Ryanair made me pay 100 euro to change my name to get on the flight”. I'm freaking out, thinking I must have made some kind of mistake when I was booking her on the flight. Turns out it's because she's using her drivers license as ID and it says “Margaret Joyce”. Even though every other card and piece of paper she owns says Gary Joyce, that's not good enough. She's never had a problem with this before, and she always uses the same ID, but everyone's extra jumpy after the foiled terrorist attacks at Heathrow. I'm sure it's just Ryanair being greedy.
Anyway, I'm off to the Circuit Court to get my court date. The Circuit Court, according to its website, is situated on Inns Quay. Inns Quay, according to the StreetFinder, does not exist. Not to worry. I'll call and ask for directions. So I call at about five to nine, not holding out much hope that anyone will pick up the phone as it's not supposed to open until 10. Miraculously someone is there and answers the phone, a totally
a) non-Irish and
b) non-government-employee attitude.
She confirms that the Circuit Court is indeed in Four Courts (I know where that is, thankfully) and says, “If you have questions, ring back in five minutes. We aren't open yet”. So I'm thinking, bollocks! They open at nine! Better get my ass down there fast!
I decide not to go out of my way to SuperValu for cash (the stamp duty on the form is 45 euro), thinking not only is there an AIB on Capel St, but that even if that is out of service (a fifty fifty chance in Dublin) there must be an ATM along the quays somewhere. I walk up to the ATM on Capel St. Out of Service. Typical. Onwards and upwards I say, and fly along the quays towards Four Courts.
On the way I call the letting agents we've been harassing about this new block of apartments on Parnell Street. Shelly and I had been looking at apartments for a couple of months, but we'd had our eyes on this building in particular. We'd called the agents every week for about two months, asking when the apartments were going to be let. We'd left our contact details at least 10 times, and finally that day we learned that they were showing the apartments and hadn't contacted us. We were furious. I called them and demanded an appointment to view the apartments. They told me all the viewings were booked for that day already. How was it then, I asked through gritted teeth, given the fact we'd called so many times, we hadn't got an appointment, while Shelly's friends, who had only called a couple of days previous, were given one? She couldn't give me a satisfactory answer, but neither could I bully her into an appointment. I called Shelly and gave her the sad news, resigned to the fact that those apartments were now lost to us forever.
No time to worry about that, and again set a course for Four Courts. No ATMs to be found anywhere. I did find an AIB, but no ATM, and if I ever find a bank here that opens at nine, I'll die of cardiac arrest due to the shock. I was still penniless when I arrived at Four Courts. Unbelievable. I race past, and finally, a few stressful minutes later, a SPAR. My prayers were finally answered when I found it to contain an Ulster Bank ATM.
Now cashed up, I go as fast as I can back towards the courts. I get past a quite lassaiz-faire security check and I make it into the heart of law and order in Dublin. The appearance of the courts took me a little by surprise. It looked like a (badly designed) public school built in the 60s and left to rot since then. All the furniture looked like it had been there for about forty years. It certainly had that funded-by-the-government-in-the-60s-el-cheapo-non-descript-brown-blob feel to it. Everything was old and manky, there packing boxes full of God knows what everywhere, and the receptionist looked twice as old as the building. I got there about half nine, and asked the receptionist where I was to get my form stamped. He directed me to the stamping office (which does indeed open at nine) and then mentioned, “Oh, well actually, I don't know if they can stamp that for you. Maybe the circuit court has their own stamping system. You will have to ask them when they open at 10”. I asked the guy in the stamping office and he said that he could stamp it, but he couldn't help me fill it out, so I would have to wait for the circuit court to open after all. So I made friends with the manky 60s blob chairs and waited it out.
Into the office at 10, where the lady told me how to fill in the form, but I didn't have the address of the company with me. Obviously I know where I used to work, but I wasn't sure if I could put that address or if I had to put the registered address of the company. I could have looked it up on the internet but they don't have internet access at Four Courts (how how how is this possible?) and the thought of wandering around all morning looking for an internet café was more than I was prepared for at that moment. I rang Shelly at work, and asked her to look it up for me. After about half an hour on the phone, Shelly was ready to cut my throat but I had the company address. I filled out the form, went downstairs to get it stamped, and 45 euro later I came back up and the lady told me my court date was October 9. Fabulous. I don't really have much faith that this is going to make him pay, but I have to do everything in my power to get this money or I'll never forgive myself. Finally I was free at about half ten (the receptionist even said, “Are you still here?”) and I began the pleasant walk in the rare Dublin sunshine towards work.
In summary:
I was woken by a scary text message from my boss
The address of the Four Courts didn't exist
The lady on the phone told me it opened at nine and it didn't
The ATM on Capel St was out of service
I had an argument with the letting agent
I couldn't find an ATM on the quays
I found on arrival that the circuit court opens at 10 as previously thought and
I spent a frantic half hour trying to get the company address,
all before 10:30 am. And the drama doesn't end there.
I was almost back at work when my mobile rings. Shelly.
“Lucia, my friends are at the Parnell Street flats. There's people handing over deposits left right and centre. You have to get your ass down there now or we're going to miss out. I would go but I'm in Blanchardstown.”
“What?? I have to go to work!! I'm already late!! And anyway they wouldn't give me an appointment.”
“Lucia for god's sake get down there. My friends will get you in. I'll give you his number. Just get in a taxi!”
So I just got in a taxi. The taxi driver was great, when I explained my situation, he didn't stay in the traffic like normal taxi drivers, but took all the back roads to get me there faster. It was the cheapest taxi ride I've ever had in Dublin. I raced out of the taxi, rang Shelly's friend, argued my way past the construction guy-turned-bouncer up to room 66 where a girl was organising the lettings. Shelly's friend Wang told me he'd reserved apartment 17 for me, and I asked to see it. One of the girls took me there (the building is a maze, and anyway we weren't supposed to be wandering around unaccompanied as it was still a construction site). It was pretty much as I had expected - two single rooms, a double, a kitchen, bathroom and living area. Not everything was working, and there was still tools and dust all over the place, but it looked nice enough. Back down to Apartment 66 where I rang Shelly and described the place to her. We decided it was great for the price, and we'd be silly not to take it. Anyway the deposit is fully refundable until the lease is signed.
I had to leave a deposit or references, and since I didn't have any references I went down to O'Connell street to my Bank of Ireland branch. It felt weird, asking for a bank draft for 1900 euro. I don't think I've ever held that much money in my hands before. I didn't have time to think about it though, flying back to the apartments to hand over half my life savings. As I got back to apartment 66, the girls from the letting agency were already telling people “Sorry, all the apartments have been let. I can put you on a waiting list in case there are any cancellations”. All the apartments on the first four floors of that enormous building had been let in two and a half hours. And the building isn't even finished! I handed over my deposit, got escorted down to the exit by a gorgeous construction guy, and hopped in another taxi back to work. By the time I got there it was 1:00 - I had taken all morning! The rest of the day was fairly low key, thank goodness, and I couldn't wait to tell Shelly the good news - we were finally moving! Now to find a flatmate...
After the gym a long, hot shower (I loooove the showers at my gym) and I made myself pretty to go out to the Karma bar and meet Nic and the others. Nic's moving (well, has moved now) to Galway and we were going out for drinks to celebrate his last night in Dublin. The Karma bar was pretty cool looking but practically devoid of people. I met Carlos, Heidi's boyfriend. He's Mexican and lots of fun, but he had a sore throat and so wasn't up for a long night. Tania, my new Russian friend came, and we caught up as we walked to Whelan's. We got there as the band (Ito) was still playing, and we managed to sneak in to hear the last few songs. They were pretty good, and had a totally cool retro vibe. We danced lots and drank a bit, and generally went mad. I had my eye on the lead guitarist from the band, but Tania got talking to him first and after that I didn't have a chance! After the band: a DJ playing some funky rock, and more dancing and crazyness ensued.
We stayed till about 2, when Shelly insisted we go home (rock isn't really her thing, and I bet she hated every minute since we got there, poor thing!). We said goodbye to Nic (except for Tania, who was wrapped up in her Brazilian lead guitarist, hehe) and headed home. Meanwhile, at Whelan's, my friend Ruairi had texted me inviting me to a party on at his place. Not his party, but at his house. Even though it was 2 am, I was hardly ready for the night to end, so to the horror of my flatmates I left them at Bolton Street and made my way to Ruairi's (only 5 minutes away, don't worry). I got there, said hi to Alan (who, by the way, I am on good terms with again. I still don't know exactly what happened there, as he told me he'd been angry with me and then he told me he'd never been angry with me, but that I had “changed”, whatever that means. Sure, I've changed, it's called growing up! But I got the impression he didn't particularly like who I'd changed into. Oh well, it doesn't matter, as long as we're friends again!). Alan introduced me to his friend Raymond, who happened to be from Sydney. Unusually, I didn't pick this up straight away, as his accent wasn't that strong, probably given the fact he'd spent half his life in Ireland. We chatted for a while about Life, the Universe and Everything (my favourite subjects) and then went inside to dance. The cool thing about parties at Alan's/Ruairi's is that the music is always sensational. It's always stuff I've never heard before, but it's always interesting and sometimes incredibly great.
Got sick of dancing after a bit, and went to find Ruairi (who, after all, had invited me in the first place, so only polite to say hello no? Besides, obviously, I wanted to see him!). His reaction to my presence simultaneously surprised and delighted me. He exclaimed, with fervour,
“I'm so glad you're here”, and enveloped me in a giant bear hug. Gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it?
We chatted for a bit, and I met Wendy, from Northern Ireland somewhere (can't remember the town unfortunately). Turns out she'd been to Australia (like every young Irish person) and had stayed in Collingwood (poor darling). And then I saw him.
My fantasy life is rich and varied, but sometimes includes a (totally fictional) tall, dark and handsome Italian named Luca. Naturally, when I saw a tall dark and handsome stranger at this party, my interest was piqued. When I found he was Italian, I was intrigued. And when he told me his name was Luca, my knees went a little wobbly and my head got a little light. Was I literally meeting the man of my dreams?
In short, before you get carried away, no. Unfortunately fantasy will always remain just that. But we had a fun conversation over red wine (me) and cigarettes (him), and at 0600 he walked me home, and the real Luca turned out to be just as good a kisser as the fantasy one! I left him at my front door, and although I gave him my number, I hold out no hope he'll ever call. If I'm honest, I have to admit that a teeny part of me hopes I never see him again. That way, he'll remain the gorgeous, mysterious semi-stranger with the magic lips forever, and I'll never learn that he snores or have to pick up his dirty shirts off the floor.
I slept a few hours until about 11 when I dragged myself out of bed and went to forage (well, to the supermarket) for food. Marie and I were feeling wrecked and therefore completely in the mood for some dreadful romantic comedies. We got three and took them home. First up in our movie marathon was “Never Been Kissed”, which I've already seen but who cares? You know what's going to happen the first time you watch it, so it doesn't make a difference how many times you've seen it! After that, for some insane reason I still don't understand, we felt the need to go to the gym (remember I'm running on four hours sleep after partying all night). But not only did we make it to the gym I actually did a pretty good workout before surrendering to the sauna. After the sauna and a hot shower I felt like a new woman, full of adrenaline and/or endorphins and generally ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, the natural high wore off on the way home and by the time I made it back to Bolton street we basically resigned ourselves to spending the rest of the night shackled to the couch.
Second on the list was one of my favourite movies growing up, “The Breakfast Club”. As we watched it again I relived my love of it as a teen and remembered all the lines that had had me on the floor with laughter. I didn't remember so much crying in it though! I had also forgotten how incredibly gorgeous Judd Nelson is in that movie. After “The Breakfast Club” we watched “Ever After”, the Cinderella story with Drew Barrymore. This movie has very little to recommend it other than the man who plays Prince Charming, but by this point my brain was so addled that was about as highbrow a movie as my cognitive processes were able to handle.
After the movie, straight to bed and out faster than the proverbial light.
Now, given Sunday was a fairly quiet and mundane sort of a day, in my current lifestyle, this means Monday was certain to be insane. It didn't disappoint.
I had let everyone know that I'd be in mid-morning on Monday because I was off to the Circuit Court to get the papers stamped so I could take my ex-boss to court for the money he owes me since last November. They had told me the court opened at 10, so I thought, fabulous! I can sleep in! About 0800 on Monday I get a text from my boss Gary. She and Una, another colleague , were off to Cork that day for a Bord Gais meeting. She texts me “Ryanair made me pay 100 euro to change my name to get on the flight”. I'm freaking out, thinking I must have made some kind of mistake when I was booking her on the flight. Turns out it's because she's using her drivers license as ID and it says “Margaret Joyce”. Even though every other card and piece of paper she owns says Gary Joyce, that's not good enough. She's never had a problem with this before, and she always uses the same ID, but everyone's extra jumpy after the foiled terrorist attacks at Heathrow. I'm sure it's just Ryanair being greedy.
Anyway, I'm off to the Circuit Court to get my court date. The Circuit Court, according to its website, is situated on Inns Quay. Inns Quay, according to the StreetFinder, does not exist. Not to worry. I'll call and ask for directions. So I call at about five to nine, not holding out much hope that anyone will pick up the phone as it's not supposed to open until 10. Miraculously someone is there and answers the phone, a totally
a) non-Irish and
b) non-government-employee attitude.
She confirms that the Circuit Court is indeed in Four Courts (I know where that is, thankfully) and says, “If you have questions, ring back in five minutes. We aren't open yet”. So I'm thinking, bollocks! They open at nine! Better get my ass down there fast!
I decide not to go out of my way to SuperValu for cash (the stamp duty on the form is 45 euro), thinking not only is there an AIB on Capel St, but that even if that is out of service (a fifty fifty chance in Dublin) there must be an ATM along the quays somewhere. I walk up to the ATM on Capel St. Out of Service. Typical. Onwards and upwards I say, and fly along the quays towards Four Courts.
On the way I call the letting agents we've been harassing about this new block of apartments on Parnell Street. Shelly and I had been looking at apartments for a couple of months, but we'd had our eyes on this building in particular. We'd called the agents every week for about two months, asking when the apartments were going to be let. We'd left our contact details at least 10 times, and finally that day we learned that they were showing the apartments and hadn't contacted us. We were furious. I called them and demanded an appointment to view the apartments. They told me all the viewings were booked for that day already. How was it then, I asked through gritted teeth, given the fact we'd called so many times, we hadn't got an appointment, while Shelly's friends, who had only called a couple of days previous, were given one? She couldn't give me a satisfactory answer, but neither could I bully her into an appointment. I called Shelly and gave her the sad news, resigned to the fact that those apartments were now lost to us forever.
No time to worry about that, and again set a course for Four Courts. No ATMs to be found anywhere. I did find an AIB, but no ATM, and if I ever find a bank here that opens at nine, I'll die of cardiac arrest due to the shock. I was still penniless when I arrived at Four Courts. Unbelievable. I race past, and finally, a few stressful minutes later, a SPAR. My prayers were finally answered when I found it to contain an Ulster Bank ATM.
Now cashed up, I go as fast as I can back towards the courts. I get past a quite lassaiz-faire security check and I make it into the heart of law and order in Dublin. The appearance of the courts took me a little by surprise. It looked like a (badly designed) public school built in the 60s and left to rot since then. All the furniture looked like it had been there for about forty years. It certainly had that funded-by-the-government-in-the-60s-el-cheapo-non-descript-brown-blob feel to it. Everything was old and manky, there packing boxes full of God knows what everywhere, and the receptionist looked twice as old as the building. I got there about half nine, and asked the receptionist where I was to get my form stamped. He directed me to the stamping office (which does indeed open at nine) and then mentioned, “Oh, well actually, I don't know if they can stamp that for you. Maybe the circuit court has their own stamping system. You will have to ask them when they open at 10”. I asked the guy in the stamping office and he said that he could stamp it, but he couldn't help me fill it out, so I would have to wait for the circuit court to open after all. So I made friends with the manky 60s blob chairs and waited it out.
Into the office at 10, where the lady told me how to fill in the form, but I didn't have the address of the company with me. Obviously I know where I used to work, but I wasn't sure if I could put that address or if I had to put the registered address of the company. I could have looked it up on the internet but they don't have internet access at Four Courts (how how how is this possible?) and the thought of wandering around all morning looking for an internet café was more than I was prepared for at that moment. I rang Shelly at work, and asked her to look it up for me. After about half an hour on the phone, Shelly was ready to cut my throat but I had the company address. I filled out the form, went downstairs to get it stamped, and 45 euro later I came back up and the lady told me my court date was October 9. Fabulous. I don't really have much faith that this is going to make him pay, but I have to do everything in my power to get this money or I'll never forgive myself. Finally I was free at about half ten (the receptionist even said, “Are you still here?”) and I began the pleasant walk in the rare Dublin sunshine towards work.
In summary:
I was woken by a scary text message from my boss
The address of the Four Courts didn't exist
The lady on the phone told me it opened at nine and it didn't
The ATM on Capel St was out of service
I had an argument with the letting agent
I couldn't find an ATM on the quays
I found on arrival that the circuit court opens at 10 as previously thought and
I spent a frantic half hour trying to get the company address,
all before 10:30 am. And the drama doesn't end there.
I was almost back at work when my mobile rings. Shelly.
“Lucia, my friends are at the Parnell Street flats. There's people handing over deposits left right and centre. You have to get your ass down there now or we're going to miss out. I would go but I'm in Blanchardstown.”
“What?? I have to go to work!! I'm already late!! And anyway they wouldn't give me an appointment.”
“Lucia for god's sake get down there. My friends will get you in. I'll give you his number. Just get in a taxi!”
So I just got in a taxi. The taxi driver was great, when I explained my situation, he didn't stay in the traffic like normal taxi drivers, but took all the back roads to get me there faster. It was the cheapest taxi ride I've ever had in Dublin. I raced out of the taxi, rang Shelly's friend, argued my way past the construction guy-turned-bouncer up to room 66 where a girl was organising the lettings. Shelly's friend Wang told me he'd reserved apartment 17 for me, and I asked to see it. One of the girls took me there (the building is a maze, and anyway we weren't supposed to be wandering around unaccompanied as it was still a construction site). It was pretty much as I had expected - two single rooms, a double, a kitchen, bathroom and living area. Not everything was working, and there was still tools and dust all over the place, but it looked nice enough. Back down to Apartment 66 where I rang Shelly and described the place to her. We decided it was great for the price, and we'd be silly not to take it. Anyway the deposit is fully refundable until the lease is signed.
I had to leave a deposit or references, and since I didn't have any references I went down to O'Connell street to my Bank of Ireland branch. It felt weird, asking for a bank draft for 1900 euro. I don't think I've ever held that much money in my hands before. I didn't have time to think about it though, flying back to the apartments to hand over half my life savings. As I got back to apartment 66, the girls from the letting agency were already telling people “Sorry, all the apartments have been let. I can put you on a waiting list in case there are any cancellations”. All the apartments on the first four floors of that enormous building had been let in two and a half hours. And the building isn't even finished! I handed over my deposit, got escorted down to the exit by a gorgeous construction guy, and hopped in another taxi back to work. By the time I got there it was 1:00 - I had taken all morning! The rest of the day was fairly low key, thank goodness, and I couldn't wait to tell Shelly the good news - we were finally moving! Now to find a flatmate...
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