Photos from New Brunswick

A slideshow of our trip out east. Watch a much better slideshow by clicking here. At the Picasa website, click on slideshow.

Panoramas

I've just discovered this neat little software tool which allows amazing photographic panoramas. PTgui is a sophisticated program which you pop in a certain number of photos and it automatically stitches them all together. It has incredible architectural implications because you can create elevational photographs out of inaccessible viewpoints, improving on the fragmented effect of overlapping individual images, and saving lots of time. It also allows you to create VR "lookthroughs" of spaces (i.e. single point perspective at centre of semi-sphere or full sphere). Have a look at some of the ones I've created for the Gesù Church as well as some from Ireland. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't support the VR videos (or I haven't figured out how to post them) so you'll have to ask me to send them to you if you're interested.







This last image (as well as the one before the fish-eye image) are impossible views of the side elevation. I should be well inside the neighbouring buildings. Just from taking pictures from a single point on the ground level in all different directions, the program figures out how to stitch the images together. This can have a major implication on photographic documentation of buildings, in addition to the touristic novelty:

Montreal Trip #3

This was the busiest trip so far to Montreal, starting at 5am until 5pm. The reason for going down this time was twofold: meet our professor Kelly Crossman at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) for research orientation and also to meet our studio professor at his office for student presentations of assigned readings.

Our time with Kelly was very interesting because we were conducting a mini research assignment of Montreal in the 1960's -- specifically the circulation planning of the city. Based on what was called the 'Morgan Plan', the city orginally intended to run their east-west freeway right through Old Montreal and build 'super-blocks' of multi-use high-rise towers and thousands of parking spaces. Ex-members of CIAM, Sandy van Ginkel and Blanche Lemco (who had both left France for Montreal) strongly advised for alternative designs to the freeway. After picking through newspaper clippings, drawings, correspondence, and agenda notes, as supplied by the CCA Archives, we were eventually able to piece together the narrative of this important urban plan (from a heritage point of view). Ultimately, the freeway was moved north of the originally proposed location, replacing an existing railway artery. Upon reaching the existing train station, the freeway tunneled under the modern city centre and pops out to the east side.

At lunch we met with Phyllis Lambert, founder of the CCA (a testament to the youth of our architectural heritage). She became particularly well known during the mid 1960's for her role as consultant in the development of the Seagram's Building in New York and the Toronto Dominion Towers, both by Mies Van der Rohe. But in founding the CCA, she has managed to compile one of the most extensive archives of architectural material in North America. We spoke about Canadian architectural identity in a cozy restaurant near the CCA.

Late, we hustled over to Louis' office to blaze through student presentations of their reading material. After our meeting I scoped out the site a bit more and started composing photo-montage images of my observations (below). Through this exercise I hope to be able to isolate what I think is the essential quality of the site so that I can move onto designing a program for our proposal.

Montreal Field Trip

Immediately after the drawing competition, we packed our bags for an organized field trip to Montreal to visit our site at the Gesù Church. Our group of four rented a vehicle and drove down late at night to check in to a hostel and party it up a bit in the city. Next morning, we spent a full day surveying a portion of the building.

The purpose of this visit was to gain a sense of the site and generate some initial feelings of purpose to derive ideas for the rest of the project. A supplementary assignment to surveying the building is creating a 'photographic essay' of the building. A sort of narrative expressing our initial impression of the site or the building or anything at all we find significant to developing our project. We are meant to generate thought from this and weave in and out of it through the course of the semester.



OBSERVATIONS:: From what this church was intended to be, and what it became are two very different things. From the get-go, the design of the church was done up by an Irish architect in New York who had never visited the site, nor designed the building in drawings, but rather dimensions. The numbers were sent to Montreal to the Jesuits were to fill in the blanks. Additionally, higher authorities within the local parish wanted to keep another main church in downtown Montreal as the central church to the city and the Gesù church was not to exceed the other's height. We're told that historically, all kinds of dancing, performing arts, galleries etc were flourishing at the very doorstep of the Gesù but for some reason, the architecture never really followed suit. Instead, it has become an ugly duckling - incomplete towers, huge chunky proportions, careless repairs, set on a bed of cracked asphalt. In the winter, ice has been known to fall very dangerously - in one instance it broke right through the lower roof of the building! There's also no easy way of getting into the building. That's a long story in itself. It is also blessed to be next to the American Consulate. Some friends were escorted off of the neighbouring empty lot because we were photographing the church. Charming.

For the next few days, teams will compile their survey measurements and overlay them on Louis' final survey notes. The 'official' purpose of the survey is to see how close we are to the actual drawings which are already in CAD. I'm hoping that once we do this, we'll find strange things about the building to talk about, given it was constructed from numbers and not drawings. It's so strange to even consider architecture without drawing of any kind. Without any representation of the building, what gets lost? What would the list of dimensions even look like, and how would they be organized?

Here are some photos of the Gesù church and its nearby surroundings:

Berlin

After Barcelona, I headed off to Berlin for the second leg of my trip. Highlights include: being randomly interviewed by a German radio station for nation branding at the Reichstadt, currywursts, Camille Carot painting 'Ville d'Avray', and Gauklerfest (street performance festival / beerfest).

Barcelona

Well I'm comfortably seated in a familiar old chair in the roasting humid loft of my home in the Soo now. I apologize for the long hiatus, but I've been sifting through the thousands of digi pics from the last leg of my travels in Europe, correcting, cropping, and organizing the good shots between visiting friends and getting my eyes, teeth and ticker inspected upon return. I'm really happy to be back in familiar territory, living beyond a luggage bag and something larger than a shoe-box apartment. That. feels. great.

Work at the friary came to a close but the celebrations postponed until after my end-of-the-year travel-fest. I tied up some loose ends over the weekend and took off for Barcelona and Berlin over 1.5 weeks. Unfortunately Jess was tied down at work and had to chill in Dublin while I spoiled myself silly on vacation (I didn't really, but taking a solo vacation in the bigger picture is a bitttt of spoilage). Anyhow, I spent 5 days in Barcelona and 4 in Berlin. The trip to BCN turned out to be more of a Gaudi pilgrimage than a relaxing time on the beaches. In fact I didn't even hit the beaches in reluctance of unveiling my newfound ribs and pasty Irish skin. Staying in one of the architecture capitals of the world (with 9 World Heritage Sites - 7 of which are works by Gaudi) I just couldn't resist but see everything I could pull my feeble body to see. In fact my OCD kicked in and I gave'r for the first few days in attempt to see Everything. Here's my current photo album of a portion of what I saw (seriously, my culture filter clogged right up here. I saw a lot):



Have yet to get through my Berlin pics but am working towards it for the end of the weekend. Only one week left till going back to Ottawa to see everyone. See you all on Friday 31st!

Torino - Genova

One week after seeing Northern Ireland with Jess, I took the last bit of my holiday time to see Andre in his ancestral homeland for a few days. We met up in Turin in the middle of the night, because of a terribly delayed flight into Italy on Ryanair. I checked in at our hostel at around 11:30 at night, without having dinner yet and woke Ghione just to say I arrived. I then headed out into the city to find some dinner until about 1:30am to settle the day's worth of hunger.

The following day, we said a more coherent hello to each other and headed out into the city. We caught a nice view of the city from the hills nearby the hostel - the Mole Antonelliana (pronounced moleh...with a bit of Italian flair) as the main focus with the Alps in the background. Haphazardly, we made our way towards it to see it up close and explore the city at the same time. After a nice long circle route with more catching up with each other than touristy sight-seeing, we reached the Mole. It looks like a church but it has been converted to a cinema museum. We decided to have a look. It was really worth it, the inside was full of activity - a nice break from just looking at the inside of a church which has become the usual in most European cities. In Dublin however most of the churches have been converted to lighting shops or pubs. Anyhow, we spent a while here then checked out the Royal Gardens from a closed fence and walked around for most of the remaining day.

The following day, we caught an early train to head down to Genoa (Genova). Before coming here, I was trying to place our hostel on google maps. You have to see this. It's quite a contrast to Turin's gridded map. In Genova, Ghione and I explored the old medieval town and later saw the famous La Lanterna (lighthouse). Architect Renzo Piano has redeveloped the main harbour, including a tensile tent (which was closed when we were there) as well as a floating butterfly bubble. The city is totally focused inward on its historical port, where Christopher Columbus is supposedly born. The harbour is filled with massive ferries and cruise ships. We visited the aquarium there as well which is known as the largest in Europe.

We caught a lot of sights together, but it was really nice to catch up with the old mountebank again. Our next proposed rendezvous will be in Thailand circa 2008.

Kerry

Last weekend Jess and I went to Paul and Maria's place in Kerry. This was part of our staff trip, which at the moment happens to be just me. We took the train out of Dublin and met up with them, drove for a little over an hour to the Ivereagh Peninsula in the southwest of Ireland. We basically just crashed the night we got there and got up bright and early the next day for a trip out to the Skellig Islands. This is one of two World Heritage sites in Ireland (the other being Newgrange Burial Mounds).

Bright and early, Maria dropped Jess and I off at the harbour and we took a 45 minute ferry out to the Skelligs. The Skelligs are two islands (Skellig Michael and Little Skellig), that dramatically sit off the southwest coast of Kerry. One of the islands is the site of a 1400 year old Celtic monastery, and the other a nesting place for 55,000 gannets. The monastery was founded in 588 and throughout the years was repeatedly attacked by Vikings until later abandoned by the monks for the mainland monastery at Ballinskelligs.

The ferry carried us out for 45 minutes. J and I bolted out of the boat and started our three-hour exploration of the island. It was full of puffins! We climbed the north peak to reach the monastery. On the south peak however, there is a newly discovered cliff which is truly at the edge of the world, where a hermit is presumed to have lived apart from the monastery. (at back in photo)

When we rearched the monastery, we found about five corbeled beehive huts and a tiny chapel which was added later. The view of Little Skelligs was incredible from the peak. J and I eventually made our descent on the precarious guardrail-less stairs and headed back to meet up with Paul and Maria.

They took us for a spin around the countryside. Destination #1: chocolate factory. Sea salt dark chocolate completely rocked my world. We could have sat there for hours taste-testing the chocolates but peeled ourselves away and drove around a bit more. We stopped at an art gallery for a bit and then a village which was abandoned during the famine. There were about 5 stone thatched/tiled houses on a hillside which have since been converted to artists' studios.

The following day we did a bit more driving around and just generally soaking in the beautiful Kerry landscape. Maria kept saying it's like living in a painting. We did a couple other outings on sunday including seeing the 'Tetrapod' footprints which they believe to be the oldest four-legged creature on record. It was strange because what's left of our poor little ancestor was being dumped on by farm runoff - gunk from a pipe. It was interesting, but I'm still skeptical. Felt like a Loch Ness pitch.

We caught our train back to Dublin by a hair and I think that's just about all that's fit for a one-month update.

Update v.2.0 +++ Béal Feirste

Following suit with last weekend's travel arrangements, I left Mum and Dad on their own as they steadily made their way around the country while I sat in the office, anxious for another bit of quality travel time with them.

We first set out to the Giant's Causeway. I'll be very brief as I'm wrting this in reverse, because the following bits of stories are more interesting and need more effort to write. The Giant's Causeway can be summed up in the photo album - simply stunning.

Two weekends with the parents hasn't driven us to civil war with each other, but got quite the history on that topic as we made our third and last weekend tour around historic Belfast, in Northern Ireland. Obviously Belfast has been scorched for the past 10-1000 years, but lately the city has come closer to peace agreements than it ever has in the past. I don't think we entirely knew what exactly we wanted to see before arriving there - the idea of seeing the city alone was enticing enough. The only substantial idea was seeing the shipyards where the Titanic was built and possibly some museums or memorials related to that, but otherwise, weren't quite sure what particulars we really wanted to see.

The first thing we attempted was a tour bus of the city, the sundaymorning. This was possibly the best possible thing we could have done, and as our tour guide explained, 'It was the only thing we could have done'. Since peace is such a foreign thing to Belfast, the city is only experiencing tourism and foreigners now. So, as the city's front line in tourism, they have set up an excellent tourbus that sees the main sights within the city.

The bus took us to the shipyards where the Titanic was built. At this time, Belfast was one of the largest shipyards in the world, employing over 35,000 workers under shipbuilding giant 'Harland & Wolff'. It has since to shrunk to one-tenth of the size.

The city has a distinct edgy feeling to it, possibly visible on the faces of people living there or in the disintegrating buildings in the city centre, or historical baggage, but regardless you can pick it up easily. This feeling swelled as we drove through the caloused neighbourhoods of Protestant - Loyalist Shankhill Road to Catholic - Nationalist Townsend Road, both within walking distance of each other in West Belfast, but literally separated by the 'Peace Line', a 4-storey wall crudely separating the two neighbourhoods. This is the site of the worst fighting in Belfast during the Troubles of 1969-1998. You can still see sniper towers atop resident homes in some areas and barbed wire everywhere. The Courthouse is surrounded by 9' thick blast walls. Supposedly the conflict neighbourhoods are still populated by their respective fanatics, and small amounts of secular violence still occur here, but by connecting the dots, it's nothing compared to the past few decades. Towards the Protestant area, we found numerous wall murals sympathetic to the Loyalist feelings; in the other neighbourhood, murals sympathetic to global politics - mainly anti-Bush comments. It was all very heavy to take in, and I'm finding that my mental filter is clogging up fast. Irish history is so lengthy and complex - I'm only getting the gist of things now. Mum was quite moved by the political paintings along Townsend Road - it sort of crested many of the world's problems in one sweeping gesture which is strong enough to rattle people into awareness.

Belfast is the most socially/politically interesting city in Ireland to visit. Mum and Dad made a very good trip around the northwest quarter of Ireland which included Strokestown (which has the Famine Museum, also very moving). I guess Belfast just seemed to reveal a more exposed wound in Irish history than Dublin which seems preoccupied with the 'Celtic Tiger' and the Polish Invasion. Maybe they're well beyond all that which brings me back to the first buzz of optimism I felt upon arriving - things are good now, so enjoy life.

The tail end of a great visit with the parents was fairly low-key. We went out for dinner with Paul and Maria on the night before they headed out. I have to admit, I was dreading the clash of the Titans, but it all went very well, thank all the gods haha. Sadly, off Mum and Dad went, leaving Malaysian curry powder and Tropical Menthos in their footprints. I'm anxious to see their full footage of the trip when getting home. You'd be interested to hear about Kylemore Abbey from them.

Here's a lengthy slide-video of some of the murals as well as my own slideshow of Belfast and Giant's Causeway.

Update!

Okay, sorry folks. I've fallen well behind in my weekly/bi-weekly updates. It's been non-stop since all the way back in April. After visiting Jess in Finland, meeting Will and Erin in Dublin right after that, seeing the folks the following week, and the 2 after that (which haven't been written about yet), there's even more that's happened that's kept me from tapping away at my blog. But judging by the low site hit-count, this fact has probably gone unnoticed haha. So here's a quick run through last month...

I left Mum and Dad on their own after the first weekend of May and crossed my fingers they'd make it to destination #1 (by driving on the right ((meaning left)) side of the road) which was Waterford, south of Dublin. They did in fact make their way all along the south coast of Ireland down to the southwest towards Cork and Kerry where they did the scenic tour of the Ring of Kerry around the dangly Dingle Peninsula. Eventually I met up with them in Galway which is north of that and less than more west of Dublin. We all met up with Uncle Mark and Aunt Shashi as well who took a generous bit of time off to hang out with us. It was great seeing them again, after only seeing them five months ago. Mum and Dad had a really nice B&B booked along the coast which we checked in to, coincidentally just near where Nico, Morgan, Renee, J and I had wandered off to, back in December.

Our first trip together was out to the Aran Islands. We took the ferry from just outside Galway. Once seated onboard, we gave Mum and Dad their needed seesick radii - but without incident we arrived at the remote island. When we arrived, I was quite shocked by how stark the villages and countryside looked. By 'villages', i mean what they classify as being roughly 5-10 houses in an area. At the same time, the hills are dotted with the odd house, blockaded with row upon row of stone walls.

The Aran Islands seem to contain a lot of the hard-to-find traditional Ireland. Like many cultures famed for their identity, there often comes a kitchy, immitative version of their own culture to score a quick buck off the sucker of a tourist. While Aran is fairly touristic, it's one of the few concentrated areas in Ireland where they speak Irish (Gaelic) as their first language. That's a fair suggestion that the culture is still contained within their tradition. We were lucky to have a jolly tour guide who was hilarious (possibly insane) and nice to listen to because the Irish language is unlike anything I've heard before. He brought us to a number of points of interest, like the Iron Age Dun Aonghus (dun angus) ringfort and a number of other ruinous sites. We spent most of our time at the Dun Aonghus Fort. The fort has to have about 3-4m thick walls at the base. It's presumed to have been built by King Aonghus, to protect a small settlement. Peering over the edge made my knees clench up. I foolishly thought sitting over the edge would be a great idea. After speaking to James about it in Dublin, I found out that about 19 people/year get sucked off the edge from random gusts of wind. Luckily I didn't kick the bucket and round the number off at 20. Got the blood moving, at least.

We spent the entire day at Aran Islands, which was well worth it. The following day, we made another day trip, this time to the Cliffs of Moher, north of Galway. There's an interesting Visitor's Centre there that's built into the side of a hill. Inside isn't very special, but we ate a hearty meal here. The Cliffs were fairly busy during the day, but incredible scenery nonetheless. Not much to say about it, other than check out my photo album (or newly discovered built-in slideshow -gasp!!!-).

We sped off to the airport the same evening and said a reluctant goodbye to Uncle Mark and Aunt Shashi. Would have hoped to spend more time together, but we've made plans for a late July visit, before I head home. Eughhh, that sounds weird...(I miss home) k, that's all for now. I'm going to try and lash out an Update v.2.0!!!!

Week One with the Folks

The investigation squad has arrived in full regalia - white dust-sample gloves and all. Leading up to the parents' visit, Palais Terenure was upside down in a vast orchestrated effort to normalize the seven months' worth of biological grime and various infestations. Brooms and mops were ablaze, babies crying in the streets, an old woman was even reported to have successfully executed a standing back-flip in her excitement.

So, of course the arrival and greeting was soppy and emotional as you can imagine yeah yeah. We booted out of the airport and did a type of crash course in driving on the opposite side of the road with a standard transmission rental car. Dad was a bit on edge and we all collaborated to remember to stay on the LEFT. So we arrived in one generally collective piece and checked in to St. Aiden's Guesthouse (link for anyone wanting to visit me soon heeee!), a really nice B&B within a stone's throw to my flat - just about.

For the first bit of the weekend, we puttered around Dublin for the most part, checking out the familiar Temple Bar area of town (city centre) and taking the Dublin City Tour Bus which brought us to all the hotspots like Trinity College (where the Book of Kells is exhibited), Merrion Square and St. Steven's Green (posh part of town with nice gardens), Phoenix Park (as described a couple times before), and St. Patrick's Cathedral (home to the holiest of holies, Paddy Smith). We stole our first Irish pub experience at O'Neill's, dipping in to some good Irish stout and ale. Kudos to Mum for shotgunning a cider and beating the locals in a number of drinking bouts.



The following day we drove the car out into the countryside south of Dublin and explored the Wicklow Mountains as well as a long walk around Bray, a coastal village. We drove further to see Glendalough, an old monastic site located at the base of a glacier-formed valley. On our trip back we drove through entirely barren lands - not the famous Burren, but through the Sally Gap where Braveheart was filmed. At this time of the year, farmers are burning the yellow flowered Gorse so the it gave the hills a continuous blackened appearance for miles. It felt as empty as you could possibly imagine - maybe comparable to the Outback, from what I hear.


The Monday was a bank holiday so we headed up north this time to Newgrange. This is one of two World Heritage Sites in Ireland, and I was stunned by this primitive but incredibly sophisticated building, considering it was built in 3500BC. Newgrange is an earth mound which predates the Great Pyramids by 500-1000 years. It is built as a sun-worshiping temple and is perfectly aligned with the winter solstice. The mound has a single tiny cruciform corridor which is kept pitch-black until the winter solstice, when the inner domed space completely illuminates for only 17 mins. The idea of Newgrange is incredible because today we essentially continue to repeat this idea. I couldn't help but give tremendous credit to the Neolithic people who actually had the ability to calculate and plan out such a construction project like this 5500 years ago. My perception of time had been compressed by 5 millenia, where we use not only the same building form/typology but the very same concept in new buildings today like the chapel space in the Canadian War Museum (on Nov 11, light beam lines up with the tomb.....). You have to wonder for how long we've really had this same mental capacity, or what pattern humans make in their periods of enlightenment, or how much mental development we've really made since 3500BC or earlier.

Feeling refreshed, we made some small stops along the way back to Dublin where Mum and Dad and I parted ways the next day, as they started their three week journey around the Emerald Isle.

En-Passant

I've posted pics from the Amsterdam trip which you can flip through in the photo album (link to the right), or check out Jessie's blog to get all the details (Freeloader!). After coming back from the Netherlands, I met up with Will and Erin (mega friends from Ottawa) who were on their way back from the Master's DSA (Directed Studies Abroad). Before arriving in Dublin they were actually traveling through Morocco which from the sounds of it, was a huge eye-opener (no images to share unfortunately, but more importantly using this parenthesis to gratuitously highlight the unusual abundance of parentheses to this point). Anyhow, we also met up with Halen and Asher from Boulder Colorado who I met at Will and Erin's wedding and are good friends of W&E since their exchange program last year. This might be turning in to a friends network myriad, but I'll cut to the chase now.

Halen and Asher stayed at a hostel downtown while Erin and Will crashed chez moi. We all met up in the morning downtown and on the first day out, we puttered around Phoenix Park with picnic material on hand. It was great weather and in our wayward navigating we found a herd of wild Fallow Deer.

After we hunted and skinned the last of the deer, Will, Erin and I marched down to the Guinness Factory for the afternoon. T'was a rare and glorious sight seeing these two tackle the pint of plain. At night we all met up and checked out a comedy show at the International Bar which was a great time (albeit a little nerve-racking at first considering we had to sit on-stage to watch the show).

The next day we shopped allllll day. I think we may have all set personal records. We shopped from sunrise till sunset. I've never done anything like it in my life.

Sadly the crew was off the day after and I sobbed endlessly in their absence for 16 days straight.

Easter Holiday

I met up with Morgan, Kristine (schoolmates) on April Fools in an amazing orchestration of airline travel from all corners of Europe to ring in Jessie's birthday on the 3rd. We all crammed in to her tiny place in Espoo and popped in to the city from there. We started things off by snooping around J's school where her class is design-building her winning pavilion design (woot!). Some other light touring ensued, with highlights being an enormous lunch followed by the Rock Chapel which is absolutely mind-blowing. I saw the Rock Chapel the last time I visited Jess, but once again, it's probably the most stirring space I've been in so far. Later that night we celebrated J's birthday party with fellow classmates from the wood program with a Canadian flavour to it including Canadian food, dessert, and tunes. It was great fun.

The following day, J was parked at school tying up loose ends so Morgan, Kristine and I set out to see some buildings by Alvar Aalto. Checked out both the Studio and his residence which I didn't particularly fall in love with, but learned a lot from our tour-guide. After a day's worth of architecture sights, we met up with Jess and celebrated her real birthday over Chinese food and raspberry cake. After dinner we headed out on the town and bravely attempted some Finnish karaoke. Contrary to most karaoke bars, this place doesn't have private booths to sing embarassingly amongst your friends, but rather you're forced to deliver a request to the barman and grab the mic from him when he calls your name. THEN you sing to the whole bar -shudder-. I think you all know I didn't really inherit the greatest voice, and when it came to singing 'Mama Don't Let your Boys Grow up to be Cowboys', 'Desperado', and 'Enter Sandman', it was Jess or Morgan who were pulling the team through. We weren't so much bothered by our highly unevolved vocal skills, but rather the group of karaoke regulars who made everyone sound awful! It didn't matter though, we sang our hearts out and had a great time.

On our last day seeing Helsinki, we took the ferry out to Suomellina Castle which is on an island off the coast of the city, used as a defense against the old Russian enemy. The wind was biting cold coming off the Baltic Sea. We blazed through the place, probably missing about 3/4 of the things to see, but we didn't have much time. On the way back to catching our ferry before grabbing our flight to Dusseldorf, Morgan and I veered off from the pack and snuck in some last minute sights, which -ahem- was ... woooorth it ... but seriously punishable from the girls when we all sprinted onto the ferry at the very last second. This is the most that has been said about that event to date. On that note, we left Finland and onto the Netherlands!

(as always, have a look through the photo album link for all the shots)

Lisbon: Part Deux

I'm gonna zip through this bit because I'm kinda fallin behind the times! At last, Portugal shared a bit 'o sun. We did plenty of walking around the town, presumably conquering the place in a couple of days. Taking the Tram 28 was a nice cross-section of the city. We saw (and did) some Fado dancing at the Lusa Club, famous for various Portuguese up-and-comer performers. Met some Canadians here too. Visited the Jeronimus Monastery, ancient property of the Knights Templar. The ceiling vaults were mezmerizing. The Expo '98 site was spectacular. Some respect to Alvaro Siza's Pavilion. The Calatrava Train Station wasn't quite as impressive but still sharp. On the way back to Porto, we saw the new Casa da Musica by Rem Koolhaas and luckily caught the Porto Symphony Orchestra. Typical archie students, we were more interested in the building than the music. If you haven't already, be sure to check out the photo album more pics!

Portugal: Porto a la Pluie

Jessie and I took this past week off for a long-anticipated vacation to Portugal where we mainly explored Porto and Lisbon. You can find a fair sized photo album from the column on the right which I linked up. (Jess took most of the pics, so I can't claim all the credit, but the reaaally good ones were probably mine).



J arrived Friday evening and we took off bright and early the following morning for the capital city of Porto. Upon arrival we bolted for the city centre, wide-eyed as ever. After snapping some pics, we grabbed a bite to eat, a Portuguese specialty: churrasco (grilled chicken). These people give new meaning to chicken, fries and salad. Our lunch was a gloriously generous helping of good simple food. We pushed on to find a decent campground. Ended up taking a bus part of the way out to a site along the coast, south of the city, however we hopped off the bus when I instinctively (and incorrectly) thought we missed our stop. My typically spectacular navigational skills failed me here, despite Jessie's cautioning. Soooo, we ended up marching for a helluva while with backpacks and all through the Porto outskirts. At last we found our campground and crashed for the night.



The next day we popped in to town and had a fantastic bus rides as we zipped around the winding streets. The bus was blazing through tiny alleys, barely nipping the parapets off of residents' homes, and stopping along the way to vent at the lousy oncoming drivers. The view of the city by bus was the best part. On the way in, we got completely drenched. So as we got a rainy and hazy view of the city, we took shelter for a quick espresso, soup and salad. J ordered this really good potato and kale soup. Afterwards, e pretty much charged through the city as the weather reluctantly eased up on us. Saw the main churches/cathedrals, climbed the church towers, explored tiny streets and alleyways, visited the amazing Lello Bookstore. It was a full up day with cheap cheap cheap wine to top it off. This was also the end of our tent, as it leaked like a sieve that night in the rain.




The following day, we checked in to a hotel right in the city centre which was a huge relief after sleeping on acorns and a rained-in tent. Then headed off on a daytrip out to Braga, to the Bom Jesus Sanctuary (it means 'Good Jesus' - don't worry, they like Him here). At Bom Jesus, you're meant to climb 1000 steps to the top of a hill overlooking the city, while stopping along the way at several hexagonal chapels. If you're really devoted, you're meant to climb the steps on your knees. We had none of that ofcourse. In the guidebook, the site looked warm, orange, red and yellow etc. But when we got there, we were a tiny bit dampered because it was grey and cold, and pouring. This was THE rainiest day we had all week and on the climb up, we were waterlogged! It was really beautiful though, despite our wingeing. We headed back to town and got ready to head to Lisbon.

This was the end of our time in Porto leaving it with the hope that Lisbon would bring more sunshine... (part 2 coming, but maybe after St. Paddy's Day).

Weekend Exile

In light of a week of madness to get my 'final' portfolio shined up for Friday and in an unprecedented burst of energy, I decided that a weekend out of Dublin would be a good reward to the late nights of folio work. So I planned a 2-night stay in Belfast in Northern Ireland, leaving Dublin at 6am and returning late sunday night. All was planned and in good order but compleeetely slept right in till about 10 Saturday morning, missing the morning train. On the fly, I decided a one-nighter in Kilkenny was a better idea instead.

So, I brought the Silver Bullet/'Betsy' (my bike) on-board the train and motored through the city. Kilkenny is about 75, 000 people, around the size of the Soo, but feels a quarter of the size and a few centuries older too. My plan was to go and photograph and sketch but it was rainy most of the time and too cold to hold a pencil. Instead, I just wandered about, checking out the many Gothic churches and cathedrals and sneaking the odd pint here and there. Fittingly, Kilkenny Cream Ale is brewed here and as I understand it, the St. Francis Abbey is where the ale was originally brewed. In 1650, the abbey was desecrated upon discovering that the monks had been secretly brewing the Kilkenny Ale. Now, the brewery also produces Smithwick's and Guinness. I tried the Smithwick's here and it was heavenly...like a pint from God.

I caught a painfully dry tour of the Kilkenny Castle which I tried to escape from midway, but in the process set off security alarms and was confronted by guards who thought that I was stealing rare cultural artifacts. I was more interested in seeing the grounds of the Castle. It's endless green with all kinds of winding paths through these really old forests. William of Orange, or 'Strongbow' originally built a small castle at the same location but the castle was destroyed and rebuilt in the same location as a more serious keep. The castle was passed on to various hands and has a winding history of ownership, but eventually the castle was handed over to the Castle Restoration Committee for 50 pounds in 1967.

The main thing I wanted to see in Kilkenny was the Kells Priory which is the main reason I brought Betsy along - it's a 45 minute bike ride to the village of Kells and then a another 10 into the middle of a field outside of Kells. As is the case throughout the Irish countryside, castles are found all over the place, and like the Kells Priory or the Rock of Cashel which James and Melissa went to visit, you just march out into the middle of a field where sheep and cows are grazing and there is no admission or tour groups or even people at all. It's basically just you, the sheep, and an empty castle. Amazing.

However, as I mentioned before, the weather was crap so I'll be back in the summer!

St. Canice's Cathedral; Downtown Kilkenny

Kilkenny Castle - this one's for you Tom; Meandering through the city








St. Canice's by night