The Christmas holidays were as fun and relaxing as I could have dreamed of this year. Dashed out of the office, with a lingering fatigue from the Christmas party and hopped on a bumpy Ryanair flight to Bristol which was a stroke of luck because at the time, Heathrow was completely bogged down with fog and commuters were held up in the airport in some cases for two days right up till xmas eve (above). Luckily, I only suffered a 20min wait and on arrival, met up with Uncle Mark at the airport to hang out at their place in Gloucestershire. From here on, it was an outrageously relaxing five days. We hit things off with a mutual agreement that the day does not begin until after 11am. Fantastic.
During the day, Uncle Mark and I gallivanted around town with the odd spin through ye Olde English countryside. We conquered much of the area around Gloucestershire, including historic villages such as Stow on the Wold, Guiting Power, Cheltenham, and later Gloucester City. Whenever possible, we hit the town with Aunt Shashi on her days off from work. Our xmas dinner was a mighty lamb feast submerged in a sea of gravy. Aunt Shashi very kindly invited a friend from work to share Christmas dinner with, particularly since her entire family is in India at the moment.
Homes (or cottages as they call them) in the village Guiting Power, and the village church
Night view of Gloucester Cathedral (they used this place as Hogwarts Castle in filming Harry Potter!); View over the countryside in Guiting Power; Post-Christmas Dinner with Aunt Shashi (left), Aunt Shashi's friend from work (who's name has slipped from me...sorry!), and Uncle Mark (right).
When I woke from my post-dinner coma the next day, I was on the move again. Heading back to Dubby, I was to meet up with Jessie early the next morning. On one look, J had a distinct greenness to her, and soon found out she was down with a nasty flu. The first day in Dubby was spent sprawled out on the couch drinking soup and tea with appropriate pampering. The next day we met up with Morgan, Nico and Renee (all classmates and superfriends from school) and quickly bolted for a Guinness and some hot pub food. We soon met up with James and Melissa and over the next 5 days hit up the sights including Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, the Guinness Factory, the Brazen Head (oldest pub in Ireland), as well as my faithful Cobblestone Pub. In much of our time, we just strode about the streets and the Greens. It felt a wee bit strange acting tourguide for friends through a city I've only been living in for 2 months - I'm still exploring the place, myself!
Team Canada in their Glory: Morgan, Melissa, James, Renee, Nico, and Jessie; Dublin Castle (note: a blue sky!); Renee at the Guinness Factory.
Halfway through our visit, the five of us planned a day-trip out to Galway City on the west coast which was a painful 5am wake-up but definitely a worthwhile trip to have made. We grabbed the Iarnrod Eireann (Irish Rail) through the countryside, which was dotted with sheep, castles, and random stone walls - traces of the rural medieval lordships. Almost everyone was pretty much zonked the whole ride out, except somehow Jessie amazingly defeated her flu and stayed awake the entire 2.5 hour ride! On arrival, we had a bad impression of the town as the train station was located in a ugly area but as we meandered closer to the heart of the town, a lively and charming feeling sprung up. We walked around all day, popping our heads into various churches, and seeing other landmarks like the
Lynch Memorial Window, and the
Spanish Arch. We also marched long and steadily across town to witness the seaside. This was Jessie's first time dipping her fingers in an ocean and strolling a coastline which was exciting for us to be there for it! At the same time, the sky was very dramatic over the Arainn Islands which we were combing the beaches.
Along the theme of Gateways and Posing: Morgan under the Lynch Memorial Window, Nico at his respective Spanish Arch, and Jessie at a perfectly scaled door!We headed back to Dublin and kicked out 2006 (or as the others named two-thousand and suck, in light of a punishing school semester). We were supposed to meet up with some of James' friends at work, but at the last minute, all plans fell through and found ourselves without tickets to alternatively get in to pub downtown. This hardly left a mark in our spirits as we were quite happy to celebrate together at James and Melissa' house. It was a great night preceded by a competitive Cranium match (the UK version). I was paired up with Jess who kept us from...
fully sinking, after some failed spellings including 'poisonous' backwards (note: James released a cosmic belch with derailed all concentration in the room). You can also see Morgan's brilliant Humdinger performance of Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' at Jessie's new
blog. As the hour struck near, glasses soared into the air to the sound of clinking and spillage. In our excitement, everyone ran outside to hear fireworks and bell-tolls, only to soon find ourselves locked out of the flat! Standing in the cold we rang every flat in the building, finally saved by the upstairs neighbours. At this point, we merged groups and met a jolly band of folks from Cork.
Soon after, Team Canada was enroute to other exotic lands, as part of their Directed Studies Abroad Program (DSA). They're heading to Bern, Switzerland for 4 months as an immersive studio. Nico, Renee, and Morgan split for Bern on the 2nd and Jess headed off to Helsinki, Finland where she's undertaking an exciting new Wood Construction program for a year.
I met up with Jess in Helsinki for the rest of my generously long break. I'll put up a quick note later on the trip to Finland, but you can get a good idea of the whole thing at J's '
Architecture in Helsinki' article.
(Also, will be moving to a different blogsite, as blogger is becoming increeeeasingly frustrating to cleanly format. Will let everyone know when I move.)
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!
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 past Saturday marked the first time since 1920, that English Rugby (or any British sport) was allowed to be played on the grounds of Croke Park Stadium - the same location where 87 years ago English soldiers marched on to the pitch and shot 14 Irish citizens. The cause of the shootings was an eye-for-an eye response to the same-day assassination of 14 British secret agents by the IRA. Bloody Sunday. (Note: not to be confused with the Bloody Sunday of 1913 or the other one of 1973 - generally if anything lousy is going to h
appen here, it's on a sunday).
On my way to finding a good a bar to watch the game I was just a few minutes late for the opening kickoff, and those few minutes were dead silence in the streets. When I arrived at the Church Bar (a church converted into a pub - which says a bit about the state of the Church here these days), I could hear people chanting the national anthem through the building. I'd have make the assumption that being an Irish person hearing 'God Save the Queen' being sung in Croke Park is bit more stirring. I haven't heard how the coaches or teams approached the game, but it's hard to imagine that either side treated it as regular match. Regardless, one side must have taken it more seriously, as the result ended up to be an absolute rout. The Irish team squashed England 41-13. Even so, with every goal the city was shaking. Even though there was hardly any competition this is exactly what Ireland has been waiting for, for years. I wonder if Tony Blair was in the English dressing room before the game...'Ok, so we've been a liiiittle rough on those blokes over the years - maybe just go a little easy on 'em alright lads? Jolly good, have a smashing good match.'
Afterwards, I kicked things off oldschool at Agnieszka's 80's party (Polish friend from work). Morgan, your humming of 'Like a Virgin' was pretty good in comparison to the Polish karaoke equivalent :P . It was a fun time, and I was fully impressed by the 1,100 purely 80's tracks on queue in a single playlist. Who has that? Amazing.
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.
St. Canice's by night
When I woke from my post-dinner coma the next day, I was on the move again. Heading back to Dubby, I was to meet up with Jessie early the next morning. On one look, J had a distinct greenness to her, and soon found out she was down with a nasty flu. The first day in Dubby was spent sprawled out on the couch drinking soup and tea with appropriate pampering. The next day we met up with Morgan, Nico and Renee (all classmates and superfriends from school) and quickly bolted for a Guinness and some hot pub food. We soon met up with James and Melissa and over the next 5 days hit up the sights including Dublin Castle, Chester Beatty Library, the Guinness Factory, the Brazen Head (oldest pub in Ireland), as well as my faithful Cobblestone Pub. In much of our time, we just strode about the streets and the Greens. It felt a wee bit strange acting tourguide for friends through a city I've only been living in for 2 months - I'm still exploring the place, myself!
