Rugby Six-Nations

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 happen here, it's on a sunday).

The 1920 event is the reason for the Gaelic Athletic Association's determination to ban all 'British' sport and strictly allow only Gaelic games within Croke Park. That list is pretty short: Irish Rugby, Hurling, Camogie, Rounders, Feile na Gael, and Feile Paile na nOg (sorry this one's reaaally obscure - no image to show, but you can probably guess it involves whacking a ball with a stick). This single match has slightly opened the doors towards the Old Enemy and the President of the GAA is pushing for new planning regulations for the stadium to fully allow for British sport to be played in Croke Park. It kind of feels like an invisible wall is slowly coming apart day-by-day here.

Needless to say, Dublin was swelling with emotion on Saturday. Every pub with a tv screen was jam packed with people wearing their rugby jerseys and scarves. Choppers were hovering the city centre and the stadium. People were just in a rush to get shopping or errands done before the game. Unfortunately, tickets to the game weren't quite as easy to get a hold of this time around as sales started inflating months ago from 300 euro and up. A last check on ebay before the game showed tickets at 1,200 to about 2,400 euro!

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.

On Saturday, I'm off to Portugal with Jessie! She's meeting me here on Friday and we take off bright and early the next day till the following Sunday and all that's planned is serious relaxation in the sun. Will have plenty of pics and maybe the odd sketch to show when I get back.

Hope all is well back home. Have been reading CBC news frequently, watching 'Little Mosque on the Prairies' and playing my Canadian tunes non-stop for the past few weeks, I guess that means I'm staaaarting to get a wee bit homesick...Go Team!

Badly Drawn Boy Concert

...two nearly identical and incredibly exciting pictures from the Badly Drawn Boy Concert on Sunday night at the Olympia Theatre.

Mime Off

I never thought I'd see a Mime-off in my life, but today I witnessed such a thing at Grafton Street. You'd think the Statue of Liberty mime with 'Peace', 'Freedom', and 'Stop War' plastered all over its pedestal would draw the odd passerby and a generous coin toss, but apparently not so. Right next to the Statue of Liberty was a mime devilishly dressed who was making a killing off the good Irish Catholics. As it turns out, the noble act of sponsoring peace and freedom just wasn't quite as hot a pitch. This all turned into the ultimate 'Laugh with the sinners or cry with the saints' scenario...and as you may have guessed while distantly humming Billy Joel, the 'sinners are much more fun'.
Sinners 1, Good Irish Catholics 0.

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

2007!

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.)

Christmas Party 2K6

Last night was our Christmas party at work. Some look forward to it, others fear it with last year's hazy memories in mind. K+K, and other firms in the Friary packed it in around 2pm and headed to the Winding Stair Restaurant, a shmancy watering hole along the Liffy River. The food was phenomenal and we topped it off with a Kris Kringle. Someone must have known I had a fever, cuz the only cure for a fever...is more cowbell. I'm now the proud owner of a Swiss cowbell. Thank you, Mr. Kearney. After we were watered, fed and merry, everyone headed to the Octagon Bar, official hotel of [drumroll] Bono. The Dubliners thought it was a little taboo to be drinking from the tap of Pope Bono, but since about 80% of the office is non-Irish, nobody cared. Overall: a fantastic night - had a great time and happy we all collectively made outrageously good fools of ourselves (see below).

Tomorrow I'm off to meet up with Uncle Mark and Aunt Shashi in Gloucester where I'll be staying with them till Boxing Day. Really excited to see them.

I'm very thankful to be staying with family over Christmas this year. Sadly I won't be able to see the usual faces over the holidays, but nonetheless I hope everyone back home has a wonderful Christmas with family this year. 2006 has flown by for me. Between school, traveling, it's all one huge blur, but one of the best years of my life. I want to wish everyone the best for the new year and a hearty Gaelic Sláinte (good health!). Miss you all, and sending the best of wishes.



Paul and his new Jazzman Sax








Carsten frowns on Xmas. 'Bah Humbug!'. Carsten is a German landscape architect from Bernard Seymour's office (our host tonight)





Davide, now hooked up with new 'Desktop Girfriend'. Davide is from Sardinia and works with an architect sharing Bernard's office.





Janice (?), probably the least shy person I've met in my life firing her 'Nun Chuck'... yes, it actually catapults miniature nuns. I bought one for myself today.





The Liffy on the way to the Octagon.







The Octogon. Well-named. No argument here.







Ofcourse, a huge thanks to our mastermind host, Bernard.







There's just not enough cowbell in this picture. I think we need more cowbell.





Here's most of the gang from Bernard's Landscape Office. Left-right, as usual: Toni from Germany, Ed from Wexford (south Ireland), Mark next to his mother, from England I think, and Meat aka Allen from County Cork.





With a name like Meat, you can always get away with drinking a fruity Majito.






Dermott on the left, Paul and Maria drifting to starboard.








Good times.







Tickets to the 'Meat Gun-Show' sold here.







Collars up, bottoms up.








Last sight of the Octagon.

Around Dubby

Right down to the end of November has been especially busy at the Friary because my one-month work 'trial' period came to a close. As it turns out, the late nights and early mornings payed off and I'll be staying with K+K for the year [stands and performs happy-dance]. But a helluva lot has happened since then, so here's a glimpse!

Possibly one of the greatest things to encourage my dream to ditch architecture to become a face-melting legendary guitarist happened recently. I caught a show called 'Rock Chic' at the Irish National Gallery which had a collection of legendary (or just really famous) Rickenbacker and Stratocaster guitars, from the very first (which is basically a banjo with a honkin tonkin built-in amplifier, left) to recent ones by Pink Floyd, Van Morrisson, Franz Ferdinand, Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, The Killers, Zeppelin, Bryan Adams (which has a beautiful print of Kate Moss on it) and somehow Lord Richard Rogers (the architect) snuck in there. By far, the best guitar displayed was Rory Gallagher's, an Irishman brought up in Cork. His guitar was just so worn down with a hint of paint on the body. At that moment, I pictured myself standing alone on a smoke-filled stage with foot-long hair and a crowd of ten-thousand with only a single beam of high-voltage light peering down on me and my moody axe.




























left-right: Van Morrisson, Pink Floyd, Richard Rogers, The Dubliners...?

I've peeked around a couple galleries since then, but nothing quite as umm, 'chic' as this. However, I made an unexpectedly delightful visit to the Kilmainham Jail (on my own free will). People at work were in praise of the tour, to a bit of self-reluctance, as I've spent enough time in jails on the weekend...[somewhere mum faints]. However, the visit was really good because they dished out all the juicy bits on the 1916 Easter Uprising and...basically the entire history of Ireland with a blatant splash of anti-Brit winging. As the guide was going on about oppression after opression, recession after recession, it all suddenly came together for me as to why I was touring a jail on a beautiful saturday afternoon. The Irish just simply have a really dreary history and the Kilmainham 'Gaol' appropriately happens to be the hub of it all. In fact most Irish tourist spots include crypts, forts, execution sites etc. Throughout the Famine, children and adults were so destitute they were willingly stealing food in order to be better fed in jail than they would at home. The culmination of the Easter Uprising was what really gave the Jail its fame, as the main seven Irish Rebel leaders as well as other famous Irish figures were all rubbed out here. When the tour finished and I left the old Ireland behind me I got a much better understanding of why people are so optimistic these days.

On that note, I've been trying to describe to people the buzz in the city, but it's hard to compare with anything else. I guess the main thing is Dublin is making so much cash everyone is just really giddy. But also, Ireland has such a long tradition of emigration that for the first time in a while, there's excitement about the success of Dublin. Just recently, the European Union has opened their doors to a couple Eastern European countries and the general estimate is that about 200,000 Poles, and 150,000 Lithuanians have immigrated to Dublin within only five years! This is crazy considering the area of Dublin is only 1.1 million people. So as the population is booming, so is the economy. A lot of Dubliners have even said that they don't feel an inferiority complex to Britain anymore because they argue that Dublin is making more money than London! (not quite, but positive thinking). It's also at the point where it's competing on the charts for most expensive cities to live in. In so little time, there has been so much change happening in the city and I guess all this excitement is just in the air.

My favourite pub Cobblestones is in Smithfield, spitting distance from work. The neighbourhood used to be a borderline ghetto but now a lot of businesses are moving in as well as a lot of cultural events. Right now a huge skating rink is set up in the square. The pub's about to fall to the ground, as you can see, but until recently it now opens onto the only public square in Dublin which was recently built. A couple weeks ago at Cobblestones I witnessed possibly the greatest Irish experience when a random bloke just started singing an old Irish hymn between fiddling acts. Everyone in the pub just froze. He had to have been only 23 or so. When he was finished people cheered and tipped their Guinness pints in his direction and the fiddler's started again. It was brilliant!

Somewhere in this random timeline, I hit the International Comedy Club with the James, Melissa, and James' brother Steven. This club had to be the tiniest venue/pub I've ever seen, with desk lamps screwed into the ceiling and a ghetto-blaster plugged in behind the stage with about 80 people crammed shoulder-to-shoulder. The whole show was pure hilarity, and I'll be sure to go back making sure to sit as far back from the front row as possible. An English couple got roasted reeeeal bad yet everyone laughed uncontrollably at their misfortune.

Yesterday, for the first time in a while it was a beautiful sunny day. It tends to rain every morning of the week, clears up in the afternoon and then has a 'soft rain' as they say, at night. So to take full advantage of the day, I cycled to Phoenix Park, just west of my office, past where I was up for the Rock Chic exhibit. The lighting was really nice this day and it picked up all the shades of green - quite a shock after being used to all the grey within the city. The park itself is apparently the biggest 'contained' European park - twice as big as Central Park in New York. There's a whole bunch of random monuments such as the Wellington Monument, as well as the oldest 'European Zoo', and the Irish Embassy at the opposite corner of the American Embassy. It was a whole morning spent cycling aimlessly and just enjoying ... green.

So the countdown to Christmas and the arrival of Jessie, Morgan, Nico and Renee to Dublin has long since been in effect! It's down to 9 nine days till Jessie arrives en-route to Finland where she'll be studying in Helsinki for about a year, and then 10 days till Morgan, Nico, and Renee arrive on their way through to Switzerland/Germany/Italy for the biggest school field trip ever. I await anxiously for our band of Canadian rogues to assemble and collectively sully the city while ringing in the New Year.

Bye for now.