oh my...so far behind...
may 4 was an interesting day...my friend laura had called me and asked if i wanted to attend a free concert at the southbank centre. who am i to say no? so that night in the purcell room i got to watch mathieu van bellen on the violin..he is a resident at the southbank centre and he was participating in a series of performances at the centre to fulfill his 'obligations' as the winner of the martin musical scholarship. he was accompanied by tadashi imai on piano. it was an interesting night...i really enjoyed most of the music but there was one movement...the violin solo, that reminded me of cats in heat. they were extremely talented and kudos to them. you can see the passion in them in how they play. our violinist was playing on a 1783 adolf busch jb guadagnini violin. that's a lot of text that says its worth a motherload of dollars.
then on friday...caroline and i defied the damned ash cloud and went to visit dee in dublin! so excited to go there and visit my friend.
friday was completely lax as we landed at 8-ish and were picked up in the hot audi a4 cabriolet...smoking black. sweet. we rode top down wrapped in scarves for most of the trip as dublin decided to show us that hey, i can be sunny too! now let me try to describe the concept of a set down...there are 6 lanes in total, and they go in this order car lane, pedestiran lane, car lane, pedestrian lane, car lane, through car lane...the concept is this...as a car driving up to the set down area, located at departures level, you find a cap in one of the car lanes located to your left (the three of them) and glide on in to 'park' for a few seconds. then, your people either get in your car (if you're picking them up) or hop out to catch their flight, and you slowly pull out of your car lane and make your way to the through lane and you're off.
controlled chaos but it is quite successful. amazing. calgary would totally screw up that concept and the 'pedestrian lanes' for your incoming or outgoing guests would account for many traffic fatalities. i swear it.
so we had a relaxing evening of a fire at dee's while drinking some red and noshing on indian take away.mmmmm
next morning we were up and at it and after a quick meeting with her mom and dad (living just around the corner...her brother not much farther and her sister a few minutes more...love that they are a tight knit group). we hopped on the luas veolia transport, much like the c-train in calgary. and this was my first real taste of the multi-lingual dublin. everything in the city (street signs, train stops, etc) was written in english and in their goidelic irish. it was tres cool.
we made our way to stephen's green and from there began our pedestrian tour of dublin. we took the train in so we could all partake in libations without having to worry about driving home and then come up with the ingenious idea of using the hop on hop off bus as our taxi. fabulous.
we first stopped at butler's chocolate cafe and i had a hot chocolate...so yummy. and got a little gift with my cocoa, and that was a chocolate from their cafe. now picture this place to be bernard callebaut that sells coffees. sweet mother of god it was amazing. caroline even got one with her latte. we hit grafton street, like a pedestrian mall (um, like stephen avenue...seriously, the comparisons just keep on coming), and along the way we do some window shopping until we get to brown thomas. i say things like...dublin's selfridges, or dublin's holt renfrew, but i'd put some money down that all three are part of the same group. the similarities are spooky...never mind, i just did it for you when posting that link...the site says this:
Brown Thomas is part of the Wittington Investment Group, a worldwide company specialising in retail excellence – consisting of the Brown Thomas Group (Brown Thomas & BT2); Selfridges in the UK & Holt Renfrew in Canada.
yes, i'm that good.
we then walked through temple bar where many irish musicians got their start, including dublin's own U2. we then made our way over ha'penny bridge (over the river liffey) and hopped on our first bus. we made our way through most of the tour before we got to where we wanted to be...the kilmainham gaol. the history of this prison is down right astonishing, with most of today's ireland formation being pulled together by its infamous 'prisoners'. those fighters who without their participation in history, ireland wouldn't be the ireland we see today. if you look at my photo album on facebook, you'll see the pics and see what i mean. and i need to buy a history book on these folks...seriously amazing. we spent a fair bit of time there, so when we hopped on the bus again, we didn't get to trinity college in time to view the book of kells. apparently they used to turn the page once per day, but now as the pages get more frail, only once per week or something like that. next time!
that night we went for dinner at chez max, and honestly, sitting on their patio, heat lamps on, drinking bordeaux, eating french onion soup and beouf bourgnon...i felt like i was in france. the food was phenomenal, and in excess. i didn't eat half of my meal and i was uber full. we made it to a pub, but it didn't take long before our full bellies made us tired and ready for bed.
the next day we made it to dee's parent's house for a continental breakfast, then we head to howth, a seaside neighbourhood near the airport. we went to the market where i bought a snazzy ring, and then head over to the oar house for an amazing late lunch. again, just ordered two 'fish tapas' if you will, and was uber full. other highlights you'll see in the photo album, but i'll hilight a few if you don't want to look:
we were sad to leave our friend dee, but excited about our upcoming weekends in dublin, london and the trip to canada in august. yay!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hey everyone, always good to hear from you!