Sunny Dublin Day

Well, I was woken up at 1:30 this morning to the sound of the buzzing again. I called the concierge and he came up to take me to an alternate room. I shuffled behind him in my PJs and stockinged feet, and slept on the third floor until 8 when I had to wander my way back up to my original room on the fifth floor so I could shower and get ready for the day.

Today was more interesting that yesterday. We got a little tour of DCU (Dublin City University) which is where all our study abroad kids are staying. Then, we met up with one of our students, Sarah, and followed her to work in the freezing cold (but very sunny!) weather. The video team had her walk certain streets (over and over) and we shot her riding the bus as well. That was a trip!  All these poor locals minding their own business have their personal space invaded by three nerds with cameras! They were very nice about it.

At Sarah's work we had tea and met her boss and chatted about cultural stuff. I mentioned that I hadn't seen many redheads here in Dublin and that surprised me. A woman who works in the same building told me that a lot of people dye their hair, "There's major slagging for being ginger-haired!" 
Translation, "You'll be harassed for being a redhead"

After photographing Sarah at work, which wasn't too exciting, I left and wandered the city for a bit before it got dark. I had about 45 minutes and I used it to check-out down Henry Street where there were lots of people and kiosks.

One kiosk salesman approached me and asked where I'm from. I told him Boston and he asked about Charlestown; that he's just seen The Town, with Ben Aflec.  He made an observation which I have found to truly be the case "The Irish in Boston are more Irish than the Irish here!"  I couldn't agree more. In fact, aside from some phrases and the accents, I see little difference in the people here and back home with regard to style and manner. Interesting.

I also went shopping at Penny's. Sarah explained to me that a common phrase was "Penny's!  3 Euro!"  Which is the same as saying "I got it at Target for 6 bucks!" when someone compliments something you're wearing.

So, I checked out Pennys and it was basically a Target but cheaper.

I returned to my room to find that buzzing has continued. So, I've been moved down the hall. The room's a little bit smaller, but I'll take it to get rid of the sound of a vaccuum cleaner being left on in the floor above.

fresh squeezed juice. Cool machine!

at right is one of our BU students, but I liked this man's face

I have no idea why I posed with James Joyce. I don't know his work. At all.

Note the bullet hole in the sleeve. It's form some uprising a million years ago or something.

I took a lot of people pictures today. (as you'll see)

all of the following were taken on Henry Street among the shops.

dinner at The Brazen Head, the oldest inn in Dublin. Great food and fun atmosphere!

Beef and Guiness pie. Much better than it looked.

this groups was trying to get a paper lantern to rise up above the flame. When they were unsuccessful, they found another use!

December 6, 2011

Still in Dublin! It's late for me now and time for bed, but I thought I would post a few shots before the hotel moves me to another room. There's this odd buzzing sound and no one can figure out where it's coming from. I know it will keep me up, though. nice of them to offer to move me.


Anyway, today was sort of a boring day. We got some good photos of one of our BU students at their physical therapy internship. But, because it gets dark so early here, that's really all we got. I would have gotten more but the videographers have to get everything from forty-seven different angles. That's just the way it is!  So, I could branch off from them but since the images I need to get (students walking through the city, looking independent and matured as a result of their abroad experience!) are the same shots the video team needs to get, I will not likely branch off.


Speaking with my boss today, she said "Not to make you nervous, but the higher-ups are trying to convince us that still shooters don't need to be going on these trips, so your photos need to be so great that they realize it's necessary.


No pressure.


Ah! the buzzing in my room stopped!  Awesome!  The concierge just called. I told him it stopped and he said, "If it starts again, call me straight away and I have another room set up for you already. You don't need to move your things, I just want to make sure you have a proper sleep!"
So nice.
So, after our day with the PT kid, we went back to our rooms to relax. Phil, my co-workers and hotel room neighbor, blew a fuse because the video geeks are plugging in so much shit at once. So, I was without power while the hotel tried to rectify that.
Then, we went off to a lovely restaurant called "Hugos", had a nice meal on BU, and then when the guys headed of to a cocktail bar (snoresville!), I wandered the streets for some night scenes. I hope to get another chance at this soon when it's not garbage night!

this brownie was similar to what we call a chocolate lava cake, but the chocolate here is not as sweet as it is at home. That's been the case with most sweet things I've tasted here.

The Irish are hardcore about their litterbugs

along Grafton Street. The city is extra-lovely with the holiday lights.

this place has amazing window displays for the holiday

December 5, 2011

I am in Dublin!
It is 10:20PM for me right now and I am too tired to add much beyond what a nice time I have having!  I am with two videographers form work and so far things have gone smoothly.

After arriving at our hotel, The Fitzwilliam, we each got some downtime before meeting with Mary, our BU contact over here. It was great meeting her because she's from here and could give us a lay of the land as we walked to meet with the students.

Out goal with this visit is to meet with BU students who are participating in the BU study abroad in Dublin, Some of them have internships, some are taking classes. I had a really nice time at dinner talking with the students about their experience thus far. I asked about the cultural differences and hope that I can do a little photo project related to what they have learned; "slagging" is a common thing - where someone kind of harasses you in a friendly way. They all agree though, that they don't try to slag someone else first because they are not confident with where the line is. "Getting the messages" is a term used for going grocery shopping.  And so on.

Here's a few pics before I crash...

my cool hotel room at The Fitzwilliam!

it must be cool if they know how to do this to a Christmas tree!

on Grafton Street

they have Starbucks, too, but this is older and cooler.

I also learned form the students that you don't turn-down an offer of tea, and you always put milk in it!

Most Fabulous Time

For a while now, my friend Libby and Nirvi, both of whom I met while working at The Post, and I have been planning a trip together. We considered our options and decided that we would fly to DC where Nirvi now works and lived, and then travel to VA for some wine-tasting.  Finally, it was time for our trip in the first weekend of November!

I flew to DC where I connected with Libby who flew in from FL and Nirvi picked us up.
From the great company to the awesome food, to the new experiences and perfect weather, it was a super trip! 

We went to one winery on Friday, then we went to our hotel. We'd heard that downtown Leesburg, which is where we were staying, was having Open Friday, so we wandered downtown and went in and out of shops which were open late and offering tastings of all kinds. In one of them, Football player Chris Cooley's art gallery, there was more wine tasting, sculpture and thrown pottery, plus a woman with the most beautiful chocolates on display. I've never seen any like them! That all looked like smoothed stone. Amazing.

We then went to a very hot restaurant (I mean, literally, it was too warm!) called the Wine Kitchen, where we had an incredible meal. Nirvi said at the beginning of our trip, that she immediately felt relaxed. That she could be herself and there was no pressure or anything. It was like we never left each other and it was so comfortable!

We learned things about each other which made us laugh - like the fact that when we all get hungry, we all get quiet. (That never lasted long though. Throw some peanuts at us and we're good to go)

On Saturday we lounged around our room before getting a bite to eat and heading back in to town for a visit to the Rouge Spa where we had massages. The other two had a facial but I had a manicure. Really fun!  Then, it was off to the next winery. Breaux. Libby is incredibly knowledgeable of wines, which made it all the more interesting. She started a wine tasting group called Swirl Girls in WPB and they review wines. So actually, Libby has become quite known in the field! Lots of people follow her on Twitter, and some of the winery owners knew who she was when she showed up!

I know nothing about wines, of course, but I still really enjoyed myself. And it was so relaxed. If one of us didn't feel like tasting anymore, the others were completely flexible. It was really awesome, actually, how well we traveled together.  You never know how that's gonna go.

Breaux Winery was a disappointment. They were a bit rude and they really moved us along in our tasting. Not very personal.  The next place was Hillside Winery, which had a great feel to it. Friends of Nirvi's met us there, and that was really nice to meet some of her new people.

We went back to our hotel after some sight-seeing at another winery, and napped a bit before heading out for more food! This time it was Magnolia, which also had fantastic food!  We were totally impressed by the food. Leesburg? I mean, it's not too far from DC s I get it, but I just didn't think VA was synonymous with good food.

I haven't had that much fun in a long time.  We talked about journalism, Libby's job change within her same newspaper, about Nirvi's work and how she's way over-worked, and how I have it quite easy. We talked about our living situations and people in our lives and people no longer in our lives.

We went back to the hotel with happy bellies!

The next morning, we found a diner-type place in town. Yet another great meal (and it was just a greasy spoon joint)!  From there we drove out the 8 Chains Winery, while passing Gramma's Pies. Every time we passed the pie place we wondered about it. It was in such a strange place, in the fork of a road, and was a little stone structure.

At the last winery, we met with Ben, who Libby and Nirvi had chatted up in a store during Free Friday Night when they were tasting his wine. We had another tasting and then something extra cool - he took us back where he keeps the barrels and we got to try some out of the barrel. A very neat experience.

I didn't taste much difference, as the other were saying things like "bold, rounded, angular, oak, cocoa, berry" and on and on.  I usually just give a puckered expression and ask if that's what "dry" tastes like. I did figure out that wines were made of the grapes which were in their name. I really should have read-up a bit or at least asked Libby more questions, but at the time, I just enjoyed being along for the ride. And I ended up buying four bottles of two different wines which I really liked.

We spent quite a long time at the 8 Chains Winery and it was super fun. Educational, refreshing to listen to someone who was so passionate about what he does. Very cool. He had a great description for one type of grape, (of course the names escapes me now), "That grape is a bit like Ringo. On it's own? Eh. But when he's with the others, he's The Beatles!"

And, we learned his sister owned Grandma's Pies!  So, we stopped there on the way out of town before stopping for even more food in DC and then reluctantly dropped off at the airport to head home.

Enjoying Tarara Winery

Tarara Winery

At The Wine Kitchen. Very warm but still so worth it!

at The Wine Kitchen

Off to the spa!

Breaux Winery. nice view, lame place.

Inside Hillside Winery.

The view at Sunset Winery

At Magnolia for dinner Saturday night.

Goofballs at the Diner

snapshot of downtown Leesburg

Tasting at 8 Chains Winery

Tasting at 8 Chains Winery

Tasting at 8 Chains Winery. Trying from the barrels.

looking studious and taking notes!

we had fantastic weather!

My mistake. It's MOM's Apple Pie!

Oliver's Birthday!

Today is Oliver's birthday! What did I do for his birthday? Well, forget all about it til about 5PM, of course. No matter, he doesn't really know. And also, I'm not even positive that the date the former owner put in his medical records, November 2, 1996, is accurate. If it is, my little boy if 15 years old! Awe, he's growing up to fast! Ha! The poor old man is on his second UTI in about a month, has been very picky about his food. The last two days, he ate his food, after I added too much human food in his kibble to entice, but then wouldn't take his morning rolled-up turkey with meds inside. It's been a decent week though.

I have tomorrow off from work, and Friday too, and am leaving for DC to spend time with friend for the weekend. I'm really looking forward to it! I went to see Nirvi a while back in her new home of DC, and Libby, who I also met while working in FL, is coming up for the weekend too. We are going wine tasting, to a spa for a massage (which I am in desperate need of) and manicures.

And then we'll have pillow fights too!

The house is coming along. I'm pleased. Dad is working very hard and I'm disappointed to not have more time in my home, but work and freelance has me very busy. I kind of have trouble saying no to the freelance offers, but I know they will ebb when the cold weather comes.

these guys came to remove a lead pipe from under my house. The water line.

It's coming along! The doorway has been made into a wall, and there's the pass through. This photo is a few weeks old now. The wall is patch-up and almost entirely smooth now.

 

The insulators!

In this video, Dad and I remove the toilet before the reglazing gets done. I wanted to save the insane toilet seat cover. It's now in display!...In my basement.

These guy are installing my new toilet and sink. As you can see, my walls and floors have been reglazed to be completely white. I'll paint the walls another color but the tile is nice without it's seventies yellow.

I striped and re-stained the banister. Polyurethane to follow.

Buddies

Such a sweet sorry (watch the video) followed by a sad ending. (Link at the bottom)

CLICK HERE FOR THE MOST RECENT STORY ON THESE TWO FRIENDS

Angry Bird reaction

This fractures me!

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