Catching Up: June-July: Hampton Court, Sea Sessions, and Howth

So ... it has been quite awhile since we last posted here. Life has been insanely busy in the last couple months, and sadly this blog has been forgotten about.

Hampton Court

Let's try to catch you up on what we've been up to, shall we? After our Prague trip, we spent a weekend in London with my mom and dad. This might come as a surprise, but despite living just a one-hour plane trip from London for almost two years, we hadn't yet spent any time there that wasn't spent in the airport. So this was our first trip there to actually see anything there. We spent most of Saturday visiting the Hampton Court palace. It was a nice place to visit with a mix of architecture, art, history, and gardens.

The other day in London we mostly spent walking around central london. We walked around St. James Park, saw Buckingham Palace from the outside, saw the London eye, walked around in China town for awhile. It was a pretty nice weekend -- not too fast paced but we still saw a bunch. On the way home, we almost missed our flight by slightly underestimating the time it would take to train it to Gatwick airport. Luckily, we didn't need to check any bags, and a bit of stressful running through the airport found us at our gate before anyone had boarded yet.

Sea Sessions in Bundoran

The weekend after London we went up to Bundoran for surfing classes. That weekend, there was a big music festival on called "Sea Sessions". So our weekend involved going to surfing lessons in the morning, and then heading to the festival to listen to some live music and enjoy some tasty beverages. The festival itself was kind of fun, although I didn't really know any of the bands. Probably the highlight was the battle of the bands. There was some pretty talented bands there and I enjoyed most of their sets. It was also the second time we'd been up to Bundoran for surfing, and our 3rd and 4th lessons went pretty well. By partway through the last one, we were starting to figure out turning. Maybe with a few more lessons we'll be pro surfers!

On Canada Day, a pub in town called the Woolshed threw a party that we decided to attend. They served molson canadian, moosehead, and sleemans at the bar (in bottles and cans), played the men's and women's gold medal hockey games from the most recent olympics on the televisions, and had a Canadian DJ playing tunes from Canadian bands like Great Big Sea, The Tragically Hip, Our Lady Peace, etc etc. It was pretty fun.

Hanging Out

One of our friends, Jess, arrived in Dublin for a few days. On the weekend, we went up to Howth to walk along the cliffs and see the market up there. We had a nice lunch there and watched the seals being fed in the harbour. It was a nice little visit.

The summer really flew by in a hurry!

Morgan

Dublin County Choir Spring Concert

One of the weekly highlights of my winter has been singing up a storm at St. Tiernan’s School. There are two nights I’ve been attending. One is super relaxed and fun (and is starting up again in late September if you’ve been craving that singing fix– all are welcome!), and the other is a little more formal than I’ve experienced yet, with something like 130 members divided into official parts (I am serving with the 2nd altos).

I sang with this big choir in their Christmas concert and again last week in the Spring concert, both held at the National Concert Hall downtown by St. Stephen’s Green. On both occasions I’ve been privileged to share in bringing an original composition to life. Here below is a clip from the more recent one, a Magnificat* in Irish composed by my friend Brian from the bass section. It’s really cool to sing local composers, to meet them and get to know them, and then to be part of a group large enough to give considerable power to the notes they’ve written. Almost as cool as sitting in rehearsal again (after more than a decade away for me) and feeling the shivers up your spine when some passage really comes together. The concert itself was great too – nobody screwed up too badly except maybe me – and for those who couldn’t make it, I’m sure there will be another soon. And then you can come see where I’ve begun to lean my appreciation of Irish and Latin and old school musak.

So, once again, a great big thank you to everyone for their fanship and encouragement. It makes it even more fun to prepare the songs when we have such a lovely audience!

Diane

Magnificat (Mórann m'Anam an Tiarna) by Brian Ingoldsby

*For those like myself who initially suspected the Magnificat to be something out of an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, it’s from Christian tradition; a psalm echoed by Mary: “My soul magnifies the lord…” **Sorry, video uploads seem to be eluding me at present. The same clip is on the choir's website, at the bottom of the "performances" page.

2009 in review

St Patrick's Day Parade

For the past couple years, we've made a bit of a habit of summarizing the year's events -- in a lot of ways just to remind ourselves how much we'd been up to in the previous year. Diane's already got her '09 post up. For reference, here's mine from 2007 and 2008, and Diane's from 2007 and 2008. 2009 wasn't set up to be quite as crazy a year as 2008 was -- after all, we had set up shop in Ireland already and didn't have a life-changing schedule involving getting married and moving to another country! It wasn't without its share of adventures, however. We had visits from several people in 2009, including both my family and Diane's family, as well as several friends. These visits necessitated trips to various corners of Ireland, and served as good excuses to explore the island we're living on.

January was a pretty slow month as we went through a fairly lengthy post-holiday case of procrastination. One of the only noteworthy events was we got our Irish learner's licenses, which was one part of a saga which we needed to go through in order to legally drive our car. The other major part of that saga was a trip home to renew our Canadian driver's licenses in February. Unluckily for us, delays caused by a week of snow in Dublin made us take 3 days and unplanned sleeps in Dublin and London before finally getting home.. That meant that we unfortunately missed the ski trip out with our friends that we had planned. Doh!

Budapest Parliament

March and April flew by. The company was ramping up for one of the biggest releases we've ever made, and tensions were high for what turned out to be an amazingly smooth transition. So I guess I was pretty preoccupied with work. The big event of March though was St Patrick's day -- which is a national holiday here. We headed into town to watch the parade and joined several people after that for pints which lasted well into the evening. In April we made one foray to the Dublin Zoo, and that's all I can remember!

In May, we finally got out and headed to Budapest to visit my friend Mike. He was planning on applying to work at the company later that year so getting there before he left was high on our list of things to do. Budapest was an excellent time, and we were quite happy to enjoy the time with friends and the wonderful food (I think I really want some goulash now ...).

Cliffs of Moher

My parents arrived for a long visit in June, so that was a crazy busy month. We took them out on weekend trips out West to see the Cliffs of Moher, and up North to see the Giant's Causeway, and Diane took them all around the various day trips outside of Dublin that we had seen while I worked during the weekdays. My dad headed home earlier than my mom who stayed on for a couple more weeks -- allowing for a short trip out to see the Hill of Tara and Trim Castle as well as a weekend trip to Brighton to visit some friends of my Mom's there. It was a pretty packed month and a half, and by the end of it we needed a vacation from all the tourism!

In the latter half of July, my friend Mike was in town for his interview, we had an epic company summer party, and we caught one of three Irish tour dates for U2's U2360 tour.

Sheep

At the start of August, our friend Bryce came for a visit of about two weeks. That caused us to organize another couple road trips on the weekends - the first out to Galway and the Aran islands, and the second a trip that Christine organized up to Bundoran to go ... surfing! I had never been surfing before, and I never expected that Ireland was the place I'd get my first try. But hey, you never know what life's gonna throw at you!

In September, we headed back to Canada for our JR and Shelly's wedding. It was held in Jasper, which to us Edmontonians is a pretty special place to us. The weekend went beautifully, and we were very glad to have made it home for that trip. Apart from that, we used the trip home to catch up with as many family and friends that we could conceivably squeeze into a week and a half.

JR and Shelly Married

Just a week after Diane and I returned back to Dublin, Diane's mom and sister arrived in Europe. Diane went over to meet them and they saw some of Britain before coming over to Dublin. The first weekend they were here, we grabbed Carolyn and headed off to Munich with Mike for a whirlwind trip to Oktoberfest. We were there for all of 12 hours, and returned to Dublin just 24 hours after we had left. It was a blast! I'm not too sure that I'm doing that again though. The second weekend of the visit, we took the car back up north again and saw the Giant's Causeway and the Glens of Antrim.

Oslo Opera House

Gaudí Mosaic Roof

In November, we went to Oslo, Norway for a weekend which was a pretty fun trip. We followed that trip up with a busy December in which we went to the company Christmas party and then followed it up with a week-long trip to Barcelona! We rang in the new year at a small party with a couple of friends which was a lot of fun -- and the big feature of the evening was the inch or so of snow that proceed to fall over the course of the evening.

It was a pretty packed year, full of more traveling than I think I realized. We spent several weekends driving around Ireland, and made trips to Brighton, Budapest, Munich, Oslo, and Barcelona. Oh yeah, two trips home to Canada as well! We sure flew a lot!

Happy New Year

To sum up this post, here are some of my favourite photos from this year:

Aught Nine in Review

This year has been pretty cool for me, I must say. Sailing, surfing, feeding the sheep… finding new recipes, and then making them over and over… hosting visitors and meeting up with friends and family… giving in to the gardening itch with a few bulbs and seeds in pots... witnessing concerts and matches… most recently finding a choir to sing with as well as an informal “barbershop” group… and I just created a flickr account with two pictures. That’s right, two blurry pics rate the new year post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quebarbarakan/

Massage school continued through most of February and exams were in April. I missed a few sessions when we went home to renew driver’s licenses and so on, but I’m now an ITEC qualified holistic massage therapist. I haven’t taken any classes since, though I’m pondering music instruction in the new year. I finished up the rest of a sailing class owed me from the previous year, and got up for a surf lesson in Donegal, which was really fun. It’s pretty great living near an ocean for a change.

Throughout March a crop of lambs was born at Airfield, and thus began my first serious foray into photography with Morgan’s lovely Canon schtuff. It’s all mine now, especially the zoomy 70-200mm lens, which I like to pretend is a macro. (Thanks dear!) Quite a few afternoons were spent on the grounds of the Airfield Trust taking pictures of flowers and animals after the morning feeding. The farm should really get a post of its own at some point, as I’ve been volunteering a few times a week feeding animals and watching seasons go by in the gardens.

Or at least, I’ve volunteered during weeks that visitors aren’t staying. Both our families have been, as well as a handful of adventurous friends. The spare room has been getting good use, and I do love the apartment, so we’ve decided to stay in it for this year as well. So come make our rent worthwhile by visiting us! Guests are always good for getting us out and about to discover new spots.

Though we always want to travel more, this year had its fair share of trips: Oktoberfest in Munich (and again in Dublin in similar company), Budapest, Oslo, Paris, York, Brighton, and other bits of England, and most recently Barcelona. I’ve revisited favorite places in town (shops, restaurants, museums), and favourite places on the island to the North and the West. I got to see my sister and her boyfriend perform in Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Iolanthe” in Vancouver, and see my friends get married on a beautiful day in Jasper, which totally made my trip, not to mention my year.

Around town there is always good company to be had. And pints. I've discovered language exchange at the library, cheered on the Belvo ladies rugby team (well, I don't really yell much, I just take pictures and wonder when I should bite the bullet and play), gone walking in the hills, arranged lunch dates with the girls, and seen a bunch of great concerts downtown, including Serenity's only tour date before their singer got sick. And being part of the human tsunami that hit Croke Park for U2. Dublin `09, baby! Also, a shout-out at this point to the “pocket queens” who’ve been keeping my spirits up: a happy new year to you wherever you are, and all the best to you wherever you find yourselves in the coming seasons!

Looking ahead to 2010 now, I plan to keep up with my newfound vocal groups and keep spending time at Airfield. I hope to do more blogging and sort out a bunch of the pictures and videos we’ve amassed into something for us all to enjoy. I want to keep taking pictures for sure. Same thing with knitting – hey, I can cast on and off now! Pretty good eh? Almost ready for scarves…

Diane

It's COLD back home!

Once again this year, we are happy NOT to be going home for the holidays. The last cold snap in Edmonton bottomed out at -46. It doesn't even really matter Celcius or Farenheit at this point. It's only positive in kelvin. So, our condolences to all the folks at home. We've had fun at the epic company Christmas party and good weather for travelling, and it's off to Barcelona for Christmas!

Happy Christmukkah to those in warm places and cold!

Diane