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

Barcelona Day 6

On Boxing/Stephen’s Day, we stopped in to two churches, La Seu (Barcelona's catherdral), and Santa Maria del Mar. The cathedral is large and formal, with lots of arches, gold and gated chapels inside. It’s kind of cool that the crypt is visible from the main floor. I’m pretty sure I saw a black madonna in one of the chapels that looked pretty familiar as we had just seen the Virgin of Montserrat at the monastery. Of the two we liked the feel of the smaller Maria del Mar, with its simple columns and open alcoves. Mass was due to begin, so we had a quick look around and escaped back into the streets.

Umm... you're big

We had previously found the aquarium and taken silly pictures outside it, and we succumbed to advertizing and went to see the captive creatures of the sea. There were fish in the marina beside the aquarium, so we got to see a preview before we got our tix and had our picture taken, cruise-style, as we entered. It was actually pretty cool, very kid-oriented and family friendly as well. After viewing the bulk of the exhibition tanks (which includes the obligatory “Nemo” tank), there are more kid-sized tanks and interactive play places that we enjoyed too. Because we’re big kids. We always love the sea horses, who look so mopey as they look around for edible tidbits. Tiny Eeyores all. There were also sea dragons whose leafy appendages made them look like different kelps. One of the most mesmerizing little fellows for me was what I now call a “nose fish” (spotted unicorn fish, actually) – it looks very cartoonish, just like you’d draw if you anthropomorphized a fish – y’know, like I draw after years of biology. I should explain that, sophisticated lady that I am, I spent most of my visit making fun of everyone else – the rays with their eyes above and smilie-faces beneath, the unfortunate looks of the frogfishes, the way snails steadily nom…nom…nom, crabs wearing other people’s shells. We watched feeding time in one tank. At first it was just lazy swimming and the anemones swaying their tentacles; eels were hiding in plain sight. Then the first bits of food dropped – mussels and bits of other fish, I want to say? – and it was a feeding frenzy! Anyway, it was good to get out of the rain and see those who might otherwise eat me if I were to go where they live, or who I can’t visit because it’s a little deep and cold for me. The main tank has lots of viewing space and a glass tunnel so you can watch sharks and stingrays swim overhead. I got a little obsessed trying to take pictures with the battle-scarred sunfish.

We wandered back across the Rambla del Mar and Passeig de Colom with Columbus atop his pillar pointing out to sea, and back on to La Rambla once again. By this time it had really become our familiar street. It was still spitting, but there were covered market tables set up, and we browsed the stalls and discovered a new wallet for Morgan and all kinds of baubles and bags and handicrafts. The buskers were setting up for the rush, and we passed our painting guy as we made our way along. I definitely <3 our little picture of la rambla!

Crazy Seahorse

Back at Hotel Principal, we formulated our plan of attack and headed back to Maria del Mar’s hood to check out a tapas place some friends had been. But we were too lazy to stand at the bar or around high tables to drink and chat as everyone was doing, so we went to dine in the fancy back restaurant. If you just want good food, you’ll get better value at Carmelita’s or Los Caracoles, but I must say the service here was the finest I’ve experienced anywhere in recollection. The wine list looked really tantalizing, and they served cider from a spigot that was run through a huge decorative cask set into the wall. That looked really good too. Our serving gal was good at pouring the cider from a long way away and making it look artistic.

By the time we were released back into the wild, it was the end of our trip. The next morning we got up early and grabbed the first croissants and juice of the day, checked out and caught the train, as Spanish-less and Catalan-less as we came.

Montserrat (I think)

Barcelona Day 5

Our 5th day in Barcelona was Christmas day, and since not a lot was going to be open, we decided to sleep in a bit. After a bit of breakfast at the hotel, we wandered out in to the ... sunshine! Yup, the clouds finally broke for us and we had a chance to wander around in the sunshine for once. Our plan for the day was to head over to Montjüic, which is a large hill overlooking the city and is the site of several of the venues from the 1992 summer olympics.

The first part of that plan was trying to find the funicular station to take us up, but we missed that which ended up being a good thing since the walk up wasn't really that taxing, and if we had taken the funicular up we probably would've missed some of the views we did get. So as we climbed up, the city fell below us and we got a pretty good look at the city itself -- primarily white and beige coloured buildings stretching out before us. Our wandering took us to one end of the closed-for-the-holidays cable car that takes people across the harbour for what I'm sure would be very nice views.

After wandering around a bit more, we took a gondola up to the very top of the mountain where there is a fortress called "Castell de Montjuïc". This fortress offered some great views of the surrounding countryside, and conveniently for us had a restaurant in the fortress courtyard that was actually open for Christmas day. So we stopped for some food before continuing our exploration and picture taking from the top of the fortress.

Instead of taking the gondola back down, we decided to walk down through some of the olympic venues. This turned out to get us a little lost since there wasn't a simple route back to the main road so we wandered in between the Stadi Olímpic and the Palau Sant Jordi before finally finding our way out to in front of the Palau Nacional which overlooks a large stairway heading back down into the city. There was quite a few people out on that beautiful day to enjoy the weather.

We headed back to our hotel via metro to have a nap and figure out where a good place to go for dinner was. Once again consulting wikitravel, we eventually ended up at Los Caracoles, which translates to "The Snails" -- which also happens to be the restaurant's signature dish. The restaurant's exterior features a window where chickens are being roasted on spits, and when you walk into the restaurant, you first walk through the bar to the front desk where you ask for your table. From there you walk through the kitchen to the dining area. Our table was right next to the kitchen so we could see the cooks working away and the delicious dishes being whisked into the extensive dining area behind us. The inside of the restaurant was extensively decorated and felt quite comfortable. To add to the snail theme, not only were there some decorative snails everywhere, but the bread that came with our dinner was curled up to look like a snail! The food was excellent, and it turned out to be a great place to have our Christmas day dinner.

Our last day in Barcelona is up next ...

Morgan

Barcelona Day 4

The forecast for our 4th day didn't look any better with respect to the ever falling precipitation. So we decided to head out of town for the second friend recommendation: The Salvador Dali museum in a small town called Figueres. The train ride is about two hours out of Barcelona, but we got on a nice comfy train so it was actually a nice relaxing trip.

It was cloudy, but not raining when we arrived in Figueres. Our first order of business upon arriving was to find something to eat, and we found that in the form of a Kebab from a nearby stand. One of the travel materials I read somewhere said that the donair meat found in Barcelona is quite a bit different from what we'd be used to from North America, and we found that that was indeed the case. It was definitely tasty.

While we enjoyed our kebabs, we walked towards the Dali museum through the streets of Figueres. On the way, we found ourselves walking through their version of an open air market -- not nearly as large as the one in Barcelona of course, but still bustling with activity.

The Dali museum is ... interesting. Before we went, I wasn't all that familiar with his work, aside from the odd warped clock image. After going through the museum, my main impression was that the artwork in his collection was incredibly varied. Dali has quite a few more normal sorts of artwork: portraits and scenery and that sort of thing, but then there's also a lot of pieces where the only way to describe them is: WTF?

The museum itself used to be a theatre that Dali himself converted into a gallery for his work, so you get a pretty consistent experience throughout the thing. One of the coolest moments is early on in the museum -- in a large hall where the big globe of the museum is attached, on one end there is a painting called "Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea". The painting up close is a nude woman looking out a window onto the sea. But if you make the picture smaller (or in the museum pay 20 cents to use a device to make the picture smaller) the picture becomes a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. That was a pretty cool little trick.

Its a little hard to describe the sights in that museum, but I would suggest that if you have a chance you go see it. It was definitely an interesting experience.

With our admission, we also got admission to the Dali Jewel collection, which is co-located in the same building. The items on display in this collection are ... odd. Dali wasn't shy about his use of valuable raw materials, and some of the items on display are neat: like the jeweled eye shape where the center is a clock, some of the items are punny: like the pearls making pearly white teeth in ruby lips, and some are down right disturbing: like the gold heart with a cut away showing red jewels and a motor to make the red part "beat".

After our tour of the Dali museum, we wandered around the town a little bit since it was still early on and we thought we might as well explore a bit. On our walk, we found an awesome playground that had a lot of really fun playground equipment. So we played on some of the equipment, including a zipline!

On our way back to the train station, we got a little bit lost, but that wasn't really a problem: there was plenty of trains heading back to Barcelona. Eventually we found ourselves back at the market we had walked through earlier -- now vacant. The next train back was right away, so we scurried back to the train station and arrived just in time for the train back.

When we got back to our hotel, we were too tired to go far looking for food so we ended up across the street from our hotel at a restaurant called Organic. This vegetarian restaurant had a pretty extensive menu and actually was pretty good!

Next up: Christmas day - the one day of nice weather on our trip!