Strange Anomaly #70

It is great living in Europe hearing so many languages, so it is not really that surprising that they end up dubbing English over other languages and vice-versa for commercials. The one that was strange was they dubbed English/Irish/Scottish accents over an American accent laden deodorant commercial. But I thought it was all the same language.....

Hanging with Non-architects, woohoo!

Tori and Andrew are our closest friends here in the Emerald Isle, but they are even busier with work and family than we are, which I guess makes us treasure the time we get with them even more. So when we got an invite to see what Tori does for her job, we totally jumped at the chance. We took the LUAS line out as far as it would go, to see areas of Dublin that we had never seen before. The project was done by a group of children who made a stop motion movie together and we got to see the screening. We sort of felt like we were invading as most of the people there all knew each other, but we really enjoyed the video, as looked like the kids had a great time making it with good results. We totally crashed the after part with the artists and volunteers with the project, but it was great to have some chats with non-architect folks over yummy nachos and some wine!

London not Hungover!

I must be getting old, I finally boarded a plane to London not deathly hungover! It was a weekend of firsts for me. I touched down between holidays for only a few days to make Ben some more food and was off to London. Rachel, who we crashed with when the ash cloud gave us a bit of trouble, said to come back anytime, so I did. I kept myself busy on the Thursday walking through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, was diverted through St James’s park due to a parade, up past Westminster and Big Ben, stopping in Jubilee Gardens for a snack and then ducking into a café for some lunch as it poured buckets of rain. Once it stopped I figured museums would be my best bet for keeping dry and being entertained. All museums are free so I wandered through a Watercolour and Print Museum before heading to Tate Modern. I had always wanted to go to the Tate where there is a wonderful collection of surrealists, postmodernist, contemporary artists and of course Dalí. It was great doing it on my own. I could sit when I wanted to, go as fast or as slow as I wanted to and see what I wanted to see. With a break again in the rain I made it across the millennium bridge, past Saint Pauls and was at the top of The Mall when the sky opened up and started pouring. I kept myself busy in a bookstore flipping through “1000 Buildings to see Before you Die” and figured out I had seen 110 so far. Not bad. When it was about time to meet Rachel at Victoria Station after she got off work, I had to make a mad dash past Buckingham Palace while getting drenched. Luckily that night it was a quiet dinner out and to bed after a few bottles of wine to warm me back up.

The next morning I trekked through the Natural History Museum. I was pressed for time since I had to meet Niamh for lunch, so I flew through, at least seeing all of the exhibits. I love Natural History museums and this was the best one. I would love to see it again someday. The animatronic T Rex that growled, roared and sniffed at you was scary and cool all at the same time. I love dinos! After my lunch I walked up to Harrods, so see the infamous shopping centre. It is pretty cool, but I could never afford to shop there for real. I think I had more fun walking through the children’s section than seeing all the fabulous designer stuff I will never buy. As I walked out, the sun peeked out so I took a stroll through Hyde Park, seeing the Diana Memorial and up past Kensington Palace. I am all about walking, but I knew that I was not going to make it in time to meet with Rachel to see Wicked so I finally figured out how to take the Underground all on my own. It was easy and soon became a master traveller of the tube. I meet Rachel for Wicked which I had been wanting to see for years, so I got to see a show in the West End. It was very good, and after the show, we picked up some wine and headed to her house for our girlie chats since it was officially the weekend!

Saturday we walked through Wimbledon where she lives as I wanted to see where the play tennis. It is a great little village, that is known for its horse trails as well. When we walked up to the crosswalk, there was an extra high button that someone on horseback would be able to hit and cross with the little horse signal. I got a kick out of that. We were to meet up with some of her friends for a dinner and in true Irish style (even though we were in England, they were all Irish) we ended up at the birthday boys house for a sing song. In front of my own friends I have always refused to sing since I know for a fact I have a terrible singing voice. I have made fun of it recorded when I did not know it was my own, so I know it is bad. But when Rachel snuck out for a sneaky cigarette, it was my time to sing. I not only sung an Irish traditional song in English, “Spanish Lady”, I even sung an Irish song in Irish, “Beidh Aonach Amárach”. Yep, busted out my Irish! http://www.irishpage.com/songs/aonach.htm Karen would have been so proud. The guitarist for the evening was from Co. Clare so he was well impressed that an American could sing a Culchie Irish song. As the sun began to rise, we decided it was time to head home since in the morning we were bound for the zoo.

With working part time, I catch shows during the day. One of them is a children’s show about the zoo in Scotland and in London. I feel like I know all the keepers and the animals, so I had to see them for myself. It was a good sized zoo in Regents Park that is small, but considering it is nearly in City Centre, I was well impressed. The sun finally decided to shine on the day we needed it. All the animals were out and about which was great to see. The Penguin exhibit was the newest addition as the old penguin exhibit was designed by a famous architect, but it was cramped for the animals and was giving them knee problems walking up the steep ramps. One of the other cool exhibits was these little monkeys were playing in the bushes and you could be right next to them. Although there were keepers there, if we wanted to reach out and touch them we could. I love monkeys! I should just say I love all animals, I cannot think of one I don't really like, except for maybe spiders. After hours of walking we were starving, so we meet up with her boyfriend for some Mexican food, that they promised me was good. And it was, even the Margaritas were excellent! I have been missing Mexican food big time. We wandered Camden Town that has a real student/young person feel to it, as we hit up different pubs with live music, finally settling in a strange American pub for shots to end the night, as well as my trip with. Although I was not hungover getting on a plane to London, I was coming home…

O’Bama in his Homeland

As I landed at the airport from Croatia, what did I see, but Air Force One! I thought I was going to miss out on seeing my President, but I had made it just in time. As I boarded the bus to head home I got a text off Catherine who was on her way into town. I watched Obama on the telly drink his pint of Guinness with Michelle and his long lost cousins until Catherine arrived. I knew Tori and Andrew had been queuing for hours and was just happy enough to stand on the footpath and hope to hear him, when Catherine found an opening in the gate and talked the Gardi into letting us sneak in. My American accent in Europe for once worked for my advantage! This was just after I got a call from Tori saying she had been turned away. We waited about a half hour before getting through security, and we were in. The clouds parted and just before Obama made it onto the stage the two of us managed to push through the crowd enough to be at the bottom of the huge screen they had streaming the video live. I was technically unable to see the man in the flesh with my own eyeballs since they had the podium tucked into a recessed courtyard in the adjacent building, but when the sound of the video went out, I could hear him! It was a great speech and very uplifting. The teenage dominated crowd were even quiet and respectful to him speaking. I knew that this would be my only opportunity to see my president and I was glad that I did!

Strange Anomaly #69

When we go to the movies, which we do quite often, when the sex scenes come on, the audience giggles. Giggles. It is like they had never seen sex on the big screen before.

Balkan Tour: Bosnia

Our tour bus collected a few American tourists and we were off to Bosnia. Snaking our way through the mountains, past refuge homes that were haphazardly built, but are now permanent homes and down past the Neretva River. The Bosnian architecture is very Ottoman influenced with many mosques and a singular cathedral , St Mary’s, dotting the Mostar cityscape.

As we wandered through the old town streets, past the Kriva cuprija, a stone one-arch bridge, the sky grew more and more ominous, with the sunshine completely disappearing. As our group knew each other quite well, the very grumpy old ladies Americans kept shushing us, which made us giggle all the more. The “Old Bridge” of Stari Most had to be rebuilt after the Bosnian-Croat war, exactly as it had been. It had been an engineering feat of its day. It was a stone arched bridge that sat high over the river. A man came out and was going to dive off of it, which is quite a popular thing for the locals to do. I don’t think you could have paid me enough to want to jump off that. Maybe 15 years ago, but not now.

Many of the buildings were still bullet riddled, and partially demolished from the war. You could still see the scars, but the streets were teeming with life. One of the recently remodelled buildings we went into was of a typical upper class Muslim family, Bišćevića ćošak. It was interesting to see how the house was once like a few hundred years ago, and how they conducted businesses in the Turkish/Muslim way of life. The decendents of the original family live in a building in the lower parts of the house still. In the main courtyard there were many turtles walking around which we did not think were real at first. Just as we concluded our tour, the thunder and lightning came with a vengeance, and it absolutely lashed from the heavens. Most of our group managed to duck into a small restaurant with the owner being the cook and the waiter. He served us all the same thing, but with 45 minutes until the bus was leaving he fed the 20 of us a scrumptious meal of kebabs, salad, potatoes and freshly squeezed juice. He was so happy with us group of girls and praised him for such a great meal, he gave us a free dessert that was just divine. We stole a peek into the cathedral just as they were starting mass, and it was back onto the bus where we had a final night at our hotel. The food there was bland and sort of awful, but the craic was great, and with the wine flowing, we laughed all the way to bed.

Picture Albums Updated

I finally uploaded Iceland, Paris, and Berlin photos (among others). You can check them out here.

The 4th, Irish Style

Today is the 4th of July, and it was a crackin' day! Perfect weather for a BBQ, and that is just what we did. My office threw together a BBQ, used the 4th of July as an excuse, but we had us some ribs, chicken wings, salads, my homemade apple cake and chocolate fudgy cake. We started the day early with mimosas, moved onto the various beers and then ended the day with a few more beers. It felt like being at home, except for the lack of fireworks.....wish they were not illegal here or else I would have been setting some off!

Balkan Tour: Herzegovina

We were all up early and on the bus to head to Međugorje, a very religious town, unbeknownst to me, which came as quite a shock as I was not expecting this. They coined it the Vegas of the Holy world due to the gold and popularity of the continued apparitions of Mary, the crying statue and the two mountains to climb during ones pilgrimage. The only thing in the brochure that hinted towards this being very religious was it stated ‘Sunday mass is optional’. I was going to give the nightly masses a miss since they were not in English, and well, I am not religious. I cannot even follow a mass in English, let alone in any of the other languages they were doing it in. After our plain feast of fish (since it was a Friday) our table made sure to finish off not only our wine, but the wine at the next table, as well as the wine of the table next to us. We could not let it go to waste! Since we were to be locked in each night at midnight, we went for a quick stroll past the hundreds of little religious shops selling statues, pictures, jewellery, crosses, you name it, they had it with some religious theme. I am not exaggerating when I say I saw millions of Mary statues.

The next morning was Apparition Hill, where we climbed a steep hill to where Mary had first appeared to 6 children nearly 30 years ago. There were 5 stops up the hill, where at each station we did a decat of the rosary. For those that do not know, since I did not know, it is one Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be. I was able to blend with the group and able to hide that I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea what to say or do since it was said in Croatian or Gaelic just to make it more difficult. We had to do all the hiking in silence, which was OK, as I needed the exercise as well after eating so much good food in Croatia. At the top was a statue of Mary, where she had first appeared, where we were to pray and stuff. I sat in the shade and took in the countryside view. I only moved out of the much needed shade when a little snake slithered past me. I am not afraid of snakes, but I am of those that are poisonous, and these ones were. We took a leisurely climb back down where we boarded the bus for a lunch of a roasted piglet and lamb on a spit. After filling our bellies it was off to Kravice Falls. They may not have been Niagra Falls, but in the semi circle of rock there were dozens for small waterfalls cascading down into a large pool before heading off as a river. It was absolutely breathtaking and the mist was a warm welcome after the sun that decided to pierce through the clouds.

The following day was a very early climb, with only five of us, up Mount Križevac. This was MUCH larger than the other hill. Hill vs Mountain. This mountain had 14 stations of the cross, but by the end of it we had done 17. There were only 5 of us willing to do the hike, so come station number 6 when it was my turn to do a decet of the rosary, my secret was out, and my heathen ways were known. Out of respect, I participated by reading them from a little book Jožo our guide had given me to lead the group. I was slow on my first one, but by the last one I lead, I was super fast. The cross at the top contained a piece of what is alleged to be Jesus’ crucifixion cross, so there were many people up there praying at it. I was amazed by the view. Since the mountain is a big overgrown, I could not see the views until the top. They were spectacular of the entire valley. We took a long winding, not so steep path back where we enjoyed a few beers, before heading to mass. This was the one time I was going to go since the young girl did not want to go alone, and thankfully it was in English. There was even an Irish film crew there filming it for the 30th anniversary show that will be June 24th. Who knows, I may even end up on the telly.

Balkan Tour: Montenegro

One of our day tours from our hotel was down into Montenegro. They were smoking everywhere, and I had become so accustomed to having smoke free pubs/restaurants that it was quite a shock to have someone chain smoke right next to me, luckily I was outside. It was warm, even though there was no sun to be found. We snaked past the inlets and bays from the sea where pirates once stalked. That is one of the reasons why so many of the old towns were walled and heavily fortified. The water was so blue and sparkled in the sunlight that broke through the clouds. We weaved through the Sveti Đorđe and Gospa od Škrpijela islets off the coast of Perast, stopping to take photos along the way.

Our first city stop was in Kodor. It was a much bigger walled city, with a wall that serpentined up the mountain. Their religious background is a bit different in that the communists wanted atheists so a lot of their churches wend into disuse and they practiced in secret. Many of the churches were Orthodox so it was strange to see no pews, organs (musical instruments), no statues and only iconography 2D images. The city is part of the UNESCO world heritage so we had another tour guide. Montenegrins are very tall, and our female tour guide, towered over me. It was so great to see so many tall people again as I can feel like a giant in Ireland at times. We went through the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, as it contained relics (mummified body parts) that were of someone once important. This started tourism hundreds of years ago, as people would travel far and wide to see religious relics. Strangely enough they use the Euro but are not a part of the EU, so that worked for me since I had a few quid still on me. I had to pay to use the toilets and the WC woman spoke German to me, so it is good to know I look my roots. The WC woman proceeded to speak in 5 other languages to other customers, so she just spoke what she thought was the most appropriate. As I said before, I love blending into Europe.

The second city we stopped at Budva, where Ben had even done some design work, so it was great to see his sight. The streets of this smaller walled town was reminiscent of Greece with a look of Venice. The sun came out during a lunch stop for some pizza where I made my first friend on the trip, Collette and her mum, Mary. We swung in our bench and watched all the cats run about. There were everything. The beach just through the wall was beautiful sand, with many enjoying the fleeting sunshine. The city was packed with quaint churches, small shops and great eateries. Russians flocked to this area for their holidays since they use the Cyrillic alphabet as well as the Roman one, and are also Orthodox. The land around the area was quite cheap which is why Ben had looked at putting a hotel there in his office.

With the sun setting we took off down the coast again, but instead of driving hours around, we drove right onto a ferry with another buss and about 8 other cars, and sailed across the Boka-Kotor Bay in about ten minutes. We got hassled a bit at the boarder trying to get back into Croatia, but that just meant more stamps for me, in my nearly full passport!