December 31, 2008

German Christmas Markets ...

This year was the year of Christmas markets for me. I went to Germany way too late last year to be in time for the celebration of handy crafts, kitsch and the most important ingredients: loads of food and Glühwein.

This year I already discovered delicious Glühwein and even Schmalzkuchen at the Dublin Christmas market at the IFSC. It instantly made me feel better after a rather hectic December.

Finally in Germany I immediately headed for the nearest Schmalzkuchen booth at the local Christmas market. I bought a portion for 2.50€ thinking that it would probably just satisfy my initial appetite, but then I was almost overwhelmed with the enormous amount of the delicious pastry I got. Sadly I have to report that I failed to eat it all despite the support of my youngest sister (we really need to put in more effort next time).

Instead of Glühwein I had to make do with Finnish Glögi as we went to a Finnish Christmas market (I have never really seen a Christmas market in Finland, but if you are looking for a Finnish Christmas market it seems the place to find it is Hanover). They also had lovely pirakka and salmiakki filled fazer chocolate.

I hope all enjoyed Christmas and I wish you a happy New Year!

November 8, 2008

November Blues …as if!


It’s cold, it’s windy and let’s face it; it rains a lot (and by a lot I actually mean a lot more). Anyway that does not stop people from smiling. It’s this time of the year when I am really happy to be in Ireland.
Don’t get me wrong; I often miss lots of things about Finland and Germany, but during the dark months Germans as well as Finns tend to get quite upset and are seldom spotted with a smile on their face.
To be fair now winters are a lot darker in Finland with precious few hours of greyish light and as for Germans, they are not expected to look happy; I am still often met with a puzzled expression from my Australian co-worker when I make a joke (I don't know if my jokes are so bad or if she really is just surprised that Germans are of course utterly hilarious – not always completely voluntary I might add).
What I really wanted to say with this entry is that I am amazed about Irish people. Despite constant nagging about the weather, the recession and house prices they always seem really cheerful and open-minded.

November 3, 2008

Dingle, Kerry & stormy weather

Its seems that I find less and less time to blog here and just more lame excuses why that would be the case. That's got to stop. I promise to try a bit harder now.

This autumn was most eventful and full of unbelievable beauty. It would take a few years to bring you up to speed on all that happened so its probably best to summarize a fantastic weekend in Kerry & Dingle.

I live here now for 2.5 years and so far I have never made it to the most beautiful parts of this island. I loved what I saw of Dingle and also the parts that I could not really make out due to all the rain and wind;). The views are astonishing and the picture changes with every turn of the corner.
Kerry as well surprised me. I had heard horror stories of narrow roads, jam packed with German tourists, but at this time of the year it was most enjoyable and the few German tourists that ventured out in this weather were a most welcome distraction.

All in all a place that everyone should visit (and that looks surprisingly much like the New Zealand pictures my friend just took from her recent trip).

September 7, 2008

I am still alive ...and eating crisps!

Hello there,
yes it's me! Some of you have sent me worried emails wondering if I have disappeared. Let me assure you that I am still here; it's not that easy to get rid of me;).
It has been a very turbulent time for me: deeply depressing and also full of unexpected beauty.

So what is happening in Dublin? It's nowadays flooded at least once a week (because it sometimes rains for more than 2 hours and that is simply too much to take for the drains here).

We had the festival of World Culture 2 weeks ago, which was mainly loads of Salsa music and amazing food. I loved it and unbelievably enough after shivering in the rain during Saturday, Sunday was really sunny and almost felt like summer (Irish summer, don't get too excited ;)).

This weekend the fringefestival kicked off. I am really looking forward to some contemporary dance performances (still one more week until my class starts again).

Since I have neglected this blog shamelessly for a while I thought I honour this entry with a picture of a cheese & onion crisp (yuk...can you believe there are bars that do not sell vinegar crisps) and me. The picture was taken by my favourite photographer ( ...no I am so not biased ... it's a simple fact;)).

August 9, 2008

Irish Music - Kila - Diddly Dee

This will be short and sweet. For those of you who know who I am; I would rather get my eyeballs pierced than listen to Irish diddly dee music (and just for the record; I am terrified of piercings... at least on my own body).
So last week I went to a Kila gig as a wonderful friend of mine really loves the stuff and I simply had to try and understand why?
It was an entertaining evening and to be fair I think the band is really talented and amusing (if you are into this kind of music).
For me it was more like: is this really another song? why does it sound exactly like the one they just played? do they play any songs that are less than 25 minutes? 
She loved it though and wrote a completely different and probably more enjoyable review here

Needless to say; I enjoyed the evening very much, but for the next gig I am hoping for some good old fashioned heavy metal.

July 13, 2008

Art in Dublin?

...something I had for some reason completely neglected so far. It seems it always takes me a while to get my life organised in a new place. Only then do I venture out in search of new hobbies and entertainment (and I have to admit I still strongly connect art with Finland).
Yesterday I went to the Modern Art Museum in Dublin. I was lucky to have an expert with me, who was able to find the place even without consulting my map;).
I really liked the place and the exhibitions were surprisingly good. My favourite was a painting called "Moon Blossom" by Janaína Tschäpe. I love the different layers of colours and shapes in her paintings. They almost feel alive and let you discover more and more the longer you look at them.

I would definitely recommend the place to anyone on a rainy (or even a sunny) Saturday afternoon.

July 1, 2008

Childhood Memories - A Weekend in Germany

I spent a beautiful family weekend in Germany.

I remember how when I first left Germany I got offended whenever people joked that all German men have mustaches. Now eleven years after leaving Germany for good (not that I knew that back then, and who knows one day I might return...or then again maybe not :) ) I have to smile every time when I arrive at a German airport and compete with plenty of mustache wearing men for a spot at the baggage belt.

This time I discovered the truth behind another stereotype that I never thought true; German sitting rooms. In movies a German sitting room always has a certain look to it that I always thought to be way over top. This weekend though I looked a sitting room (I won't confess whose ;)) with fresh eyes and I was really surprised by the look of it (and I have to admit I also felt a little claustrophobic). That is not to say that Irish sitting rooms with fitted carpets and uncomfortable, floral patterned sofas are much better; they are just different (and strangely the thing I have gotten used to lately).

June 21, 2008

KT Tunstall - No Smell of Sausages

If this headline does not make any sense to you, you will need to check out this post.

This time KT played in the Olympia theatre (which is nowhere near the Ambassador as I had to learn the hard way;)). I loved the concert. People were standing this time and the room was darker. The crowd formed one big dancing, singing and cheering mass (there were also quite a few marriage proposals addressed at KT; all turned down in the most charming way).

KT and the band were in great form and she performed mainly songs from "Eye to the Telescope" and "Drastic Fantastic" as well as "Ashes". Its hard to say which song the crowd liked best; my guess would be either "Hopeless", "Other Side of the World" or the extra long deluxe version of "Suddenly I See".
My favourites today were "Funnyman" and something that really suited the day "Under the Weather".

Another really enjoyable concert!

The Lesbian Treaty - Gay Pride Parade in Dublin

Another rainy weekend in Dublin. It seems the summer is over for the moment.

It was a big surprise for me to stumble across this colourful Gay Pride parade on Dame Street today. The atmosphere and costumes were really great. Unfortunately I only got some shots of the action with my mobile phone.
It was really good to see all kinds of people stopping to watch the parade and the discussions amongst the spectators were all very positive.

June 12, 2008

"Howya horse?" - Lessons to be learnt

I learnt an important lesson today.
The correct answer to the question "Howya horse?" is not:

a) I am not a horse
b) I don't keep horses
c) What the hell are you talking about, I am still tired

... or d) I don't even like horses...

You will have to find out for yourselves how to answer this question in Dublin. Enjoy the completely unrelated photo of suburban Dublin.




P. S. Dear Sir; this blog entry is dedicated to you ;)

June 8, 2008

Blue Impressions from the Green Island

After writing the last post the weekend turned into a long lazy stretch of beautiful sunny days. It was the perfect weekend for endless walks by the sea and ice cream in the sun.

The green island can sparkle in the most beautiful shades of blue at times!

June 6, 2008

Irish Summer II - A Slight Chance of Rain

It has been a crazy week. To come back to the favourite subject in Ireland - no not sports or mortgages, but the weather - this week started off sunny and almost hot (you have to remember that the highest temperature ever measured in this area of the world is 32 °C), then changed to a very rainy autumn and it ended on a high note when this beautiful rainbow greeted me this evening.

A great way to kick off the weekend!

May 26, 2008

Another Week & Borrowed Words



"In life as in dance: Grace glides on blistered feet" Alice Abrams

May 24, 2008

Dancing through life

Life has been good, but at times a bit busy. Even after 2 years in this beautiful country it’s still hard to adapt to the work life at times.
The work hours are very different. Work starts later in the mornings than in Finland, which makes it hard to get out in good time.

For the first year I was busy catching up at work and forgot all about hobbies and socialising. Luckily these days are over. I now indulge regularly in taking dance classes and I really enjoy it. It’s a beautiful sensation to express myself again through my body. Dancing has done wonders for my spirits as well and also lifted the dark cloud of writer's block that was hanging over my head for a few months.

I am not quite ready to reach for the stars yet, but I am positively dancing through life!

May 5, 2008

It's all about timing

Today I left the house happily (2 hours early) to go to my class in Dun Laoghaire. I do not have a car and as I might have mentioned before the public transport here is somewhat funny. If you do not live on the dart line for instance you need to travel all the way into town, then cross town for the nearest dart stop and then travel back south on the dart.
Well that was my intention today as well, but once I had purchased my ticket and started waiting for the train I found out that the trains would not run all the way to Dun Laoghaire and there were no connecting buses from the last stop.
I have to admit I am very inexperienced when it comes to taking the Dublin bus, but as it was the only solution left to me I ran out of the station and found a stop for a bus to Dun Laoghaire. The bus then took me on a lovely round trip of the southern parts of Dublin that were still unfamiliar to me. I had plenty of time to take in my surroundings as the bus stopped every 2 -3 minutes (no I am not making this up;). We did reach Dun Laoghaire after 59 minutes (yes I did not keep staring at my watch) and sadly way too late for my class (I am sure there are faster bus lines though). I went for a walk then waiting for the dart service to resume and would have kept quiet, if I would not have been greeted by this lovely advert on the train.

Well really it's all about timing sometimes;)

May 3, 2008

Pictures of Italy

We are back from our holidays. Italy was definitely an interesting, beautiful and somewhat surprising experience. Here a few impressions of the places we visited.

Rome:

As you can see this city has clearly been taken over by top class German pop (?) music. These posters of Tokio Hotel decorated almost every single tube station throughout Rome.



We were even more surprised that the rest of the advertisement space in the Roman tube stations is dedicated to good old Finland. Do they really promise a country of constant spring, or is my Italian letting me down here?


This was the most impressive experience in Rome. we visited the Pantheon. The light and the atmosphere was stunning and from a different world.


One more impression of Rome that needs no words.




Florence:

This was the best place to visit. A lot more approachable and relaxed than Rome and more really amazing ice cream places that even serve liquorice ice cream (that was one of the highlights for me in Florence).





Here are some impressions from Tuscany. There was so much to see that I feel a bit overwhelmed now. If you plan to visit all these beautiful medieval cities you definitely need a lot of time to explore and enjoy!

Volterra & Lucca


Siena & San Gimignano









Me in Poggibonsi

April 13, 2008

Five Minutes of Sunshine

Life has been busy, cold and full of rain over the last weeks. I am really ready for my holidays in a warm country:)
This weekend we managed to catch a few minutes of precious sunshine in Dun Laoghaire.
I just love the place; one day I will hopefully move there. The light was absolutely gorgeous.
Moments like this are the best preparation for another busy week.

March 22, 2008

Irish Easter Eggs

It’s a surprisingly cold Easter this year, but its absolutely wonderful to have a few days off!

This year it was a big challenge to find normal-sized Easter eggs to hide. With normal-sized I mean eggs that are smaller or the same size as an ordinary egg; well eggs really that you would be able to eat in one go, or maybe even have one or two of them with a nice cup of coffee.

I am still amazed with the Easter eggs here in Ireland. They come in a large square shaped cardboard box and on the package there are promises of a chocolate crunchy egg, or an Aero egg with nice little holes, but usually these packages contain one large dairy chocolate egg (not individually wrapped so it goes bad quite soon after you open the package, and really there is no hope to finish one of those in one go, even if you do share with your partner) and a chocolate bar or then a few miniature eggs (up to 4 eggs). So far I have not seen this kind of Easter egg tradition anywhere in the world, but lucky for us we did manage to get a few normal-sized creme eggs and a selection of yummy Lindor eggs.
The Easter egg hunt was a lot of fun (well it is a lot easier to hide many small eggs rather then one big square shaped package:)).

March 16, 2008

Leaving Finland – Reflections on Life in Ireland

This is a thoughtful weekend for me. Its now almost exactly two years since we emptied our flat in Helsinki, went through the mammoth task of re-organising tax, health insurance and the like and packed our bags in quite a hurry to leave Finland for good. I remember there was a lot of snow during our last week and we became masters in sliding down the icy courtyard, skillfully balancing moving boxes and pieces of furniture while avoiding the very slippery patches on the stone steps. We lived in an otherwise beautiful Jugendstil building with a gorgeous yard in the nice area of town, but it unfortunately proved to be rather difficult to move in and out of this flat, as cars would not be able to enter the courtyard and our flat was of course located in the stair case that was furthest away from the entrance of the yard, uphill and naturally on the top floor (no elevator).

After the moving ordeal we spent one last night a hotel excited that we soon would not have to put up with all the snow and cold any more and that moving into our furnished flat in Dublin should be a piece of cake. It actually was quite easy.

We arrived in Dublin just after the St Patrick’s weekend and lived out of the suitcase for the first month. Of course I had packed all the wrong things like a warm woolly coat: perfect for dry and very cold conditions, utterly useless for windy and moist weather;)
I think we learned our lesson fairly quickly. My wardrobe now solely consists of clothes that can be layered under waterproof jackets as the weather here changes every 5 minutes, which can be beautiful and sometimes annoying.

I am in love with the light here. Its light during the winter even on my way to and from work and we can be outside during every month of the year. We are happy with the move, but on weekends like today you come to realize that arriving might take a lot longer sometimes than just the physical move.

Oh and this is the second St Patrick’s weekend with dreadful weather. It seems to be part of the national celebration just like the fact that it almost always snows on May Day in Finland:).

February 10, 2008

Finally the sun...

Some impressions from a beautiful weekend in Dun Laoghaire!

February 3, 2008

its windy and rainy…and cold inside



…and it just does not stop.
I am constantly shivering; mainly when I am inside our apartment (with the heating on full heat) or in the office.
It has been wet and rainy for two months now and every morning that I wake up and don’t feel like sneezing (or like my throat for once isn’t aching, or I have nothing else to complain about☺), I hop on to the tram and am greeted by a stream of commuters blowing their noses and looking at me with teary eyes as if they are trying to tell me just how dreadful they feel and how fed up they are with constant wind and rain.

I have to say I miss the well-insulated apartments in Finland. Yes, it was cold on the outside, but once you got home you could hang out in a T-shirt and feel comfortable (you could also fill your bath tub with gallons of hot water and take endless hot bathes). Its bad how we tend to remember only the good things from a distance, but at weekends like this I just would love to dive into a hot warm bath (our immersion heater gives up when the tub is half full) and then spend an evening on my sofa without being wrapped up in two blankets and still shivering.
Just a thought☺

January 14, 2008

Irina Kolesnikova - Swan Lake & Nutcracker

For the first time on this blog I am actually lost for words (but that most certainly won't stop me from writing here anyway:)) .
We had the great privilege of watching Irina Kolesnikova dance the lead roles in Swan Lake and Nutcracker with St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre (SPBT). I had seen the company before and have liked their performance. It's a good package. The corps de ballet has strong technical skills (rows are a little off), costumes and the set are great, but what I really like about them, is that they really live their role on stage. The character role dancers are very strong and have tremendous acting skills.

So when I watched the theatre a few times I saw all this hype about their ballerina (who sadly did not dance in Dublin) and thought it was a bit much. Then I bought the recording of Swan Lake and have to admit got very curious. The recording is beautiful and Irina does have something very special to her; so I had to see her in person.

We were very lucky to see her in two very different performances. First we saw Swan Lake (an all-time second favourite of mine). Irina completely dazzled her audience. From the moment she entered the stage the air was electric! There were a few minor hiccups with her landings, but this was completely forgettable compared to her overall performance. She was a beautiful, fragile swan with fantastic lines; and a strong, seductive Odile with a lot of passion and fire in her eyes.

The next day we saw her completely transformed into a cheerful young girl enjoying Christmas and dreaming of her prince. She completely captured us again.

Needless to say that even though I never wanted to like her, I am now a huge fan and will not miss an opportunity to see her perform. You can see pictures and clips of her on her web site.

Its worth it!

January 4, 2008

Happy New Year!


This is the second time I start the New Year in Dublin. It’s a fantastic start so far.

Christmas has been nice, relaxed with family and too many, but very nice presents.
I spent a beautiful New Years Eve in Dublin: still getting used to the fact that there are hardly fireworks here (illegal). It seems that there is a lot more happening on the streets during Halloween.

I hope you all had a good start into the New Year. I am looking forward to another inspiring year here in Dublin.


This time I added some photos from my trip to Hanover to this blog. Who is to say that Hanover is ugly?