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:).

Finally the sun...

Some impressions from a beautiful weekend in Dun Laoghaire!

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☺

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!

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?

So much fun – Apocalyptica in Dublin

Another brilliant weekend! We went to see the long anticipated Apocalyptica gig at the Ambassador. It does not happen every day that a Finnish band makes it all the way to Dublin and seeing as Apocalyptica is one if our favourite bands for quite some time already; we were really looking forward to this evening.
On another note, I have to say that I am still coming to terms with the style of Irish men (at least here in Dublin): short hair (very short actually) and a hoody. I do sometimes miss the lovely hairy men that Tampere and Helsinki has to offer.
It was really great to see that there were so many men (and boys) with long hair at the gig on Saturday, clearly having a good time. Where are they all hiding during the week I wonder?
The band was superb. The set list was varied including many of the new tracks from the “Worlds Collide” album as well as older tracks and a good few cover songs. The boys had the crowd in their palm from the very beginning of the gig.
Well done!!!

The rest of the weekend went for Christmas shopping (thankfully only the final touches) and the company Christmas party, which was really fun and enjoyable (I did not know my fellow workmates could look that handsome).

Fairies in the shop & at the ballet

I had the most beautiful weekend. We actually did our Christmas shopping on Saturday and it was surprisingly pain-free. It was probably because we had not really planned on going to the shops at all and just thought we would jump quickly into the Dundrum shopping centre to look for something completely different (and non X-massy). The shopping centre was of course crowded, but somehow it did not bother us at all. I almost accidentally found some lovely presents for my family. As I stood there in the shop, queuing to pay for my things I was amazed about how much people are buying this Christmas. One woman in front of me seemed to buy friendship books for the entire school class of her daughter. The daughter hovered around nearby ready to take her mother constant orders: “Get me another one of these friendship books now. Quick, quick!!! And now another one of those albums. Quick, it’s almost my turn. Not these ones, the pink ones with the little fairies.”
It was hilarious to watch. They did choose nice things. The school class should be delighted.

In the evening we went to see the ST Petersburg Ballet Theatre (SPBT). I am happy to report that there was a lot less eating in the audience this year. We almost did not make the show as our taxi was stuck in the city centre for 45 minutes and under heavy attack from the Christmas partying crowd. Luckily we just got there in time and enjoyed a wonderful evening. This time we were seated with a group of elderly ladies. Unfortunately they could not hear and see so well anymore. We just enjoyed a beautiful solo by one of the fairies when one of the women screamed: “What was that one doing again? This is not the fairy of goodness, is it?” “No, its not. I did tell you the story earlier.” Well, I forgot. I don’t like the look of this fairy. The other one was a lot nicer, but beautiful costumes.” “Yes the costumes are really great. I agree the other fairy was a lot better.”

Well we liked all the fairies. Aurora looked a bit like she had visited the dentist earlier in the day. Her smile seemed shock frozen on her face. Otherwise the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre was fantastic again.

Elizabeth - The Golden Age

Another post very much not about being new in Ireland, but about one of the most amazing actresses on the planet.

I went to see Elizabeth - The Golden Age - at the movies yesterday and I can really recommend the film to everyone. I was a bit skeptical after reading a rather lukewarm review in the Irish Metro claiming that the film was historically inaccurate (sadly without giving any examples) and mainly elaborating on the absence of war scenes, even though (to my mind historically correct) the featured war was rather short and that was probably why it did not get as much screen time as for instance the relationship between the queen and Mary Stuart. (Those of you who know me of course realize that I would never miss a Cate Blanchett film, no matter how many bad reviews there could possibly be - not that there are many of course).

Back to the film; the ageing Queen Elizabeth is beautifully portrayed by Cate Blanchett, who really gets to show off her versatility and acting talent in the role. She is strong, witty, superhuman and at the same time fragile and eaten up by doubt and the desire to be loved as a woman rather than a queen.
I was glued to the screen and think I will go and see the film again sometime soon.

Its the perfect time to see movies here at the moment. This country seems to have established a pattern now; beautiful sunny autumn weekdays and dreary grey and rainy weekends. Just a pity I work Mondays to Fridays;)

KT Tunstall & the smell of sausages

I enjoyed a fantastic gig last night. KT Tunstall played in Dublin in the national stadium.

I do like her records and expected a nice, entertaining evening, but the concert yesterday evening surpassed all my expectations. It was so full of energy and life that even though I could barely walk to the gig feeling desperately exhausted and tired from this week's happenings (work and I think I am getting too old for drinks during the week;)), I woke up instantly when KT came on stage.

This small (and very beautiful) woman managed to wake up every last person in the room and had everyone on their feet clapping, dancing and whistling when she performed black horse and the cherry tree.

It was also nice to see people of all ages in the audience happily chewing away on crisps and sausages and singing along with KT. One thing though; What is it with the eating at any kind of performance in Dublin? I went to see a classical ballet in the Helix last year and felt slightly disturbed when the romantic midnight love scene in swan lake was accompanied by strange smacking sounds coming from my right featuring a fairly strong-built man chewing away on chocolate éclairs.

Back to KT. I loved every minute of the concert and will definitely go to see her again and again. The only bizarre thing for me was the strong smell of sausages (I sat very close to one of the kiosks) and I do hope that I will not forever connect KT's beautiful music with the smell of sausages.

Beautiful Dublin

This month is just crazy. I just cannot find 5 minutes to write up a proper post for my beautiful blog. But let me assure you that all is well and there are loads of interesting topics going through my head.
I could of course write endless stories about the traffic, the weather, house prices (They are incredibly high. For a million euros I would want a house with a pool and not a smelly two bedroom flat that is a 1 hours drive away from the outskirts of Dublin), Irelands bad performance at the Rugby world championship (They were very bad, but I would not want to talk about it as it really did upset the whole country).
Then there are all these new exciting words that I have learned about:

Muffin tops (There are lots of them around here. They tend to go out in groups and make themselves heard before you get time to even spot them).

Yummy drummies – A fantastic word. If you have ever been in the Dundrum shopping centre there is no way that you will miss them. There are loads more. I hope I get a moment soon to write all this down. I wonder which subject you would like to read about the most? I am open to everything

Enjoy the weekend!