...that I had more time to write all my thoughts down, but it's just not happening at the moment. I had a great week last week and the blogging addict that I am, I feel it's half gone to waste when I didn't get to blog about all the nice stuff.
Lukas and I met up with Annie for a lovely lunch and wander around the Hugh Lane Gallery. We had a nice time, the food was delicious and I told her about my sister who's got bipolar disorder. Afterwards I felt a bit worried that I'd just talked about myself and not let her talk at all, as usual. Just as we were leaving, outside the gallery we nearly bumped into a grey old man who was smartly dressed and talked loudly in his mobile phone. "...So I went to the bank and deposited a cheque for 5, 760, 000 ... Yes, I bought the remaining 9 houses on the street. I always said I'd be a billionaire, and now the day has come!" God bless him! In his hand he was holding a transparent blue plastic bag, with another - Lidl - plastic bag inside it.
On Saturday Lukas was resisting the call of the sandman till 10.30pm, but we eventually got him in the bed and the grandparents stayed in post while we sneaked out to the local for the charity gig I mentioned earlier. We met two guys from the band at the door, and witnessed the teenage bouncer asking to check their bags before letting them in. "But I'm with the band," one of the guys tried to reason with a hint of gobsmackedness in his voice, but the young fella pressed on: "I still need to see your bag." There was no bottles in the bag anyway.
I made a bit of an airhead of myself too, when someone pointed the karaoke bar next door and said that's actually where the gig was. Note to self: never say "Oh really!?!" in the company of half-strangers. I just lend perfectly to those little awkward moments.
The gig itself was wonderful, even though we had to leave early to check on the small protagonist of the story of our lives. I liked the Kill City Defectors even when I had only heard them in MySpace, but the music was nothing short of brilliant live. After bopping and shaking enough at the side of the dancefloor, we had to give in and join in. The smell of sweat on the dancefloor reminded me of so many bittersweet night out in town, and the smell of the industrial cleaning detergent in the toilets brought me back to the familiar feeling of going to toilet and realising how drunk you actually are. Also, the (just a quick!) taste of Buckie brought back a few blurry memories from the past :D
Even though the venue wasn't quite the Whelan's, Village, Vicar Street, Temple Bar Music Centre or any other of the tens of places I've been to gig in Dublin, it still had the same music-loving atmosphere. I remembered how going to gigs in Finland always felt poncy and pretentious, and the Dublin music scene opened a whole new world of live music for me.
Even though we were there mainly to see Kill City Defectors and Super Extra Bonus Party, the first band the Isohels was a pleasant surprise. As an added bonus, they also reminded me of something - my old housemate Ellen, who used to play guitar, saxophone and generally what ever she could get her hands on. We had some great jamming nights at the house and I often think about how she's doing nowadays.
Oh and I did indeed see Nialler9 again there, it was nice to see him too, I even got over the embarrasement of being such a drunk ass at the blog awards. It's nice that even if I'm not doing a very good job blogging these days, I still managed to meet up with not only one but two blogfriends in the space of few days!
The changing of clocks has messed everyone's sleeping rhythm in the house. We all got up at 11 this morning, and didn't have our breakfast until it was nearly 1 in the afternoon. Getting dressed after a late shower some time during Lukas' afternoon nap, I was looking for my shoe under the bed and found a Finnish book my mother gave me for Christmas. I started reading it and now I can't stop thinking about the book and reading it. The book is Kjell Westo's Where We Used to Wander, but unfortunately it hasn't been translated into English yet.
I'm looking forward to the move on Friday as I might have mentioned, but there are also a few other things in our calendar that I count days to. Like meeting Brendan and Jess, possibly going to Clare for a couple of days again, Kath and Sem coming over and having a nice dinner on April Fool's Day to celebrate Marian & Denis' anniversary. Ronan's got a few interviews lined up so we'll probably go to Dublin on Thursday again, and I'm hoping get a lift in town with him to meet Derek for lunch.
That's all news from here now, I'm sorry that my posts have turned into total updates lately, but there is simply too much happening at the moment and too little time to write it all down.
I'm so sorry but I have to post this, we've been laughing at it all night.
Today FM's Gift Grub have done this imitation of Roy Keane for years - sometimes it's funny and other times not - and this week they got the real Roy Keane in the radio, and the mock-version did an interview with him. There's a couple of very funny parts and the real Roy Keane takes it all fairly well.
Roy Keane meets "Roy Keane" of Gift Grub
Here's a link to the recording, if it doesn't work it's probably because there are too many people trying to access it. If you get a session error message, you can go to Today FM website and try clicking the link for the Roy Keane interview Part 2. If it's still not working, just try again a few minutes later.
We arrived back to Kildare on Monday night, and I was busy working for the best part of the week. I've been translating material for a a big photography exhibition produced by the Jyväskylä Art Museum. I love working on interesting stuff like that and I can't wait to see the exhibition.
We went to the musical playgroup again on Wednesday morning, and Lukas still wasn't very interested in taking part in the musical play. He kept going to this one corner, and doing his little dancing moves and wriggles there. I think the other kids are distracting him from the music and the pace is a bit too fast for him. We've been singing and playing the Sleeping Bunnies -song at home, and he now knows the 'sleeping' and 'hopping' parts of the song, which I would call a major breakthrough. He has a musical cookie jar -toy that plays a tune, and when we sang the tune last night he went and got the cookie jar. He's such a sweetheart.
His favourite game at the moment is to get a big plastic bown from one of the kitchen cupboards, and a big ladle from the drawer, and play what looks like some sort of a cooking game. He dances every time he hears music, uses the ladles to do some 'gardening' on the pot plant in the kitchen, and he's getting incredibly fast in climbing the stairs - never unattended though.
We went to see the new place this afternoon again, and it's even lovelier now that it's nearly finished! The bedrooms are bigger than I remembered, there's a dishwasher (luxury!) and the floors turned out really nice: light marble effect tiles in kitchen and hall, cherry wood floors in the lounge and Hessian-type carpet upstairs. She's going to put a white leather suite in the lounge, and a white wooden table and chairs in the kitchen. We'll have 2 double beds with bedside lockers, and all the bedrooms have elegant built-in wardrobes and loads of storage. We're going to keep the decorating to minimum, but we're going out tomorrow morning to get at few bits and pieces foe the house, I can't wait!
It feels weird to spend the weekend in Kildare, it feels that we should be going to Spanish Point again. I have some photos from our recent trips to Clare on my own Flickr account, definitely worth checking out. I got a few nice shots of wild seas, cherry blossoms, foam on the rocks and whatnot.
Not much planned for this weekend, trying to get ourselves up to date with all the paperwork, changes of address and all that. I'm cooking a nice dinner tomorrow night - asparagus with hollandaise sauce for starters, and nice steaks and potatoes dauphinoise with garlic.
Actually, we might nip out tomorrow after the dinner to the local here to see the incredible (but yet very credible) Kill City Defectors, supported by Super Extra Bonus Party playing a fundraised gig in aid of Touch Ireland. We might even run into Nialler9 there as we discussed the gig on the blog awards night, and he confessed to be a fan of both bands.
We're just about to head to Clare so I thought I'll leave a little message with you.
I know we're supposedly on holidays, but the schedule has been so hectic it certainly doesn't seem like much of a holiday. Even if we don't do anything, the day seems unfairly busy, because my daily routine with Lukas has gone out of the window, and even when he's asleep there's usually something else for me to do or at least someone to talk with, so I'm not spending as much time on the computer. In a way it's nice, not having to substitute human contact with Internet messages, but in a way I miss back to my cosy little corner of the web. Surfing the net has become the easiest way for me to relax, and my mind seems to be running clearer when I've got at least a few tabs open on the screen to catch my wandering thoughts.
Anyway, I was going to tell about the human contacts that I've had since coming to Ireland - mammy-wise, I mean. Before the move I decided that this time round I'd put in real effort into creating myself a social circle, and that I have done. I've met other mothers, even received a few phone numbers, been to a musical play group and today I'm just back from a play date! I even found out that the local district nurse (the equivalent of the UK health visitor) is pro baby-led weaning, and I'm definitely getting in touch with her next week, even just to find out about mother-toddler activities.
The musical play group was a great experience, Lukas loved it and I think over time it might be a great way to meet other local stay-at-home mothers. Lukas did us very proud by insisting on hugging all the other kids, but unfortunately he wasn't too interested in what the instructor was doing (I hope this isn't an early reflection of his school success). Everyone was marvelling how developed he was for a 14-month-old, and when he went in to hug/tackle (it's difficult to tell, really!) a 2-year-old boy, I was slightly relieved that it was him who ended up at the bottom of the pile. I'm really looking forward to going there again. In fact, there seems to be quite a lot of things to do with kids on the area we're moving to, but I'm still looking for a playground in the area.
Yes, we've actually secured a lease on a brand new 3-bedroom duplex, only 5 minutes walk from the train station. The landlady seems very nice and flexible, she has decorated the house in good taste and the location is perfect for us. It's close to the village with all the shops and amenities, the train to Dublin takes less than 30 minutes and the bus to the nearest town goes from down the street. We'll be spending another couple of weeks with Ronan's parents while the builders finish the new place, but we'll be all set for visitors by the start of next month!
I better go packing now I'm being accused of delaying the journey. Ronan's staying behind as he's going to Cork for a stag night tomorrow. We'll be reunited on Sunday, but we've got lots of plans to keep us busy over the weekend. We'll probably venture down to Ennistimon on the Friday, and on Saturday we're going to watch the rugby in Kilkee, where Lukas is going to see his great-grandmother. I might keep in touch via Twitter, so if you have an account you can add me as a friend to see my updates. If not, you can keep yourselves entertained with the new pictures in Flickr.
Happy Paddy's Day everyone!
Since we've been back in Ireland we've had the radio on almost constantly. It's been an enjoyable experience, mostly because Irish people in radio are a lot funnier than the Scottish colleagues, their accents are (from our point of view) a lot easier on the ear and it's a nice way to ease ourselves back into all things Irish.
One day last week we had the usually harmless Ray D'Arcy Show on, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing when they let the pregnant/ready-to-drop Mairead Farrell on the air to talk about her upcoming trip to the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki this May. To my disappointment, she announced that there is absolutely nothing to do in Helsinki, after which they threw in a few silly Finnish stereotypes and had a laugh at the Finns' expense.
I can't see how anyone would've found the piece informative or even entertaining. I'm aware that the Ray D'Arcy Show is hardly meant to be cutting edge investigative journalism. It's understandable that Mairead Farrell might not have been up for doing any work just a few days before her maternity leave, but all she had to do was google "things to do in Helsinki". That would've given her pages after pages of good suggestions for more things to see and places to visit than she can possibly have the time for. Hell, I'll put a list together for her myself if she really is interested in exploring Helsinki and the Finnish culture. Besides, what is she doing going away on a work trip when her baby will be only a couple of months old? She'll probably be so fatigued from the lack of sleep that she'll be dreaming of her bed even during the Eurovision Show.
Anyway, I probably shouldn't even point the whole riding on stereotypes -thing out because the Irish have to contend with more stupid stereotypes than any other nation in the world. Finland just makes it to the news so rarely that I wish it was something positive for once, without Santa Claus, tight-lipped Formula 1 drivers or other Flying Finns.
Journalists seem to be incapable of reporting about Finland without referring to eating reindeer meat as "eating Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Unfortunately, this was also the case with Andrea Smith, who wrote an article for the Travel section of last week's Sunday Independent ('Magic land of icy lakes and steamy saunas'). Only she seems to have been on first-name terms with the reindeer so I guess you can't expect her to "contemplate eating Rudolph"...
Her story was full of praise to Finland, but that didn't make me enjoy the article. Apart from reading like a teenager's travel journal, the writer seemed to have a problem with the Finnish sauna tradition, namely the part where you take your clothes when you go to sauna. This is how she describes her sauna experience in Finland:
The men in our party went first, and I don't know what shocked me most - the fact that they were brave enough to go and jump in the lake, or that they stayed faithful to the tradition of going au naturel (we were peeping out the window). Put it this way, there were certain male members of the Dublin media fraternity on the trip, and it isn't their faces that I will remember most!
It was time for the women's visit, and we Irish women did our collective national modesty proud by struggling into our swimming costumes wrapped in towels, while the Finns let it all hang, swing and flop loose. I had to wonder, however, why is it that the more heavily, ahem, forested a woman is, the more likely she is to whip off every stitch and brandish her bits in my face, especially in the narrow confines of a tiny sauna.
[...] I have to say that I could see why they love the sauna so much, and it should definitely be experienced, but I still think it's weird to be piling in starkers with your family, friends and workmates, every time you meet up!
See what I mean about the teenager's diary? The whole article seems to be a mix of text quoted off a travel guide, and the rest is covered by her overly personal and naive account of a trip she is desperate to make sound like a luxury holiday with log cabins on the "mountains" (there's no mountains near Tampere to my knowledge) and quad-biking.
It's painfully obvious that her naked sauna experience was an awkward one that made her uncomfortable, and made her encounter her own inhibitions. She even had to keep using euphemisms for nudity in her text, which makes even the reader uncomfortable.
To me, having a sauna with your swimming suit on sounds disgusting and totally defeats the purpose of sauna, it's unhygienic and disrespectful to other sauna-goers to wear one, especially if you're then (however anonymously) going to groan about their hairiness or floppiness in a national newspaper.
The Finns, the Russians, the Scandinavians are all able to have saunas with their family, friends and colleagues because they respect each others' privacy. Gawking out the window to see a flash of your colleague's penis is something unheard of to me, and if this is the level of her own respect, I guess she can't trust others not commit the sins that she is guilty of herself. I really don't mean this in a bad way, the cultural difference is just huge.
I'm happy to say that none of my Irish friends or family have found my home country boring or insignificant, or its culture offensive or over-the-top crazy. I always do my best to educate them of the three building blocks of the Finnish culture, that the Finns actually are proud to be known of - Sauna, Sisu and Sibelius.
We're just back in Kildare after a super-relaxing break amidst the impressive scenery the West of Ireland. Spending a few days without an Internet connection must be good for me, but I have to admit it felt a little bit like not smoking for a few days when you're in a middle of a terrible flu - I'm proud of myself having after having done it, but I'm not thinking of quitting permanently.
Even though we've literally been doing nothing since Wednesday, I feel like I have a terrible backlog of things to report. Before we left for Clare, we hijacked my oldest friend Hanni who had come to Dublin for her mid-term break. We drove her to Glendaloch, subjected her to terribly baby screams and gave her a glimpse of True Irish Countryside: lashing rain, mucky little roads and great carvery lunch.
In Glendaloch Lukas got attacked by a group of teenage American girls who all wanted to take a picture of the OMG such a CUTE BABY! He was living it up, basking in the attention and flashing the smiles in unison with their cameras. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera, so this hilarious moment and the breathtaking scenery will perpetuated for the years to come in their photo albums.
However, after a night of good wine, good company and mediocre pasta bolognaise, we got up on Wednesday morning and drove to Howth, where she was finally reunited with her travelling pals. We didn't have time to go hillwalking this time, but we swore we'd be back in our hiking boots, even if it was only to try out the fabulous-looking kids' playground in Howth town. This time I made sure to take my camera so there's some photographic evidence of this in my Flickr.
We actually ended up spending most of Wednesday (if not most of the week) in the car. On the way back from Howth we got caught up in traffic, glorious traffic on M50. After a quick lunch back at the house we started the long-haul drive to the West Coast. We had a much-needed stop in the Treaty City, where we had a gorgeous dinner in good company, and the relaxing breather broke the drive down nicely.
For the rest of the week we just rested, ate well and tried to forget all things mundane. Lukas discovered the joys of running free and letting the sea breeze play in your hair, throwing ball against the wind, pretend-sweeping the floor and exploring the showering facilities (when unused). He was also happy to discover the low-standing fridge with full baby-access, just like the one in our old apartment. I'd say he spent at least 35% of his awake time either standing between the fridge door, or trying to get past us to it. He is now comprehensively acquainted with the summer house, and we know exactly which cupboards we should baby-proof but still can't do anything about it.
I'm still upset about the Scottish boys being mean to Ronan O'Gara yesterday. They were playing a nasty game anyway. If this wasn't a family blog, or if I had a hormonal excuse to use rude language, there would be C-words. Also, although I've nothing against the English, I have to say I haven't really cheered for an English team since I first moved to Ireland in 2002. Until this afternoon, that is. An another miracle happened today: I read the Sindo sports supplement from cover to cover, the hurling articles and stats and all. It must be all the driving, driving me mad but I kind of enjoyed it.
It's been a while since I wrote anything that might interest our regulars, ie. family and friends, so it's about time for a family update!
We were in Dublin again yesterday to meet up with Lukas' godfather Tumppi, his girlfriend Päivi and my goddaughter Miina. They had flown in for a few days to see the Dublin town and to meet us, so we took out time to go meet up with them both on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
On Saturday we went to the Temple Bar Food Market and did some toy shopping in Smyths on Jervis Street. We had lunch in the Epicurean Food Hall, got some stamps at the GPO. After that we had to head back to Kildare for a house viewing. We saw a really nice 3-bed duplex only 5 minute walk away from a train station, all the rooms were a good size and there were two showers. There was no garden, which I wouldn't be overly concerned about, but the steps leading into the flat might present a bit of a problem as there was nowhere to leave the buggy. It's still a very good option but we're going to try and see another couple of houses before deciding.
On the way back we stopped at Smyths in Naas to get Lukas a lovely new car seat. He was overflowing from the previous one months ago, but it wasn't a problem before since we didn't have a car in Scotland. He also got a whole band's worth of toy instruments, which kept him busy while I was away on Saturday night.
Mike and Maz arrive about 5 minutes after we got back from the shops, we had a slightly delayed dinner of chicken breasts filled with mozzarella, sundried tomatoes and fresh basil, and potatoes dauphinoise. Despite the brand new set of knives (or possibly because of them) the cooking took me ages, and we were almost late from the Blog Awards. Fast forward to the next morning, Ronan cooked us a marvellous breakfast that pretty cured our budding hangovers. Maz and Mike left for some shopping in Dundrum, and we headed into town a bit later to meet up with Tumppi, Päivi and Miina.
We had great lunch in town at Wagamama, which was a great choice. The place was very busy, but the staff were still super friendly, getting a high chair was no problem and Lukas was chomping down on the noodles from our teriyaki salmon soba. Their (or anyone's) Miso soup is the perfect weapon to beat the winter chills!
After a stroll in St. Stephen's Green we were ready for some takeaway Chai tea from the Chocolate Cafe on Chatham Street. I won't be going back there in a hurry though, the staff seemed to be more interested in each other than the customers, and after making me the wrong drinks they tried to charge me for another fiver to give me the drinks I had originally wanted.
We tried to go to Iveagh Gardens too, but the gates were locked. For me just walking around Dublin was enough, it feels so good to be back. On our way back to Kildare we drove through the village where Ronan used to go to school. We had nice dinner and our little family crashed out around 8pm.
Today we've been lazing around the house, although Ronan managed to record and send a voice sample for a job at a radio station. We're going to see another house after 3pm, and we were planning to bring Lukas to the Playbarn on our way back.
Despite the few pints I had last night at the Irish Blog Awards, my head is feeling delightfully light. I have a little Lukas s sleeping next to me, dreaming of better days. He's so lovely, I really enjoyed a few hours away from him last night, because now it's twice as nice to have him here with me.
I really had a fantastic time at the Awards at the Alexander Hotel. I was so nervous about the whole thing beforehand and in the car driving in I was listing things that were wrecking my head: being late from the awards, having to introduce myself to people who possibly don't have a clue who I am, talking too much, getting my dress stuck in my tights and having my arse on display all night, getting too drunk and talking shite, not getting drunk enough and not talking to anyone, accidentally being rude to people... you name it, I worried about it.
As I probably said to everyone I was talking to last night, I don't get out much. I can't even remember the last time I went out to a party where I didn't know everyone, but it was definitely my kind of crowd last night. Everyone I talked to were super nice and laid-back, no looking-down-your-nose going on whatsoever (or then I just missed all of that) and everyone seemed to be getting on really well.
There was a full lunar eclipse and as Colm pointed out, it was only the bloggers' crowd out on the street outside the Alexander Hotel watching it. I too pointed my camera at the eclipse, but I have yet to inspect the results. I got my picture taken with Twenty (whose looks everyone seem to be complementing today!) but I'm not allowed to put it up here but I've got it between the paper version of my diary.
I also have pictures of Maz with Bock the Robber (the best dressed male - didn't realise it was a fancy dress party, think I'll go as Snow White next year) and the Beaut.ie girls, who fairly swept the table with the Best Design, Best Newcomer and Best Dressed Female, congrats girls!
The night went really quickly and I think I met most of the people I had promised to say hello to. Sinead left before I got a chance to go over and talk to her, and a few people I just didn't see all night, even though they were probably somewhere there on the crowd. I'm gutted to have missed Tom Rafterty's moves, but perhaps it's better we left early to keep me from joining in the jammin'.
My list of embarrasements was comfortingly short in the end, as far as I can remember the only idiotic thing was getting Newbridge and Newcastle (on the Kildare border, not England) mixed up, which is not too bad for a Finnish person but confusing at the time.
I'll add some links and possibly write a bit more about the night when the haze lifts, now we're off to Dublin again, for the third time this weekend. I love being here.
Due to popular demand, here's a zipped clip with the Blog Awards interview from RTE Radio 1 from tonight - Dave Fanning talking to Damien and Kieran:
Blog Awards 2007 RTE Radio 1 010307
I'm sorry but there will be loud "czzzzt" -noises every minute or so - I only got myself acquainted with the Total Recorder today so only got the test version, and unfortunately it comes with the interference. If you're quick you might catch the original show at the RTE Radio 1 website.
I wish could sound as lucid on the air but I'm afraid talking is not one of my strenghts. Gave a (non-blog awards related) interview today myself today and feel like I didn't get anything said from all the rambling. Thank god it wasn't for radio or TV.
Last but not least, I'm sending power hugs and strength to Iceland. You know who you are (and no, it's no Annie, she's probably gone already).
Yes, we're in Ireland! We flew in around 6pm last night and still I can't believe we're here. The move went well, we got the place scrubbed clean and the move load arrived to Kildare on time. Now I just can't stand the smell of bleach (not a big fan to start with) and I don't want to see another sponge for at least 6 months.
Today we went shopping, you know, just to clear off that move stress and relax a bit. I got the most gorgeous boots, that I had apparently earned with all the packing and cleaning I did, yay! Guilt-free comfort shopping! Lukas has finally gone for his late afternoon nap, and it's only the matter of seconds before I'll give in to the inviting smell of Indian food coming from downstairs. I'm very happy!
Lukas seemed to be a bit thrown by the changes last night, but he seems to have sorted himself overnight. This morning a curious, brave boy emerged from his dad's old bedroom. I really hope that he will get used to the house and the surroundings soon, but I'm also looking forward to moving into our own house so that he can start building himself his own territory again. We're going to see a few places tomorrow, but nothing overly exciting yet, just warm-up viewings.
There seems to be so much to look forward to! Tumppi, Päivi and Miina are arriving tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to the Awards with Mike & Maz on Saturday, my old friend Hanni is coming to Kildare on Tuesday, Lukas is starting musical play school on Wednesday and after that we're taking a few days off to go to Ronan's parents summer house in Clare. And I'm just about to have some lovely, freshly-cooked chicken balti!
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