I'm lovin it!

22.5.2011

I asked an Irish exchange student what's the typical Irish food; she wasn't really sure, except for the Irish breakfast that people tend to have in a pub on Sundays. That's what we planned to have after our hostel breakfast. We were supposed to go to this one famous place to have the breakfast but they were serving lunch by the time we got there. We asked one woman if she knew any places where they serve Irish breakfast. She answered: “There are loads of them.” I guess it’s like asking someone where a coffee shop in Amsterdam is.

It wasn’t the complete breakfast, but sure filled us up. The freshly pressed apple juice was such a disappointment, or maybe ever since I had a glass (or few) of Linda’s mom’s apple juice straight from their garden, nothing has tasted better. 

We walked to the centre, which was only 20min from our hostel, but a lot for my Hong Kong and Macau travel companions ;P. Our museum tour started with the Leprechaun Museum, which was opened only last year. The tour guide Bobby? was gezellig. Just loved his messy orange hair. Did you know that it was the Americans, who gave the leprechaun its commercial look? Now you know. 

the real clothes

I meant to watch the Leprechaun movie before travelling, but now I’m thinking would it ruin the whole experience? You tell me.

As we walked the lovely streets of Dublin, we noticed the metal pointy thingy, don’t remember what’s its official name, but apparently local people like to call it the “erection in the intersection”.

We managed to book a day tour to the west coast of the country for the next day, and were excited for that. Though, we still had some time to visit a museum, before most of them close at five. I remember Troy mentioning something about James Joyce, so I wanted to visit the center. Can’t wait to borrow his books in Finnish.

the door in ulysses

 After that we headed to the famous touristic spot, Temple Bar. Just to find the Hard Rock Café. I like to collect the shirts, though I only had one from Warsaw’s café. Then I started to wonder, why I do that. Hmm, you can never have enough white shirts with a yellow/brown spot and a different city’s name on them?

Having two breakfasts and skipping lunch, we looked for a place where they serve traditional Irish food. Apparently, stews are very famous. And good. 

As we had to wake up early the next morning for our day tour, we went back to our hostel for a good night sleep. All I can say is I was lovin’ it. 

preparing for obama

Oh yeah one more thing! We grabbed some food for our bus trip from this super market, and while waiting in line, you could hear this woman yelling at the worker about how the workers don’t care about Irish people, that she pays 2 grand for college blah blah *swear word* blah blah hairy chest doesn’t make you a man *swear word*. And that went on for at least a few minutes. Then at some point I actually saw the woman with the loud voice. I spotted a leprechaun!

Don't feel that

21.5.2011

The weekend was off to a great start with a couple of big news and relaxing b-day party of Eme. And it was to get even better, as we were travelling to IRELAND! Why so serious? I mean happy. HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY! Ten years ago I made a presentation about Ireland, don't know why I picked that country, but when I was looking at the pictures of the greener than green countryside it had become my dream to go there. And watching Once and PS. I love you the need of going there became even bigger.

In my to-do-list we have:

1. Lay on the grass in the countryside of Ireland.
2. Travel by train around India.
3. Listen to Scar Tissue and rest of the Californication album in a convertible across the Californian desert.
etc.

Well, I can already say that I haven't had the chance to cross any of those by now. Some of you might think why not the first one, when I went there, but more of that later.

So, good mood to get even better, not even the NS (Dutch trains) being delayed bothered me. But as they say from high above the only way is down. Thank you RyanAir for delaying our flight with almost 4 hours. Wasting our afternoon in Dublin. I've always wanted to hang out at Eindhoven's airport. I planned to check in as soon as we got bored of the otherside, so seeing something new would give hope. Still, I could have slept longer and eaten all the food in the fridge. Some hippie started to laugh at me when she heard that and told me not to feel that way. What can I do when two of the most important things are taken from me. Sigh.

non-EU people checking in

As we finally got into the plane and arrived in Dublin airport, I completely had forgotten that it's a rainy country, they drive on the opposite lane and they speak also Irish. But the rain didn't bother me, just wanted to be like Rocky when he runs up the stairs, that was the feeling I had; at last I made it. I wrote in my early entries that until end of 2011 I would have visited 20 countries all in all, and what better way to do that than visiting Ireland. Éire.

We took the double-decker to our hostel, never been in one before, but unfortunately couldn't go up due to our luggage. It was kind annoying that you have to pay the exact fare for the ticket.

It was quite late when we got to our hostel, and chilly outside, but we had to have dinner. There weren't any Irish places open at that time, so we went to an Indian restaurant called Surma (in Finnish first-degree murder). They had excellent food, and looking at the check, you didn't have to pay for water. DOUGH! I'm already so used to paying for water and small bottles in The Netherlands, that I forgot it's not the case in every country. Well, next time. After that we headed back to our hostel for a good night sleep eagerly waiting for the next day.

The most annoying faucet system yet.

Eindhoven + Foo Crystal Castles Fighters

15.5.2011

2 months and school should be done over here. Why oh why does time have to fly so fast :( And why of why does Wikipedia say that Eindhoven can be in the future the 5th most dangerous city in Europe? Well, that I just had to go and explore! Alone.

Didn't have much time before Liverpool's important match against Tottenham started at five. So, I used that time to visit the Van Abbemuseum, which took an hour for me to find, because I took a wrong turn. The museum wasn't that interesting in the beginning, but when I found more floors in the building, everything started to fall in place.

a guy sewing his mouth

"i asked the assistants for yellow paint, then forgot what to do with it"

After that I had to search for a sports bar, which the centre was full of! Now I understood the high crime rate. But the bar tenders told me to go an Irish pub in order to see the Premiere League. Liverpool lost, it was a bad game, so this weekend hopefully they will win and Tottenham lose. The pub though had a signed Liverpool jersey.

I still had some time before I had to meet Andrea for the gig. Walked around the centre and visited outside the PSV stadium, which is so close to the train station!

"He who wants freedom, must give it others."

Finally it was time go to the Effenaar for the gig. Queens of the Stone Age had been playing there the day earlier ÜÜÜÜÜ.

But now it was time for British/Spanish indiespanishfolkelectrorockpop group Crystal Fighters to perform. Before that though was Benelux a quite cool funky Dutch group. I didn't take much/good pictures, I was too busy jumping. I didn't want to listen to the Crystal Fighters at first, because the name reminded me too much of Crystal Castles (and a friend just added the Foo in front, hehe good one Tipu) but I'm glad I did! A lovely debut album they released. The songs' stories and the band's name comes from one band member's insane grandfather's written opera. Nice.

Just can say that I enjoyed it very much, and hope to see them again, even though the gig had to be paused when "I Love London" was about to start due to audio problems. But all in all kick-ass gig!

When I got back home I noticed people posting on their Facebook that Finland had won the world championship in ice-hockey. I had a feeling about it, but still USKOMATONTA (=UNBELIEVABLE)! Second gold after 16 years, and I'm in a country, in which people don't play hockey on ice.