Trip to London!

Of course there should have been at least four posts before this one that I put off writing...so I figured I shouldn't put off writing about our long weekend in London. This is going to be a long one because we did so much stuff! I hope I remember it all.

We took a 4:40pm flight into Gatwick, then hopped on the tube to our hotel, which was just at the edge of Hyde Park. We dropped off our things and then headed out almost immediately to grab some grub. I had printed out this long list of vegetarian restaurants in London, so we decided to try one in Soho. But unfortunately, by the time we got there, they were not seating anymore, so we went around the corner to an Indian restaurant that had gorgeous food. Then we moseyed over to a pub called the Nellie Dean for a couple of pints. Here's Mark enjoying the first of many warm pints.

We went back to the hotel for some shut eye, and then Friday morning I went for a lovely run through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Then we set out for some museuming. We got off at Waterloo and walked along Southbank (the Thames River) towards the Tate Modern, passing by all sorts of vendors and venues like the National Theatre. At the start of our walk, I snapped a photo of this art installation.

You could see the London Eye, which was around the way, but we didn't really feel like going up on it (read: one of us was too afraid).

Here's Mark looking at some used books for sale. He bought one for me!

We also ran into...JEDWARD! They were filming some kind of TV show. A small crowd had formed, and at first glance I said, "Hey look! Someone's dressed up at Jedward over there!" but no, it was actually them! We tried to get some photos, but you know Jedward, they don't stand still for very long.

We stopped and had really tasty veggie sausage subs and then headed to the Joan Miro exhibit. Holy smokes! What a fantastic experience. We shelled out the few extra bucks for the audio-guide, and the whole thing took a couple of hours to get through. It runs until September, and I urge anyone in London to visit it. We did a run-through of the rest of the museum, but I admit that it was cursory because we'd been so thorough in the Miro exhibit. Here are some photos of pieces that I found particularly compelling.

In particular, the Cy Twombly painting really energized Mark (it's the one with the orange circles).

After taking in the art, the weather was fine so we grabbed a seat at the Tate Modern outdoor cafe for some lunch. I ordered a bloody mary (which wasn't so great) and we ordered a bunch of little things to share. I just love eating at museum cafes. I can't help it! It feels luxurious. Here I am enjoying myself in the breeze.

By the time we were done eating, it was about half past five, so we crossed the river and wandered around until it was time to see the play in Soho I'd bought tickets for. We made our way leisurely and stopped into some shops.

We saw a play called Mongrel Island I liked that the play took place in an office, since I've had my fair share of office jobs: "Marie struggles to cope with her day to day life. She is hidden in an endless pile of files and the same people saying the same things every day." I hemmed and hawed for days over which play to see, but I chose this one because it seemed unique, new, and cheap. And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The description "Terry Gilliam’s Brazil meets The IT Crowd" was pretty apt.

After the play, we got a table at the restaurant we'd tried to go to the night before, Zilli Restaurant, which was excellent. And they had vegan tiramisu!! It was delicious. From there we went to a pub in Soho, but I didn't catch the name and to be honest they were kind of rude in there. Not a great vibe. And that was the end of our first day!

Saturday the weather wasn't as nice, but we didn't let that stop us! We ate a big breakfast at a hotel restaurant near where we were staying (our hotel was self-catering), then hopped onto the tube to the Imperial War Museum. We didn't have much time there, which is a shame. We visited the Holocaust section, which of course was harrowing. I left it in tears. One thing in particular that touched me was a video of a man talking about praying to God to save his family. He said that his prayers were not answered, and his family were all killed, so now he only meditates, but does not pray. He said he still believes in God, but not in the power of prayer. When you first walk into the museum, there is an impressive number of tanks and planes and such displayed.

My favorite exhibit was the Women War Artists, which is on until November 27, 2011. I wrote down a lot of names of artists I want to look up.

From there, we rushed off to the Hayward Gallery in Southbank for the Tracey Emin exhibition. I was not particularly a Tracey Emin fan before, but once I left, I sure was. Of course, photos were not allowed in the gallery. There were many pieces that I loved, but in particular I liked a video of Tracey Emin talking about her first abortion, which ended up being an incomplete termination that caused an internal infection. Her description of getting the abortion reminded me of my own experience, and although my own termination went smoothly (as smoothly as that can go), her story really resonates. The other installation that touched me was a video of Tracey and her father swimming in the ocean in turns, one swimming while the other filmed. It reminded me of a particular time when I was at he beach in Florida with my father, and he walked up to the water. A big wave came up and knocked him over. At first I was worried, but then he popped up, and we both had a good laugh. As I watched Tracey Emin's father falter in the waves, I saw him through her eyes, and realized that she must have had the same maternal feelings toward her father that I had towards mine. This exhibit ends on 29 September 2011 and I strongly suggest that anyone in the area visit it. You will enjoy it.

From there, we decided to walk toward Hoxton, our next destination. On the way, we happened upon a cemetery, which amongst others, was the resting place for William Blake, so we decided to pop in and have a looksee. It had only just stopped raining, so it was a bit dreary, but what should we see what a brightly colored piano and an equally brightly dressed woman named "Jezebel" playing it and singing!

I took a little video but sadly my camera memory became full so it's only about seven seconds long:

From there we headed to Zigfrid von Underbelly in Hoxton, where a Swedish musician, Action Biker, was playing along with three or four other acts as part of a night called Librarians Wanted.

We especially enjoyed the French band The Sunny Street. There, we met up with my friend Aug, whom I haven't seen since he moved to London (and I moved to New York) back in 2005. We probably should have stayed for the DJs after the show, but I was hungry, so we went off in search of food. I was not into Hoxton, I have to say. We found a crappy felafel place, "debated" what to do next, and finally just went back to the hotel.

Sunday morning, I went for another run in the park. What glorious weather! Mark went off to St. Paul's cathedral for mass (don't ask), and I showered up and headed to Notting Hill. When I got off the tube, I decided to eat at essentially the first place that looked decent, The Prince Albert. There, I had a fantastic vegetarian breakfast (complete with veggie sausage), and a so-so Virgin Mary (really, just tomato juice). Happily full, I walked in the direction of Portobello Road

and blissfully window shopped for ages. Actually, I didn't window shop. I was actually shopping, but I didn't buy very much.

So much to look at! It was fun pretending that I could have whatever I wanted, if only I could decide. In the end, I bought a skirt at a shop called Darimeya, which I'm so in love with I'm not sure where to wear it. The flea market was fun to ogle as well.

I met up with Mark as the vendors were packing up, but most of them were overpriced anyways, so I settled for taking photos instead.

Mark was hungry and we just weren't into the choices in the vicinity, so we walked back to The Prince Albert for some pints and dinner. But then I sure was ready for a nap, so it was back to the hotel for a snooze.

I was so comfy there, I almost wanted to bag out of our evening plans, but luckily I got myself together and we went to see our friend Holly at her place, where a gig was on -- a band called Pseudo Nippon.

I thought they were really funny and fun but I had missed Holly so much that we went upstairs for a good ole chat. She showed us around, and I was amazed by her giant espresso maker and giant courgette!

I'm afraid we talked her ear off a little, but hopefully she didn't mind. While waiting for the bus back to our hotel, we took these snaps. We had a good laugh over Holly's missing hand (ok, maybe you had to be there).

and here it looks like Holly might be wondering if she's about to get socked in the nose!

Monday morning - our last day!! We packed up our things and took a walk south through Hyde Park so Mark could see this crazy memorial to Prince Albert.

It's nuts! And huge!

We made our way on foot to the Victoria and Albert museum, but ultimately decided not to go in because it was just too overwhelmingly huge and we didn't have enough time. We'll have to put it on the list for our next London visit. So, after a stop for the worst Japanese food I have ever tasted (I actually didn't think it was possible), we arrived at the Saatchi Gallery.

We had a fantastic time there, what can I say?

The great thing about the Saatchi is that they let you take photos. Which I definitely did.

This last photo is me with two giant sculptures. I look even smaller than I usually do!

But that was it; we were out of time, and out of town. We took the bus to Victoria Station, hopped on the train to Gatwick airport, and were off back to Dublin. I bought myself some gorgeous Organic Scotch Whiskey at the duty free shop as a little souvenir.

This post has taken me several days to write. I feel like I left out a bunch of stuff, but so be it! We're both looking forward to our next trip to London!

In an effort to make more frequent (but sadly briefer) updates, here I am, popping in real quick to comment on two shows I went to in the past week. The first was a "Frighten the Horses" event at Block T in Smithfield (a nice easy walk from our house) featuring Ophelia MC, a really impressive rapper, local group FELCH, a band from Berlin called Koolthing, and Brooklyn band MEN, which features JD Samson of Le Tigre fame.

I got the MEN album a few days prior to the show and listen to it about 20 times, so I was well pumped for the show. Unfortulately we missed the first band, FELCH. Ophelia MC was on when we arrived and she has mad skills! But the sound at Block T was inexcusably horrible. Unfortunately things did not improve with Koolthing, and once MEN came on, it was downright embarrassing. They nearly cut the set about two or three songs in, but as it was they only played for 30 minutes or so. The crowd was kind of oblivious to their own personal space, so I was (even more than usual) bounced around like a pinball all night, which made me pretty grouchy. Anyhoo - here's a little MEN video:


Last night we ventured to the Grand Social for D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles), an American punk band from the 80s. They hadn't played in Ireland for 22 years! The show was 90% dudes but I really enjoyed the show. Of course I didn't venture into the circle pit, but everyone there was really nice and respectful. Mark had a grand old time getting pummeled in the pit. Here's a youtube video of the show, for anyone interested:

Here I am, trying to keep up with my posting! Yesterday I went to my first festival in Ireland. Well, ok, so some might say it wasn't a proper festival because there was no camping involved, but let's face it, I'm too much of a princess for camping with thousands of drunk people. That just does not appeal to me in any way, shape or form. For those who don't know, a music festival is this large area featuring multiple stages where you can see any number of musical acts and DJs, with stalls that sell food, drinks, snacks, and other goods. They're usually really expensive but ironically mostly only young people go to them.

Yesterday the weather was wonderful and sunny but breezy. After a leisurely morning of sitting in the back garden with the laptop, finding the perfect hotel for our long weekend in London next month, we walked over to the grounds of IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art) to the Forbidden Fruit Festival. We arrived sort of on the late side, but managed to catch Wild Beasts. You know that saying, "Hell is other people?" Well, at first I thought, "what on earth possessed me to come to this thing?" because, well, I guess I just generally do not enjoy crowds. The lines for alcoholic beverages were hundreds of people deep, so it didn't seem worth the effort. So we watched the band while drunk people tottered all around us -- and it wasn't even suppertime yet! But somehow I think your mind/expectations adjust and you just get used to it. Wild Beasts weren't that great live (though I do like their music), but after they were done we found a couple of friends and headed over to get some felafel. I think that improved my mood, and we headed over to a couple of the tents, where there was dance music playing. I took a little video of it:


Next up on the big stage was Yo La Tengo. I've always really liked their music but only had a couple of their albums. Mark had seen them once before and didn't like them so we had low expectations. Luckily, the show was entertaining and enjoyable! Here's a crappy photo I took with my crappy camera:

The crowd was considerably different from the Wild Beasts crowd: older folks in their 30s, more conservatively dressed, overwhelmingly male. It was kind of funny!

We checked out the other tents again, and then made it back to the main stage for Flaming Lips. I saw them once before on Lansdowne Street in a somewhat small venue, back in 2002 or so. This was a whole other experience. Here's a little video I took right at the start of the show, to give you an idea:


The show was pretty cool, with confetti and large balloons being shot into the crowd.

As show went on, the sun set, and the show became a bit more spectacular.

As the encore finished, we took off, beating most of the sizable crowd stumbling out of there! But before the show ended, I took a short video of their last song, one of my favorites (unfortunately used for an advertisement, but let's not think about that):

We walked back having enjoyed ourselves, and rewarded ourselves with a couple of pints on the way home!

So clearly I have a problem updating lately! Don't worry, dear readers. I have been up to lots of fun and exciting things! But I have not been up to a lot of blogging, unfortunately! So I have devised a small plan that will hopefully ensure that I update at least a fair amount more: shorter posts! I know this may seem as a cop-out, but sometimes these blog entries take me such a long time that I procrastinate, and then I put it off so long it doesn't happen!

Still, I'm going to try to do a small re-cap of what I've been up to over the past couple of months (besides working!). Let's see...

Dublin Feminist Walking Tour in March. I was honoured to be asked to design the guide pamphlet to this year's DFWT. The tour was interesting, of course a little depressing, but a lot of fun. You can hear the audio of the tour and see photos by clicking here.

photo by Andrew Flood.

Alternative Miss Ireland! It was a little birthday present to myself, and I have to say I enjoyed it thoroughly! I splurged and got us decent seats, so no nosebleeds for us! While I will admit that it wasn't quite up to the quality of 2009's show, it was a really good time. I took a couple of short movies, but of course I have to apologize for the quality (one thing I haven't gotten around to in the past two months is getting a new camera!):
Will St. Leger covers "Don't you want me baby" I stopped filming only seconds before a small man dressed as Satan ran out from underneath this huge ball gown:


The winner performing "Love is a Battlefield."


The winner was a true performer:

photo by Peter Fingleton

And finally, a little clip of a Julie Mandrews act. I think Julie had the best staging of the night:


We had some really nice weather in April. I had a nice time hanging out at Farmleigh in the Phoenix Park for the Experience Japan festival. The line was a bit too long for sushi, but they had drummers and harpists as well as people walking around in all sorts of Japanese dress.

We took the opportunity to hang out with some Donkeys, too.

Here's our friends Winty and Laura enjoying the gardens:

A greenhouse:

The topiaries in the formal garden:

We went to Kilkenny for Easter Weekend. I will have to post Mark's photos that he took with his film camera at a later date. Kilkenny is a cute little town! Though I will say that there were a lot of "hen parties" (gaggles of women celebrating upcoming nuptials, aka bachelorette parties) there that weekend! And I don't know if it was just the holiday weekend, or if Kilkenny is like that every weekend, but there was some serious partying going on, let me tell you. I felt like I was at Mardi Gras! We went with Mark's parents and Uncle Billy, and the five of us had a very pleasant time indeed. And I even got to take advantage of the hotel pool, jacuzzi, and sauna, so it was an added bonus. Stay tuned for photos (at some point!).

Big news for my workplace, Rediscover Fashion. We had a big fashion show at the Guinness Storehouse! It was covered on television, radio, and in most of the newspapers in Ireland. The sold-out show was hosted by Brendan Courtney, a presenter from an Irish fashion show called "Off the Rails." There was a lot of stress (and one sleepless night on my part) leading up to the event, which included a pop-up shop and reception, but the show was brilliant and we sold quite a bit of our collection already! Click here for photos of the event. Here I am, walking down the runway with the designer, Carrie-Ann (front) and the rest of the team:

I worked on several of the outfits, so it was a blast to see my handiwork come down the runway. I look forward to someday seeing my own designs on the stage, but for how it's fun to learn a heck of a lot about construction. I have excellent teachers at Rediscover Fashion, for sure. Here's my favorite look that I sewed (on the right, the dress and bolero jacket):

As part of the Mindfield festival, we went to see a discussion on Maeve Brennan and Alice Mulligan.

"Chaired by the novelist Anthony Glavin, and featuring the critic and fiction writer, Dr Angela Bourke, and the recently appointed Trinity College Dublin/National Library of Ireland Cultural Coordinator, Dr Catherine Morris, Rediscovered Women explores how, in each generation, certain women writers can be written out of the narrative of Irish writing. Their conversation explores the lives of two fascinating, radical Irish women writers – who, for different reasons, were forgotten, and are only now being rediscovered." I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, and immediately went to the bookstore and bought a collection of short stories by Maeve Brennan.

But there other cool things afoot as part of Mindfield in Merrion Square that day, including this massively cool puppets, which I just couldn't get enough of!

What else? Picnic in the Park with my comrades from RAG:

For our anniversary, Mark surprised me with tickets to see the band Explosions in the Sky at Vicar Street. I wasn't sure how I'd like seeing an instrumental band, but the experience was quite moving, and I recommend their live show to anyone. Click here for photos of the show (not taken by me). The show far exceeded my expectations, and I was really glad we went.

Last week our friends William and Eilis had a Wickerman-themed party, and it was a really fun time. It was a costume party (they call it "fancy dress" here) and some people really went all out! Here are some of William's photos of the festivities:

But for a real idea, you have to CLICK HERE for video of us dancing around the May pole.

Well this post has taken me over two hours, and my backside is sore! I know I've left out a bunch of cool stuff, like a documentary about Dublin architecture and a panel discussion about the hunger strikes. Maybe I'll post about those later. For now, I'm going to try to update more regularly, if not with as much detail.