My Dublin Life

I'm actually positively looking forward to my Saturday job this week. For one thing, it will be great to get away from endlessly editing my dissertation and to get my head out of a book. For another, rather than just watching the kids, I'm going to be taking them to not one but two puppet shows in the national Irish puppet festival!

Dublin actually has its own dedicated puppet theatre but this festival is on all over the place and the venues I'm attending are in the city centre.

Speaking of the city centre, last night I went for a drink in a new place I had never heard of. And it's not surprising because this is a bar with no name, no sign and no light outside. There's just an enigmatic snail hanging up. Apparently, this joint is known as "the bar with no name". So you go up some rather grubby stairs, wondering vaguely if you're going to end up in someone's apartment or maybe an opium den or something and then, presto! You're in a New York-ish loft sort of a place with scuffed sofas and handsome waiters serving chilled drinks and it's like, "What the..."

I've told several people about this place, and they've all said, "What you'd never been there before! I don't beliiieeeve it."

Apparently, it opened last year and is now officially one of the coolest places in town. I guess I didn't hear about it because I'm just not cool enough.

Anyway, I'm not going out tonight; staying in with my flatmate, a DVD and a bottle of wine. He's chosen the DVD and I've gotta say it's an odd choice for a boy; Bride Wars.

It's a beautiful spring day here in Dublin's fair city, and it might seem a little macabre under the circumstances to talk about anything dead but I was reading the paper and I found out that Dublin's very famous "dead zoo", which has been closed for three years, is about to open!

What's that? Well, it's a Museum of Natural History, and loads and loads of people have told me that I have to go and see it, but I haven't been able to because it's been closed for renovations for a few years. Apparently, it's very beloved by all Dubliners and as Dubliners like to give everything a nickname, it goes by the name "The Dead Zoo." It's going to open back up on April 29th.

As usual, my local greengrocer has been a fount of information. He tells me that he used to take his kids there, that he credits this as the reason why his daughter the milliner chose her profession (the exotic birds' plumage, you see) and that the museum is justifiably famous for not having been updated for something like 150 years. He says, "Sure they never did it up because in them days there was no money in the country and for once it was the right thing to do, because when you walk through the doors you're stepping back in time."

As it all sounds more than suitable for a lover of all things to do with the ninenteenth century, I'll be checking it out, for sure.

If I've been writing less about bars and going out than usual, there's a good reason for that; the end of the academic year is fast approaching, and with it the deadline I've given myself for telling the folks back home that I've decided to chance my luck in Dublin for another little while. Against all odds, I might even have a little good news on the job front - but I don't want to say too much in case nothing comes of it. Anyway, wish me luck, OK?

The Mom I work for on Saturdays asked me to meet her in the city centre, because it was a nice day on Saturday, and she had already made a plan for the kids for the weekend. She drove us all out to Malahide Castle, left us at the gate and said she'd be back in 6 hours. That sounded like an awfully long time to me, but it was such a lovely day the time went pretty fast. We went and played in the playground. In other words, I read a book and occasionally looked up and "Wow! You're really fast!" or "How'd you get so high anyway?" while they did their thing. Then we went and watched some people fly a kite. Then we ate the garlicky sandwiches the Mom had made for us. Then we went and spent the money she'd given me for the purpose and checked out the Museum of Childhood. In the end, the time went quite fast and it was a nice day, even though I was working, technically speaking! There were lots and lots of people there, and a few flashpoints that were pretty crowded, but the grounds are enormous and so it was easy to escape the crowd now and again. I like people watching. It's mid-season now; often warm and sunny and then suddenly chilly again. People were dealing with this by wearing slightly odd outfits like a summer dress under a heavy cardigan, or shorts with opaque tights, or in the case of a few of the gentlemen, socks with sandals (never a good look, boys).

I've started looking for work to begin this summer. I know, it's not a good time. There's a global financial crisis. But I'm not fussy. It's time I got my hands dirty and I'm prepared to do most things. I really need a year or two away from the books to get some perspective while I'm still young enough to justify my aimlessness -- and I do realise that the time left for being "young enough" is running out. Also, and I know that this probably sounds impossibly idealistic and ambitious, I'd love to try my hand at screenplay writing, and where better than Dublin?

Wow, last night I dined under the stars.

They weren't actually real stars, but a very clever lighting sort of system in the ceiling of the Chinese restaurant where I went for dinner with a new friend. It was a "romance" sort of thing but I won't say anything because I've tended not to be that circumspect on here in the past and I won't be making that mistake again. Anyway, the lights looked like little twinkling stars, and it was all very pretty.

The meal was good too. There are lots of simple Chinese diner type places in the whole area around Parnell Street, and they are nice. But once in a while it's also good to go somewhere a bit fancier, and this place was great. It's rather enigmatically called "Abacus" and the food there is quite different to the standard Chinese stuff. I had duck stuffed with prawns with a crab sauce!! And smoked chicken pieces! And a sort of sweet and sour soup! I really didn't feel like going home when we'd finished eating; it would've been nice to have had more room so as to try more but, well, maybe another time. There's always a small "European food" section on the menu in Chinese restaurants, offering an omelette, or steak and chips and really, you've got to wonder -- why would anyone go somewhere like that and have an omelette? When there's so much to try? Well, there's no accounting for tastes! If anyone wants to take me out for a meal, anyway, I know the place.

This weekend there's a GREAT festival on in Dublin: it's the "Stranger than Fiction" documentary festival in the Irish Film Institute. Barring a little studying, that's where I am planning to spend most of the weekend, even if the weather is great, as it's supposed to be. There's a mix of Irish and foreign-made documentaries, and I'm really looking forward to one called "Pyjama girls" that's on tomorrow.

So, tomorrow, that's where you'll find me.

Have a great weekend.

I wonder when it was that Chinese food became the world's comfort eating? I love Chinese food, but because I'm not a great cook and don't eat out that often, I don't get as much as I would like.

But tonight is gonna be an exception. Tonight, I will be eating out. Hoooray! Because the Irish, like most people, know a good thing when they see one and there are plenty of Chinese restaurants in Dublin. I will write here tomorrow and let you know how I got on!

Summer is coming and that means that a host of the smaller museums and places to visit open for their season. Because I'm studying 19th century lit. I've been keeping my eye on the George Bernard Shaw birthplace, which is located in the very cute neighbourhood of Portobello. I think it opens in May and I'll be taking a break from my studies to go, cause it's basically part of my studies, so it doesn't count!

Did you know that Handel was actually an Irishman?

What's that? You didn't realise? You thought he was a German or something! Pfffff. Call yourself educated (or, as my greengrocer here in Dublin likes to say in reference to his much-qualified kids, "edjumacated")

Well, neither did I realise he was Irish, and, strictly speaking, he wasn't, of course, but thanks to the fact that his opus magnus, Handel's Messiah was first aired right here in Dublin, he's kinda, sorta, become an honorary Dubliner, posthumously anyway. Every year, the city hosts a big Handel festival. It was on this very week! I didn't get to anything because I'm so busy at college right now, but I know a couple of musical types who did and they said it was fabulous. So bear it in mind if you're thinking of coming to Dublin next year. I'm just saying. Also, prepare yourself for yet more surprising revelations from the world of classical music. Luciano Pavarotti? Irish! Of course! And then there was Liam O'Beethoven and Peadar McMozart.

I'm just joking of course but, really, this love of all different types of music and the sense of urgency Dubliners seem to feel to make it theirs is really quite special. Did you know, for example, that there's a whole sub-genre of Country Music known as "Irish and Country"? Now, Country Music is not my pint of stout, but I just love the idea of these Irish girls and boys getting up and singing plaintively about life on the prairie and making it really all about them when they've likely never even been to a prairie!

Well, that's really my contribution for the day. I'm off home to make some soup (I had stopped with the soup-making, but then I found my soup recipe book under the sofa and I've started again). It's dreadful in the apartment, really, because my flatmate Bepe has been training for a marathon-type event this weekend, so the whole place is FESTOONED with hurriedly rinsed sports socks (and last night he made me look at the plasters he wears on his nipples when running; apparently men runners suffer from "athletes' nipple" -- who knew?). If it's a nice day, I might go along to the race to cheer him on, if only to celebrate the impending reduction in sports socks dangling from our little balcony!

You know, that old cliche of Ireland as a green land is actually true. It's easy to see it in the countryside where, when the sun comes out (as it does more often than most people seem to think) everything is suddenly amazingly, dazzlingly green, but even here in the city, with spring well underway, nature is everywhere. Ireland does seem to be an astonishingly fertile place. I've noticed what look like trees growing from the chimneypots (the chimneys!) of old houses here and there, and in my apartment block, some ambitious types are managing to grow herb gardens and even small fruit bushes on their tiny balconies! I've been inspired by this to the extent that I've actually bought some seeds from Lidl. Haven't gotten so far as actually planting them, but no doubt that will come :-)

I have made an important decision. I'm not going to leave Dublin. Not yet. I've been studying since I was 18 and when this MA is finished, I think I need some time out before deciding whether or not a PhD is a route I want to take. It's time for the real world. Now, I do know that the real world is quite tough at the moment and all, but I have one part time job already that can expand to two or three days and I am prepared to do, well, almost anything to make ends meet for another year or so. There's just something about this place. Like anywhere, it has its flaws, but I kinda like those flaws or a lot of them, at least. I think that the chaos that seems to underlie some aspects of Irish life is really just the flipside of the spontaneity and openness of Irish culture. And often, that chaos gels into something wonderful, like when a rock guitarist and a trad fiddler and an electric keyboardist all end up in the same pub and, despite the fact that they don't even know each other, end up playing for hours while the crowd goes wild...

When I think about leaving, well, it's a wrenching prospect [sniff]. So I've decided to stay. I just haven't told the folks back home yet.