My Dublin Life

I thought we'd seen the last of Fabia, Bepe's on/girlfriend and then I come home last night and what do I find? Fabia! All 35 kilos of her. She's come over for the Rugby match!! I mean, come on, does the girl even like rubgy? Not that I care, but I've heard that Ireland is a sure thing for winning, so maybe the idea is that she's come over to console him? Match is on Saturday; I don't know how long she's staying. But once again our tiny bathroom is full of her lingerie, which needs to be handwashed, and drip-dried.

I raised my brows meaningfully at Bepe when she left the room at one stage last night, and he whispered that they are not back together it's just "a thing" so whatever that means...

Sure am glad I have a Boyfriend now; at least I can go out every evenng she's here, or at least the evenings he's not with his daughter.

So it's February in Dublin and of course the average visitor is thinking of...what? St.Bridget's day? Saint Valentine? The first dusting of snowdrops and crocuses in the city's parks? Well, sure. All of the above. But also, I've found out Chinese New Year! Obviously! Well, there are Chinese people all over the world, and Dublin is no exception. In the neighbourhood where I live, there are some fantastic Chinese supermarkets and just around the corner, the cutest family: Irish Mom, Chinese Dad and a pretty little girl with long jet-black hair, dark eyes and those resilient Irish freckles.

As Dublin is the sort of place where everyone jumps on the slightest excuse to have a party or go to the pub, Chinese New Year has joined the roster of festivals. As a lot of it is going to be taking place near my apartment, I'm in.

Well...I should get back to work. I want to finish early today. I've invited a few people over to my apartment for dinner (yes, it's crowded enough at the moment, but the only way I can deal with Fabia is to retaliate and bump up the numbers of not-annoying people around me) and as cooking is a major hassle for me, I need a lot of time to sort it out. No idea what to make. There's a butcher on Moore Street who sells pigs heads which, OK, look kind of disgusting but I've read are traditional and as I'm not a vegetarian, seems picky to eat one bit and not another of an animal. No idea how to cook one though.

I had a great weekend. After saving my cents every day this week, I managed to get to a couple of ticketed events at the Traditional Music Festival in Temple Bar. They were great, don't get me wrong, but what surprised me was that the highlights, at least for me, were the free events. Sunday afternoon, there was Ceili dancing on in Meeting House Square. The band was called the Kilfenora Ceili Band and they rocked. I grew up with quite a lot of similar music around me but these guys were among the best I've heard. Well, they started, and you could see everyone WANTING to dance but being shy to start. Then a young guy and a young girl did some free style Irish dancing. "Shan Nose" I think they called it. I don't know what that means.

Here's the funny thing. I think a lot of people don't realise how sexy Irish dancing can be. The guy was a skinny, fairly ordinary nice looking man maybe in his early 20s. I mean, he looked fine, but you wouldn't necessarily notice him on the street. Then he started to dance and suddenly he was all you could see. The girl danced second and then they danced together. She was gorgeous. Wish I could dance like her. Wish I looked like her. Heck, I wish I was her.

Anyway, after a while everyone was dancing and although I have two left feet, I even dragged my Boyfriend up to try.

Something you gotta love about the Dubliners is that they like their outdoors festivals, all year round. It's like they're saying: "OK, so it's northern Europe and it's cold, but we're not gonna let that stop us having a good time." After the Ceili on my way to a hot whiskey, I passed a Punch and Judy show with live music and a children's playground.

Back home, I am living in a sea of green, white and red. Why? you ask. Well, the Ireland v. Italy rugby match is coming up and I live with one of the biggest rugby fans from Italy, apparently. Bepe has tickets.

Nightmare. I'm expecting to come every night this week to a teeny-tiny living room crammed to the rafters with over-excited Italian boys discussing the match. And it hasn't even happened yet. I can't imagine how bad it's going to be if they win. Or lose.

It's February. That means Valentine's Day. I've always been one of those lame people who says she hates Valentine's Day while secretly hoping that someone will do somethind wildly romantic for her. You know the type.

Hilarious and rather Gothic Valentine factoid: Dublin is actually home to some of the body parts of the original St Valentine!!! Too cool. Check it out.

What I'm thinking though is that maybe it's time I was a liberated gal and organised something for my man, instead of waiting for him to thrill me...you know? But I don't want to be hokey, and I can't spend a lot of money.

Last of all, something odd and unexpected: My Uncle Joey is moving to Ireland. Not Dublin, for which I am slightly grateful. I love him and all, but...

No, he is moving to stay with his buddy in Wexford. He says the fishing industry may have its problems in Ireland but it's sure as heck better than back home. But the oddest thing of all was that I think he's actually moving IN with his buddy. As in, going all Brokeback Moutain on us.

Maybe I am jumping to conclusions and putting two and two together and getting five, but it all came to me in a flash. And you know, he never did get along with that ex-wife.

I don't think I've ever waited so long for the weekend. It hasn't been a bad week, but it's been one that seemed to go on and on, especially because I've been saving so's to go out as much as possible.

I've got tickets to this. Now sold out! I've heard that they're great. I love the bodhran. There's something really primeval about the sound; it gets into your bones and makes you feel wild and excited. I don't know how long people have been playing bodhrans, but there's something very elemental about them and it's easy to imagine wild-eyed celts beating out rhythms through the millenia!

OK, getting carried away!

That was the only paid event I could really afford, but there seem too be lots of free things on too.

Als, I found out that there will be a festival of Russian culture, music etc. on soon, which sounds like fun. There are quite a few Russian-slash-east-european stores around the city, and I have, ahem, sampled their wares. OK, mostly vodka, beer and wine from Georgia. But still. Doing my bit to support gastronomic diversity in this fair city. And then, after that, the Film Festival. Colin Farrell is going to be there!!!




The funny thing is, I've had so many "wait a minute, is that Colin Farrell?" moments since moving to Dublin. But I don't know whether I've ever actually really seen him. That guy is just so Irish looking. A good example of Irish male pulchritude of course (work of the week) but not an unusual one! In fact, my Boyfriend looks a bit similar, but with longer hair. And more handsome.

I'm getting really very psyched about the upcoming traditional music festival in Temple Bar this weekend. My friend Saoirse was laughing at me about it. Everyone's a critic. But really. Dubliners don't realise how lucky they are. It's January. It would be so easy to just sit back and wait until Spring but no: a festival featuring lots of OUTDOORS events as well as indoors ones. There's a parade. My Boyfriend is taking his little daughter along. Apparently her Mom has said "no girlfriends allowed" so I won't be meeting him until later, when she's gona back home. But I will still see the parade. And I'll go listen to all the jigs and reels. I really wish I was more musical. This girl seriously can't carry a tune. I've been saving really hard so's to have enough money to got out all weekend long: so much so that I can now conclude I've put away more than enough and can actually afford to go out for breakfast, which I'm gonna do now. I've been in college for an hour and a half and it's chilly so a big cooked breakfast is what I have in mind. I've texted my buddy and she's going to meet me at Cornucopia, which is one of my new favourites on the grounds that as it's all super-healthy and vegetarian, I can basically eat as much as I like and it doesn't count. Right? Agreed?

Still waiting to hear from Uncle Joey. He told me he had "big news" but has remained ominously silent ever since. I'm guessing he's gotten back with his wife. Let's hope so.

On Mondays, I usually write about the weekend just gone. But this week, it's really all about next weekend.

Next weekend sees Dublin's Traditional Music Festival. Something I love here is that traditional music is cool, and people see no disconnect at all between loving traditional music and also loving goth, or metal, or electronic, or...whatever. In fact, a lot of musicians seem to play in different genres. The result is that trad is young. As in, there are older players, of course, but it's not like it's FOR older players coz you can be 18 or 23 and tattooed and pierced and whatever and still whip our your bodhran or your fiddle and get down to it. It also means that while some of the traditional music is centuries old, it's also new; they are still making new stuff all the time. I love it. The music is great where I'm from too but, honestly, I don't think the Irish realise how lucky they are to live in a country where the traditional music just goes right on evolving alongside the culture and where it wouldn't strike anyone as weird to see a Doom Patrol CD on the shelf beside "20 Best Irish Reels" or something.

Anyway, because I want to go to town in the Trad Fest, I kept a low profile this weekend and spent as little money as possible. Plus, my Boyfriend's Dad is going to be playing with his band somewhere next weekend (not sure if it's part of the Trad Festival or an unrelated trad gig) and I think that we might finally meet. I'm hoping it'll go better than with his Mom.

So this weekend, all I did was have a Nice Meal In (OK, fish and chips from Beshoffs, not my usual home-made soup) with my Boyfriend on Friday and a movie Saturday. Up in the Air at Cineworld. Nice, but melancholy. Made a note to myself to be sure to settle down with someone by the time I'm 33 at the oldest. Would not like to be old and alone like George Clooney's character. Doesn't look pretty.

Got the strangest note from Uncle Joey. He's back home now. He said he had a great time and "Dublin and Ireland gave me a lot to think about." With all the drinking that went on, I don't know how thinking got much of a look-in!

It's still January, and it's grey and rainy, but in the parks the most fantastic thing is happening; the snowdrops and other spring flowers are starting to come out. Maybe not such a big deal, but as where I come from it's still the depths of winter, it's just a lovely little reminder that the days may still be short, but spring is just around the corner. And while I know that the Irish moan about the rain, I have something to say to them: if it didn't rain this much, the parks would be a lot less pretty. They'd dry up in the summer, the trees would be smaller and it would all be less lush and gorgeous.

I love snowdrops. When you look at them the first time, they look quite small and simple. But then you look again, and they are beautiful. There's the little, bell-like flower and the dainty green rim around it. Plus, they way the peek their heads out through the decaying leaf-mold is a nice touch, appreciated by students of Gothic lit., like me. They are living reminders that, while January can look like death, it's really part of the cycle of life.

[Sigh.]

As I'm from a small community with nature encroaching from all sides, I need the countryside and I really do appreciate that within just a few minutes walk from my apartment, there are several really beautiful ones in Dublin's city centre. Plus, the grounds in college are gorgeous. It's so strange. I've only been here for eight and half months, but it's starting to feel like home.

Dublin Tourism asked me to mention the podcasts on their site. And actually, they are seriously pretty cool. So if you haven't been here, and you want to get an idea of what's it's like, check 'em out.

While Dublin is a pretty city, most of the buildings, even the big ones, are quite simple on the outside. I'm not that well-travelled, but I think that they'd be more obviously "fancy" in other places. The amazing thing is that when you go inside, they vary hugely, and can be really extraordinary. I've kind of gotten used to it, but I was reminded again yesterday evening when me and my Boyfriend went for a post-cinema drink at this place on College Green, The Bank. Although it's right near college, I had never been there before. Wow. We just had one drink, but it's an amazing building. It used to be a bank (well, d'oh) and they still have the old vaults downstairs. People (misinformed people) say, "Well, why not just buy some beer and drink it at home to save money?" but they are missing the point. Drinking a "glass" (half pint of beer) or a hot whiskey in an amazing old place like that is less about the drinking than about basically renting a table so's to soak in the atmosphere. I'll definitely be going back. My Uncle Joey has been down in Wexford for a couple of days, but he's back tonight for 2 more days in the city and I'll take him there. You never know: he might decide that I deserve to be treated for a meal out!

We'd been to the cinema to see A Serious Man, which paints a generally depressing picture of middle age, American Judaism, family life...you name it. It's by the Coen Brothers. It was good, but it made me feel anxious. I like the Screen on d'Olier St though. It's not swanking and gorgeous and arty like the Lighthouse. It's not huge and American like Cineworld. It's in an ugly cement building that looks like a bunker and the decor is strictly functional. But in a good way, like you're supposed to be focusing on the movie, not the flashiness of it all.

Back at the apartment, Bepe was weird. We came in and although he was half way through watching something on TV he just muttered goodnight and went away. Trying to give us some privacy? Or being rude? Boys; they are hard to understand.