Author: Heli

I work at Haapsalu Vocational Education and Training Centre as a Coordinator of External Relations. I am managing international projects and writing blogs about them. I like my work with young people because they make me learn new things all the time. Meanwhile, I like travelling and spend a lot of time in Ireland because of my personal life :)

Walking around on a cloudy day

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Weather is the only thing I can complain in Dublin. I know that we have mostly the same, but our summers are still warmer and if we are lucky we can get the sunshine for weeks. Here you never know what you need when you go out. Definitely, you don’t need an umbrella because usually it also very windy and it is so easy to lose it if it’s not raining, but more likely you need a raincoat, that fits into your bag, warm jumper, good flat shoes which don’t get wet and don’t have open toes and underneath you need also some summer blouse because it might get warm for 15 minutes during the day, and if you’re lucky, then even for more. Unfortunately, you never need summer dresses without sleeves, minidresses, shorts or tops, ok, maybe some tops if you don’t forget to take your jumper and raincoat.

Here are some photos of a typical cloudy day by river Liffey, I was lucky, I didn’t need my raincoat.

 

 

 

You cannot avoid whiskey in Ireland

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1-IMG_7461_1A trip to whiskey factory, that was meant to be a year before, was carried out now. I guess it was one of the rainiest weathers and so we had to pick something that will take us indoors. In that place, you again have to take a guided tour and at the end of the tour, when it’s possible to taste different whiskeys, you could get a Jameson Irish WhiskeyTasting Certificate, which I did of course 🙂

whiskeyCongratulations! You toured, you tasted, and now you can tell the world. Thanks for visiting the home of Jameson and toasting over 230 years of history. Enjoy your Jameson Irish WhiskeyTasting Certificate. And remember bragging is optional.

That’s what was the text that came with e-mail and the Certificate. I must say that the Whiskey Tour was much better than I expected and we enjoyed it a lot, despite the rain and the raincoats that we had to wear all through the tour because we had to walk around on the premises and move from house to house.

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You never get too much of it

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During summer 2015, I was lucky to travel around a bit. Some places I visited had been on my way before, some places had just been on my list, which is still really long and I hope that it will never get short.

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I still haven’t been in Cork, but I have been in lots of places around Cork. This time, I spent a day at marvellous Blarney Castle with all these beautiful gardens and walked all these mysterious paths and hidden grounds around it. It was a bit like a fairy world and I am pretty sure that if somewhere is the place where they live, then one of those has to be the Blarney Castle.

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Of course, I couldn’t miss kissing the famous Blarney stone, but I still cannot say if it has made me talk more or not. Maybe you have to be Irish for that. Or maybe I just don’t want to admit that I have started to talk more than usual.

 

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But even if you don’t want to kiss the stone or the procedure makes you a bit dizzy, I will definitely suggest you climb up there and have that gorgeous view of the green Emerald Island that is spread beneath and could be enjoyed as far as your eye reaches.

 

And here are some places which don’t exist in this world 🙂

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Walking in Temple Bar

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Temple Bar is not just a bar, but the whole area full of different bars and pubs, hustle and bustle, mostly meant for attracting the tourists, but at the same time something you cannot leave out if you are visiting Dublin the first time. I was taken there on my first day in Dublin and straight into the Temple Bar – now I am talking about a bar, named Temple Bar and located in the Temple Bar area, the one with the Unknown Whiskey Drinker and a request to return him back to the pub when found. To make it more confusing, there is also a Temple street, which is not even near to the Temple Bar, but actually on the other side of the river.

This time, I was just wandering around in the temple Bar area, watched the street musicians, the hordes of tourists who were going to leave their money into the bars, the Leprechaun who was doing his best making the tourists stepping into the pub, took some photos of the gorgeous bar fronts and headed back home to have my dinner.

In Merrion park

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Unfortunately this year the Street Performer’s Festival didn’t have the music festival included, but anyway, the Dublin band Keywest gave a short concert in Merrion park and a group of touring French musicians performed just for fun. They were the best part of the day because they were so much enjoying themselves and with their colourful and weird clothes they looked very funny.

The reflection of summer

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1-IMG_1149The second summer in Dublin is ahead and this year I have lots of time to wander around on my own. Actually, that’s exactly what I have dreamed about – to stay somewhere as long as you get to know the place, have time to walk around, notice the things around you, go back to the places you’ve already been, understand that you are able to take short routes and not get lost and have someone waiting for you at home asking about your day and being happy to see you.

And that’s exactly what I have got here and right now I have come back to the Trinity College Garden, where we started my very first walking tour in Dublin a year before. I can even see the reflection of it myself somewhere inside the big golden Universe – is it the past or the present or the future, who knows, all is acceptable 🙂

The trouble with Irish names

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I thought that I can speak English without big problems, at least understand it quite well. Yes, that was before I went to Dublin and started to be a part of a big, loud, joyful and continuously talking Irish Family. It’s not just their accent, that I have already started to figure out, it’s more because they are always speaking about someone who met someone who had talked to someone whose granny had been in some unpronounceable place with someone who she met when she was travelling from one unpronounceable place to another, where she met her twelve cousins, whose names don’t make any sense at all, who are now living in several other unpronounceable places with their wives and children whose names are also not quite understandable for me. It doesn’t help too much if you look these place names up on the map, because even if you could remember their pronunciation, you never find them because they are written totally differently and without any sense.

That’s why I like to look up all these pronunciations and names and read the stories behind them. The best illustration for that is Lee Mack talking about Irish names.

And now please tell me once more if you write your name Niamh, why do you tell that you are Niiv and if you really are, why don’t you write just one v into your name. 

Until I don’t get it I keep reading one of my favourite web-pages about the names and their stories IRISH BABY NAMES.

 

Easter time in Dublin

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This year our Easter time was the time of computer nerds 🙂 But a lot of work got done and a lot of pieces were fixed, just to the places where they were supposed to fit and they did. And the peace that was in my mind settled down there and started to feel itself like at home. I love that feeling.

Anyway, I walked around here and there and for my surprise found the Big Easter Event just some steps from my home. OK, I knew that it was there, but somehow I had forgotten it, or just it didn’t fit into the computer nerds’ world.

I guess it was interesting because it woke up a bit of historical Dublin and definitely I will go and see it on some other Easter, but this time I just got some pieces and a lot of crowds all around that.

Here are some pieces of Easter just some steps from my home.

Life is like a Merry-go-round – and we watched Mary Poppins just a day before
Besides being a computer nerd we also watched a lot of movies
Looks nice and red 😉
Votes for Women – the topic was 1900-s
An old steam engine on O’Connell Street

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I had also a good opportunity to meet some new cousins from England and we had a nice family dinner on Sunday. I think that there are so many cousins whom I have never met and I cannot even imagine if I can remember them all by name. But the best part was that I could understand them all quite well and after being shy for a while I even started to talk. Unfortunately, every time when that happens and I feel that I am confident enough to talk, my time is done and I have to fly back. But one day it will change and I will skip this being shy period.

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Of course, I couldn’t leave without scrambled eggs, I never do that. Here are my personal scrambled eggs and I have never got anything better. And the asparagus was delicious.

New Year’s Luminiosity Festival

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The astonishing 3D projections on Trinity College facade. I was standing there stunned and got it all on video. I think it was the best part of the New Year Celebrations in the city.

The second best was the procession through the streets, even the rain that started to fall quite heavily didn’t ruin it at all. All these colourful costumes and vehicles that passed me made me want to see the St Patrick’s Day Procession. Yes, I know, that one day I will see that too, but just don’t want to wait too long for that.

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And the new year 2015 came to us at home where we enjoyed our New Year Dinner and watched The 100 Best musicals on TV. And as we both love musicals it was the best way to celebrate the New Year, the first one that we have really celebrated together.