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 :)

My first own Christmas Pudding in an Irish way

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The real Christmas pudding is baked weeks before Christmas and for my surprise, before Christmas, it is baked again. For me, the name Christmas Pudding associated only with old British children’s books and I had never even seen it, nevertheless, I had an idea how it was cooked. So I just knew that one of all these puddings was made especially for me. And we ate it up in a way as it was eaten and liked in my boyfriend’s childhood – fried with butter and served with whipped cream. And I have to say, that it tasted good, it tasted a bit like a lot of warm gingerbread  but not as a crispy gingerbread, but the one which is soaked in a Christmas spiced juice.

Christmas in Dublin

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Christmas time is beautiful in Dublin. All the streets are decorated with lights and the windows of the shops look marvellous. Near St Steven’s Green a small Christmas Market was opened, but I have to say, that our Christmas Market’s are bigger. But anyway, it was nice and smelled good and everywhere were choirs singing Christmas Carols and merry people wandering around and getting into the Christmas Mood.

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And besides all that glory, we had really nice Christmas.

One more statue

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And here I am again, just as I promised, taking my photo with Philip Lynott from Thin Lizzy, known also as Ace with a Base. Their best-known hit was the 1973 classic “Whiskey in the Jar”.

At least now I know where to find this statue, before that I remembered that I had seen it, but I didn’t remember the exact place. It’s just one left turn from the Grafton street.

The Statues and their Nicknames

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Before my trip to Dublin when I started my blog I did a lot of research on the Internet to get myself into the right mood and of course to be better prepared for the coming weeks. As a language teacher and a bit of a language freak who is awfully attracted to sculptures, I got really impressed when I found that web page about the statues of Dublin and their Notorious Nicknames. At first, I bookmarked it and then added it to my blog info bar to be sure that I don’t lose it. Walking around, discovering these statues in the real life  and taking photos of them gave me an idea to take a picture with all these mentioned statues and here they are. I have to admit that I forgot the Ace with a Base, still passed it several times, but didn’t take a picture. I will definitely do it on Christmas time, probably Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzie is still standing on Grafton street and waiting for me.

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A statue for the ordinary women in Dublin, with a nickname” Hags with the Bags”, one of the bags was snatched a little while after the statue was placed there, but fortunately, it was returned afterwards.

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The Spire of Light, over one hundred and twenty meters long, located at O’Connell Street and placed there to celebrate the Millenium. A good landmark if you are new in Dublin. But it seemed that the locals don’t like it as much as the tourists do 🙂 Also known as Needle or just Spire.

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Molly Mallone, still wheeling her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow, crying cockles and mussels alive a-live alive a-live O! Also known as “The Dolly with the Trolley”, “The Flirt in the Skirt” or “The Tart with the Cart”.

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The statue of Anna Livia, who appears in James Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake and which Dubliners use to call “The Floozy in the Jacuzzi”

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Me and James Joyce, the most famous writer, in the middle of the night somewhere in Dublin, actually at Earl Street North, just turn right from the Spire. Also known as The Prick with a Stick.

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Oscar Wilde, very imposing statue, it shows so well the importance of enjoying yourself. And how is he called? My favourite page says that The Queer with the Leer or The Fag on the Crag 🙂 Knowing now the sense of humour of the Dubliners I am not a bit surprised at all. It doesn’t show that they don’t love him, oh, they do 🙂

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On the corner of the park, there’s a statue to commemorate the Irish Famine. These pillars surround a statue of the 18th-century father of Irish republican, Theodore Wolfe Tone and although it represents one of the darkest periods of Irish history the Dubliners have given it a relevant nickname and call it the Tone-Henge, like Stonehenge – look at the shape of the pillars:)

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The Chariot of Life – Abbey Street, known locally as “The Mad Milkman”

Opera in the open

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Every Thursday in August, exactly at lunchtime, at the Amphitheatre, which is situated at the Civic Offices near the Wood Quay you can enjoy the open air operas.

1-IMG_6503We went to see the Magic Flute by Mozart and it was great. Even the weather didn’t matter and when it started to rain the whole audience took out their umbrellas and continued. Of course, the poor singers got a bit wet, but mostly we were lucky with the weather.

It was almost like the real opera, just without all these decorations and costumes and to make it easier, there was a story-teller who just came and told what is going to happen and who is who and actually that was quite funny and really helped to keep yourself on the track better than without that.

As Magic Flute is a comic opera, the mixture of the past and nowadays was very enjoyable, The singers were the young musicians and opera students and they seemed to enjoy it a lot.

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This opera was not so well known for me, I hadn’t seen it before and knew nothing more than the name of the composer. It was good too, but my favourite was Magic Flute, somehow it suited better to play outdoors without the real opera house and stage. These open-air operas reminded me the great outdoor operas in Italy or I just have to say they made me think about that again. Years ago I really wanted to go and see something like that, but somehow it hasn’t been in my plans yet. But who knows, one step brings to another and maybe after some years I can say – done it, been there – as I can say now about the Dublin Opera in the Open.

Our neighbourhood

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When I want to go to the main street, to the shops, to the Spire or where ever I need to go, I have to pass the Garden of Remembrance, which is situated at Parnell Square. That nice little park is dedicated to all those who have given their lives for Irish Freedom.

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At the very end, you can see the sculpture which is called “The Children of Lir“. There’s a beautiful legend connected with that statue – about the children of King Lir who were turned into swans. As in all fairy tales and legends, there was again one Evil Queen, in this one, she was from the race of Druids, who had to become a step-mother for four little ones – Finola, Aodh, Fiarce and Conn. And when she was tired of pretending to be nice, she just turned the children into beautiful swans, who could still speak with human voices and please the people who came to the lake to listen to their songs. But the Evil Queen was turned into a bat and had to stay like that forever.

I also looked up the pronunciation of the Irish names of the children, you never know it without checking 🙂 and even then you’ll find several ways how to do that.

The story itself could be read from here – Children of Lir.

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At Parnell square, I also have to pass the Abbey Presbyterian Church, but till now I have just passed, but never looked inside. It seems that they have been renovating it a bit, but it never seems like working.

But I like how it looks  – a nice Gothic building with tall narrow spires. It has been also called as Findlater’s church after a Dublin merchant who paid for the construction of the building.

Wedding in an Irish way

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The purpose, why I went back to Dublin was because I was invited to a wedding and that means, that I am a part of the family as I have been told 🙂 What is good of course, I cannot say that I wasn’t afraid how it all goes, especially if you are not in a usual age to become a part of a family and I am talking of a huge family. Mine is a teeny-tiny one.

The Wedding wasn’t so awfully different. The most different  part was the church part, and it was very nice, warm and even funny. The priest was a young man and made some jokes and everybody seemed to feel really good and it wasn’t as official as I thought. Here the ceremonies are more official, at least it feels like that. Maybe it’s because going to the church isn’t a part of our everyday culture, but here in Ireland, it is, even if they keep telling that it’s not.

The party was quite similar to ours, even better. The better part was that everybody started to be in a right mood just from the very beginning and the Mexican musicians did their best to achieve it. After eating and drinking a lot, everyone just went dancing and enjoyed themselves in all different ways. For me, it was a really good experience, I met a lot of new people and they get to know me, so I am not some mysterious girlfriend from a strange country any more and of course I enjoyed the party a lot.

The Wedding Car
Mexicans entertaining us
Elvis, why are you everywhere where I go – a wedding cake
Bride’s maid is curious
Another happy couple 🙂

Atlantic Tides

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2-IMG_6443I remember that in my 5th grade English student book there was a topic about tides – a long and boring story, mostly because of all the difficult expressions we had to underline and learn by heart. Just to refresh my memory I took down my old student book from the shelf (yes, I still have it) and looked up what it was about.

“Long ago people living near the coast of the Atlantic Ocean noticed that the level of the sea rose and fell twice every day. They noticed that this didn’t always happen at the same time, at the same hour, but that it took place regularly. People did not understand the cause of this rising and falling. But they noticed that there was some connection between the moon and the waters of the ocean. Today we know that the water of the sea is always moving in or out along the shores.”

1-IMG_6442When learning it, I was probably like the ones who had lived long ago and didn’t quite understand how it all worked. Especially because we, living here at the Baltic sea, never had any tides and the water of the sea stood quite at the same place almost all year round, without very little exceptions and so it was quite hard to picture the tides. Later of course, when reading more literature, I got to know about it some more and in 2010, when visiting England and Wales, I was happy to recognize it, when seeing  the boats and yachts standing on the plain sand and I really thought about my old school book again.

But this time, we spent three marvellous days in Duncannon, just at the seaside, in a nice summer house and I was able to see all that with my own eyes. We arrived in the afternoon, which was probably one of the three lovely days during the summer, and the beach was full of people enjoying the nice weather. Just to mention – the sea was exactly where it had to be – a nice sandy beach, not very wide, but quite enough and the sea, standing still, not moving anywhere. What was totally different from any other beach I have ever seen, were the cars, parked everywhere on the sand, some of them almost in the water.

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It seemed that only I was surprised about that because all the others were spending their time besides their cars, using them as lunch tables and playing ball over them. The ice-cream car was parked with its engine roaring over the beach, but probably it was just because of keeping the fridge working and the ice cream cold. We spent some time walking around and ended our day in the local pub, had some ciders and dinner and arrived at our nice summer house.

Our house had a small garden just looking at the sea and in the morning when I went out, the sea was gone, and it means it was totally gone, no water, just kilometers of wet sand.

1-IMG_6444We spent a nice day on the beach, found a really nice corner, where the cars were not allowed to park and enjoyed the warm day. Somewhere near 2 o’clock the water started to come back little by little. The life guards were busy to get the people back to the sea shore, because a lot of them, included myself, were walking on the wet sand that had been the bottom of the sea just a day before. And then the sea came back, just during about two hours. That was really amazing and unbelievable.

So now I have seen how it really works, not just from the books 🙂

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1-IMG_6469In the evening, the local musicians were performing at the pub and everybody was singing. It’s not possible to describe how much I liked it. For the first time in my life I saw people play Spoons, actually, I didn’t even know about that kind of instrument before. So besides being just great and fantastic and really full of enjoyment, it was also an educative weekend and I love Duncannon and want to come back the next year. And I am quite sure that I will. The next time it would be interesting to wonder around a bit more and discover maybe some neighbourhood as well.