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 :)
I was happy to get some warm days in France but that was exactly what I was expecting. But I wasn’t expecting to feel such a spring feeling in Dublin and that’s why it made me really very happy, especially that I knew that in Estonia I would be facing quite a winter when I get back again. So one day before I had to go we went to the St Stephens Green and to Iveagh Gardens, one of my favourite places, and enjoyed a real sunny spring day and tried to get everything out of it.
Maybe because my first day in Dublin was a long walk through all these parks or maybe that I just like to walk in the parks but every time when I go to some of the parks in Dublin I feel so happy and worry less and eager to start to put all my dreams into practice. Maybe I just have to spend some more time in the parks or in Dublin.
And here are some nice moments from Iveagh Gardens, the hidden gem among Dublin parks. One day I would like to come to listen to some concert here.
We ended the day in an Indian restaurant and enjoyed some delicious food and celebrated our birthdays again. Two years ago we did it in the same restaurant.
One of my favourite places here is Howth and when we looked up the events calendar for St Patrick’s Day’s weekend we were happy to find that there was a Dublin Bay Prawn Festival going on in Howth. It’s something that cannot be missed, ok we had never done it but we both love seafood and of course Howth, so it was the only option to choose.
It’s easy to get to Howth from Dublin – you just have to get a train from Dublin Connolly Railway Station, by a return ticket and wait for a train and it takes about 20 minutes to get there. In 2014 we took a long hike on the rocks in Howth and already then promised to go back there as soon as possible but somehow it took a bit time. but it was worth to wait for it because the Festival was exactly what we expected it to be. When entering you could buy tokens for getting your seafood – 20 euros for three dishes on your choice and if it’s not enough as it was for us, you could buy the next round.
We started with the real Dublin Bay Prawns and they were big, fresh and tasty and there was a lot of them on the plate. the token system helped to avoid the queues because the sellers didn’t have to deal with change and they had only to gather the tokens and put the food on your plate and of course keep cooking the new portions because the crowds who had come to enjoy it despite the grey and a bit rainy weather, were huge.
Then we continued with some nice squid rings and fritted tiger prawns which were really tasty and again so fresh that they almost melted in your mouth. Squid rings are one of my favourites but of course, they have to be fresh, not frozen which gives them a bit gummy taste.
And then it was totally time for oysters. The last week in France I had a chance to be taught how to open the oysters and to be honest I had only tasted them once before that and then, of course, they were not caught on the same day or probably not even close. I wasn’t the best student at opening the oysters but I was quite good at eating them, anyway, it was very interesting to see how the professional French chefs opened them with such an easy and skill that you could only stare there with your mouth watering for the new one to be opened. and now, just a week after that I was again enjoying the oysters, this time the Dublin Bay oysters, or wherever they had caught them. The other photo is taken in France, whit some better students as I was – they were able to open the oyster 🙂
And we finished our delicious day with some mussels, something that is a must be in Dublin – you know the song of poor Molly Mallone who was selling her mussels and cockles alive, alive ohh. So with all my thoughts with poor Molly I was enjoying the last delicious seafood of the day and then we went and bought some monkfish from the small seafood shop on the pier – there are lots of them, besides the little seafood restaurants. and we will definitely come back in summer and do it again.
And here you can see what we made with our monkfish on the next day. Monkfish is also one of my favourites and I found it out during my Dublin time.
This time I mixed my work trip to France with a little extra and treated myself to the small gift that I missed because of that storm Doris which stuck me to Amsterdam airport in February. I had to attend a seminar in La Roche sur Yon and before planning my trip I just in case checked the possible flights from Nantes to Dublin. I was lucky to find that exactly on my departure day there were also straight flights to Dublin – wow that was a sign, so I booked a flight, took a week off and here I am – just on St Partick’s Day.
As I didn’t come so early to see the St Partick’s Day parade, I just left that for some other better time and didn’t think about it. Of course, one day I would like to be here at the right time to see the parade but I would prefer to get a sunny day for that. This year’s St Partick’s Day was rainy, grey and didn’t feel like a day that you would like to spend outdoors, so I was happy to get a bus and get straight to home where for my big surprise I found exactly the same St Valentine’s Days decorations waiting for me with 2 cards for both Days 🙂
What about France? France was really wonderful – sunny, warm, and full of nice friendly people, delicious dinners, picturesque sights and of course the seminar that was the main reason for my trip. We spent 3 days with nice colleagues from different countries of Europe and enjoyed the kindly welcome of our French partner school. Our 4 students started to work at their placement restaurants, our cooking teacher started her practice at the school restaurant and I signed the contract for future partnership with the other schools. But the best part was the feeling that my trip to Dublin was ahead and you were waiting for me there and we can celebrate our birthdays together.
You can’t count on planes and weather but we still can count on each other even when it’s hard and the things don’t work out as we have planned. And that’s all that really counts. Even if I missed the Late Valentine’s Day, I can see how it could have been if the storm Doris hadn’t cut our wishes. It’s sad and sweet at the same time to see how well everything was planned and how much I was waited for. These are the pieces of what I would have got if I had managed to reach Dublin. And that’s exactly how the long-term relationships feel – probably more romantic because of the shortness of every moment that you can spend together in reality but sad as well because of the same reason.
That’s exactly what was waiting for me besides of all the plans that we had for this short weekend. But we just put it on the waiting list, whenever the time will come. Who said that the Valentine’s Day has to be in February – we will just make a new calendar for ourselves and one day we will have it all. I know it, that’s why I have already started to make the next plans. You have to make the work to fit into your life, not your life to fit into our work.
I am a very frequent flyer and till now I have been very happy. Just one time I have missed my connection flight and even then it worked out quite smoothly. But today it seems that all the forces are against me and I really don’t know why. Usually, things keep happening when there’s a message that you haven’t noticed like I always get ill, when I am emotionally out, overworked or just weak inside. Then it can be explained like you have been put to bed to think about it all and make some changes. Ok, I don’t think myself so important that the storms happen because of me but somehow all the signs which I didn’t want to see were against me from the very beginning. But you don’t just miss your flight if some things are going wrong, you try to come over and go on and that’s what I did but this time it didn’t help.
So despite the snowstorm which had actually stopped when I started to drive to the airport at 2.30 am I was still sure that I will manage it and will get my Late Valentine’s Day and this almost stolen weekend in Dublin. The roads were snowy and slippery but I started early and could drive safely and reached the airport on time. Then my flight was delayed which meant, that I was going to miss my connection flight from Amsterdam. Even this didn’t make me feel bad or worry too much because I knew that there were still flights going to Dublin but then I didn’t know anything about the storm which was already in UK, Ireland and Netherlands. So it came out that my connection flight was cancelled and for rebooking, I had to queue for about 2-3 hours to get to know that the nearest flight would be the next day in the afternoon. That of course, got me quite out of my mind but there was nothing that I could do so I went to get the hotel voucher.
Then came the new information that it’s possible to rebook the flight to Cork for the same day and get the shuttle to Dublin. Of course, I wanted to do it but again I didn’t notice any signs but rushed happily to the desk and did it almost forcibly. The girl who was booking the flight failed about five times to get my data into the computer and I still didn’t think that maybe it would have been good to step back and get my hotel and fly on Friday. Oh, no, I was happy when she got it done at last and headed back and waited for the next 3 hours to get to know that the flight was cancelled again and the nearest time to get to Dublin is the day after tomorrow. That broke me down and got back to my senses and I realised that it is not going to work like that.
And here I am in the middle of the night in Amsterdam airport because when I realised that every try to get to Dublin for the weekend is just not working, I bought a new ticket back home, just without queuing and rebooking but doing it online and paying and extra money. F… the Doris, she ruined my plans and made us both sad, upset and hopeless. And I am not able to sleep at the airport, I still feel so restless and these million thoughts in my head are driving me crazy. And still, 9 hours to be sure that this flight won’t be cancelled.
Valentine’s Day is a new holiday in Estonia and actually, we call it a Friend’s Day instead and it’s not so awfully romantic at all. The media has tried to sparkle it up a bit and present it as a romantic day but even among youth, it is still more a day when you make a small present for your friend perhaps and nothing else.
As I have worked as an English teacher for ages, I have always added Valentine’s Day to my lessons as an interesting culture example of English speaking countries and so for me, it has been a romantic day all the time. During the last years, it has stepped out of my English books and started to be a real Valentine’s Day for me as well. And I must admit, that I like it a lot. It’s nice to be someone’s Valentine and it’s nice to be remembered and spoiled with a cute present and feel loved. It’s actually so much more than just nice.
My Valentine’s gifts this year were very red, hearty and also sweet but that part I have eaten already. I especially liked that sharing everything with you because it’s exactly how I feel and it’s exactly how we really are. We like to share everything and that’s the best part of our relationship.
A long-term relationship, unfortunately, doesn’t let you be with your loved one every single time when there’s a romantic day. Maybe we are just two well-matching romantic halves but we have managed well so far – believing in each other, supporting and loving, and also missing, longing and loving, setting our Big Goals, planning, sitting at the airports, reading flight schedules for pleasure, dreaming and making wish lists for our travels and other dreams and having long chats on the Internet. That’s why my Valentine’s Card has two sides – one for the life on the Internet, especially on FB messenger, the other for our times spent together, both have been good.
And now I am waiting for my Late Valentine’s Day in Dublin, just 4 days to go.
Mrs Brown’s Boys is an Irish TV-comedy which has become one of my favourites. Before my Dublin time, I hadn’t heard anything about that but somehow it was one of the first things that I got to see and started to like a lot.
This is a story of a very Irish family, where Mrs Brown, played by a male actor Brendan O’Carroll who has also created the whole story, is a mother of 4 grown up sons and one daughter who are living in Dublin. All the characters in this show are so funny and real and talking with such a cute Dublin accent so that sometimes it’s a bit difficult for me to get all the jokes. But I must say that I have done pretty well and if I don’t get something at once, I will just ask. For me, it’s a real insight into the life of a real Irish family with all this humour, sincerity and strength that the people have got here. And I have always admired the art of making fun of yourself, it shows that the person gets on well with his or her own inner self and is happy and full of life.
A year ago, just at Christmas time, I saw the movie – D’Movie – which was on TV for the first time and in which Agnes Brown had to fight over the right of having her stall at Moore street in Dublin. I don’t care if some people say that it’s not funny, I just liked it, and especially how the actors enjoyed making that movie. And I also liked to recognize the places in the heart of Dublin.
“Mrs Brown’s Boys” is quite a Family project because of Agnes Brown, of course, Brendan O’Carroll is actually the husband of his daughter Cathy, and not the mother but the father of his son Buster in a real life. Besides that, there are two more of his grandchildren and also his sister having roles in this show.
In Estonia, we have had something quite similar and as popular as “Mrs Brown’s Boys”, which was also a TV-show, where male actors played the female parts, actually the male parts as well. It was about two middle-aged old-school couples, who were trying to get used to the life in the new Estonian Republic. After being one of the most popular TV-shows for years, it was also made into a movie. Unfortunately, the movie was not so funny any more, or we had just got tired of Maie and Valdur, these were the names of the main characters.
What’s a good thing about museums in Dublin, is that a lot of them are free and worth to visit. On the last day of my stay, we popped into the Natural History Museum near the Merrion Park and had a look at some animals, birds and fish who have inhabited Ireland during the centuries. I think that I have a long way to go to get to know all of these fish and shellfish, which look pretty similar but still are not.
A year ago, on the last day of my stay for the last Christmas and New Year, we visited the other part of the Natural Museum of Ireland – the archaeology part, which is situated in an amazing building that was worth to see by itself. It seems to have become a tradition to start the year with a visit to the museum, not a bad tradition at all.
Now I am trying to remind myself which museums of Dublin I have visited so far. I know that there is still a long way to go, for example, I still haven’t seen the Book of Kells but we have taken it into the plans of summer 2017.
One of the first museums I went to, was Dublinia – a place where you get to know so much about the Vikings and the Medieval Dublin. It is situated near the Christchurch and it gives you a good overlook of history – you can really bump into it, try on some costumes, watch short videos and play games. We enjoyed itin 2014 summer when I was here for the very first time and wanted to get to know everything. We also climbed to the medieval St Michael’s tower and enjoyed the view of the city.
During the first summer, we also visited the Dublin Castle and the Chester Beatty Library – a collection of manuscripts, books, and miniatures which are situated in Dublin Castle. We also spent some hours in Dublin National Art Gallery and in spring of 2016 we went there again to see the exhibition of 10 drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, which was an exhibition – a choice from the Royal Collection, which was displayed in Dublin for a while. In 2016 summer we also visited theHigh Lane Gallery, which is very near to our home and we pass it almost every single day. It was a marvellous place, much bigger than you expected and was hiding such as famous artists as Monet, Renoir and Rodan. The Gallery hosts also lots of exhibitions and it’s good to keep your eye on it because there could be something new and interesting on all the time.
In the modern part of the prison
During my very first summer, we also visited the Kilmainham Gaol– an old prison which acts as a museum right now. This is so much connected with the history of Irish Republic and recently when I was watching a new serial “Rebellion” which talks exactly about the Easter Rising time, it was so interesting to me that I had been there and could get much more out of the serial like that. And I knew that I have been there and seen the place, which makes everything much more interesting.
The New Year Festival went on also on the very first day of the New Year and we were not too lazy to get ourselves out to see what was going on. And a lot was going on, especially beside the St Stephen’s Green, where different groups performed to celebrate the New Year despite the cold weather.
Enjoying the first Concert of 2017
At first, we listened to the Garda Band, which was very cheery and joyful. It seemed that the members were from all over the Ireland and enjoyed themselves a lot. And we enjoyed them too, we even didn’t mind the cold and frosty weather. Especially we enjoyed the WMCA song when they asked some children to join them on the stage and make the movements. They knew perfectly how to perform.
After the Gardas there was a Gospel Choir which was really talented. Their repertory consisted of rock and pop classics, like Led Zeppelin, Queen and other well-known stuff. At the end, there was really cold but as they were so good we didn’t want to miss it and stayed till the very end.
A year ago, on the last day of my stay for the last Christmas and New Year, we visited the other part of the 
One of the first museums I went to, was 
Dublin Accent 