Gunternation

Our last week of December was pretty quiet. Bill was laid low by the flu and was just starting to feel human again on Jan 1. Needless to say 2008 went out with a whimper. Bill took a nap and woke up at 11:30 to ring in the New Year with a cup of tea. We watched a countdown of favorite comedians as voted by UK viewers. Number one favorite: Billy Connolly.

Thankfully Bill was back to cooking strength on New Year’s Day to make us a tasty, traditional meal of Bacon and Cabbage. The bacon in this meal is a cured, un-smoked pork. More like what my people call ham. He also mashed potatoes with scallions, aka champ. All this was topped with an Irish classic–parsley sauce.

We hibernated for the first couple weekends of the new year. Last weekend we started venturing out again, attending a fun, 60th birthday party on Friday night, dinner in Malahide and a movie (Slumdog Millionaire) with friends on Saturday, and meeting another friend on Grafton Street for lunch on Sunday. We were back on the social scene!

We also realized we felt a little lost with no travel plans on the calendar, so we booked a long weekend in Paris for Februrary. Ahhh, that’s better.

Last week we saw a play on Monday evening–Playboy of the Western World. This 1907 play by J.M. Synge has been updated by Bisi Adigun and the bard of Dublin, Roddy Doyle. This tale of the allure of a mysterious stranger is sad, but hilarious. Friday night we attended an RTE Orchestra concert of Haydn, Rachmaninov, and Mussorgsky. We used part of the Mussorgsky for my bridal processional. Pictures at an Exhibition is an exciting piece and hearing it live better reveals all the instruments and melodies working together. The guest conductor was extremely, um, lively. At one point I thought he was going to crowd surf into the orchestra.

Last night we hung out in the wine cellar at Fallon and Byrne with a couple who is planning an Italian honeymoon. The bride is from Georgia, and is learning that while much of Irish culture is familiar to Americans, wedding traditions can be quite different. We ganged up on the groom-to-be a bit, trying to convince him that a rehearsal dinner is not really that bizarre.

Today after church we tried the new breakfast menu at our local pub. Fried egg sandwiches and chips hit the spot. And for dinner Bill made a spicy and bright pasta puttanesca with some surprising fruity salted capers.

And now, ladies and gentleman, this blog is now current with real time! Enjoy it while it lasts.

Also, at present, the Gunter B&B is completly open for 2009, so dig out your passport and call the airlines. We’d love to see you.

Me: I’m going to go run an errand.
Coworker: Oh, you’re going to get the messages.*
Me: Yeah.
Coworker: You have funny little words for things.
Me: Errand?
Coworker: Yes.
Me: You think errand is funnier than messages.
Coworker: Yeah.
We both laugh.
Me: Well, we’ll leave it at that then.

*According to Wikipedia: Messages means groceries or errands. She’s gone to the shop to get the messages. I had a few messages to do in town.

On Saturday, December 20, we did nothing.

December 20th was the first weekend day that we were in Dublin with no house guests since October 18th. Not that our travels and visitors weren’t fabulous, but it was nice to have a day of nothing.

On December 21, we went to a Christmas Market at the Docklands in Dublin. We attended this market last year on a gorgeous, sunny day. This year was soggier, but still a nice time with lots of crafts and a brass band playing carols. We ate bratwurst and drank Erdinger Weissbier.

On Christmas we attended a service in the 19th Century building our church is renovating in downtown Dublin. That afternoon we opened presents and I took a Christmas nap. We had a delicious Christmas dinner with some friends, Graham and Margaret and their family. Bill provided the starter–tamales! Not traditional for Irish Christmas, but they were well received (for the most part). For dinner we had ham, turkey and goose! Veggie accompaniment included Brussels sprouts with rashers and cranberries, roasted root veg, and stuffing. Our friends were house sitting and Margaret was a bit stressed over cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen, but she created a wonderful meal. Her daughter made our dessert, mince pies and gingerbread sandwich cookies with lemon cream. After dinner and Christmas crackers we watched the Dr. Who Christmas special and the new Wallace and Grommet.

On St. Stephen’s day we ate tamales and huevos rancheros for breakfast. For dinner we had Cork Beef and Stout stew, made with mushrooms and Beamish stout. A tasty day.

I’ve been fascinated by this map all day.

It was the accompanying image for a short news article about new travel regulations for Irish passport holders traveling to the US. I immediately notice the Alabama label. Alabama is not frequently one of the top five state labels, unless the map labels all start with A. Is Alabama a primary location for Irish travelers? Great, I say. I love Alabama, and the Irish would love pork BBQ.

But then I notice that the other labels are in fact, not states, but cities. Although you could argue the New York label represents the state, and no way I’m wandering into that District of Columbia morass. For this discussion: 4 cities, one state. What gives?

I decide RTE must have grabbed this graphic from a previous story. But what story? What news item linked DC, LA, NYC, Berkeley and the State of Alabama? Then I notice the icons. Clearly New York and Los Angeles belong to the same solid-centered circle category, and DC is as always isolated by its square dot taxonomy. But Berkeley and Alabama? How do each of these geographic areas rate a concentric circle icon?

Berkeley and Alabama. Politics? No. Climate? No. Number of letters? No. Proximity to the Mississippi? No.

My analysis breaks down because I don’t know much about Berkeley. I wiki it. Maybe Berkeley has a statue of Vulcan? No. The stadium at UC Berkeley is for soccer. The city has public transportation. I don’t get it!

I can only imagine a news feature for the 3% of Ireland’s inhabitants who have never visited the United States that explains that in addition to the political center of Washington, DC, the entertainment mecca of LA and the locus of everything else, NYC, the United States has many more places that you will likely never go–cities like Berkeley, California, that is loved for its own merits, and other larger areas, called states, that have been part of the US since 1819. Alabama, for example.

My neural network continues to sizzle, and the map remains a mystery. Maybe I’ve been in Ireland long enough to be disoriented (but not disorientated) by a map of the US that does not contain Boston.

A few months ago we were offered use of a flat that our friend’s mom keeps in London, as you do. She only visits the city during the week, and our friend stays there some when traveling for business, but it is rarely occupied on the weekend, and is most likely, lonely. So, we leaped at this generous offer and booked flights to London for the weekend of December 12. When the US trip materialized, we decided to keep the London trip on the books. We can do it! We are jet setters!

After our first visit to London, we decided to set a theme for future trips to help narrow the multitude of choices. The organizing principle this time was easy: Christmas. We wanted to walk through the mirthful throng, gaze at dazzling Christmas lights, sing carols and sip mulled wine. Perhaps a recently unembittered old man would toss a few coins out a window and direct us to purchase a large, Christmas goose.

We arrived at the flat around midnight after a delayed flight into Heathrow. Around noon on Saturday, we walked a few blocks to the Coopers Arms Pub for lunch–I had a tasty steak sandwich and Bill noshed on wild boar sausages and mash. After laying in some breakfast supplies for Sunday, we headed to the Geffrye Museum for an exhibit on the History of Christmas in the English Home and a talk on the history of the Christmas card. The Christmas card is one of the few uniquely English contributions to current Christmas traditions, started by an English businessman who printed cards in the early 1840s to send to family and business contacts. The first card contained scenes of family celebrations and tending to the poor, but it took awhile for the classic scenes to be established. Some of the early cards look pretty wacky–red imps pulling a sled and a goose wearing a dress and bonnet. Speaking of wacky, I bought some garland with a cat carrying a Christmas pudding.

After the Geffrye, we set out in search of Christmas lights. This portion of the evening can be imagined as a Monkeesesque montage of us riding the underground, walking a few blocks, looking at some non-impressive lights (Trafalgar Square–one dimly lit tree, Covent Garden–space ship lights?), jumping back on the subway, walking about a mile to switch trains, emerging again to stare blankly at disappointing lights, until we reached Bond Street, which was a bit incongruently, but at least festively lit. All of this in the rain of course. We did linger in Trafalgar Square with carolers who were raising money for Epilepsy, but were unfortunately not particularly great singers. We joined in for a while, but turns out we don’t know a lot of English carols. We decided to move on. Once we had strolled along Bond for a while, we stopped in a fast food noodle sushi shop for dinner. Not bad.

Turns out my favorite lights were in Sloane Square (pictured), right at our subway stop. We stopped back by the Coopers for a little libation before calling it a night.

Sunday we visited retail mecca at Harrod’s. Harrod’s is a spectacular store and we just wandered around for awhile, trying not to choke on perfume or get trampled by other gawkers. We wanted to see Santa’s grotto, but discovered that you can’t get in without a ticket and a toddler, so we visited the toy floor and Christmas decor department. Christmas crackers were 50% off, and were were tempted to pick up a set originally marked at £500. The prizes included an MP3 player! The food hall in Harrod’s is full of tantalizing cuisine. Next time we’ll stop by Harrod’s and have an amazing picnic.

For lunch we visited a Harrod’s annex across the street which was nice and quiet and featured a fun Lebanese tapas counter.

After Harrod’s we went back underground to the Thames to a Christmas Market where we found another piece of the Christmas puzzle–mulled wine. Bill enjoyed a pork sandwich while we browsed the crafts. Then we walked across the bridge to St. Paul’s, which featured a pretty tree. And then it was time to gather our bags at the flat and hop the subway back to Heathrow.