ultra gaelic

Whenever I was asked about my impressions of Ireland after visiting in late summer, I invariably said that the food was bad and it was cold and rainy.  While both are true, I need to qualify those statements.

First of all, I am slowly discovering the better places to get lunch when you run out from the office besides the usual “sandwich with two fillings” and soup.  Salad bars generally are lacking in actual vegetables, but Unicorn Restaurant has a “food emporium” with a take-away (“carry-out”) section.  It came recommended in August, but all I saw then were prepackaged salads, which weren’t all that great.  However, this week I discovered that you can have them make a salad for you from their refrigerated display case.  It’s not raw vegetables like you expect in salads bars back home, but rather a nice selection of marinated or otherwise prepared salads, which all go nicely on a bed of greens.

However, I’ve given up on one nearby Indian place.  Tastes too much like Irish food with a tad bit of curry added.  I mean, celery does not belong in your curry.  But I’m told there are better Indian places in town.

As for the weather, I generally rather like chilly weather, but the change from Ann Arbor was more drastic than I expected in August.  I thought the time I was here was cooler than normal, but I said so today to a girl I met while looking at an apartment, and she said August and September here were beautiful and that 15° Celsius (59° Fahrenheit) is just about normal for that time of the year!  On the other hand, in the winter it rarely drops below freezing, so that has its advantages as well.

I’ve had many more sincere expressions of interest in visiting than I did when I was in Russia five years ago.  Unfortunately, I also have a fuller schedule than then.  Still, once I move closer to the center of Dublin, I hope to be able to accommodate many visitors.  My calendar (“diary”, as they call it here) is filling up fast with work commitments, so reserve your spot today!

That’s grand!

That’s great!

Brilliant!

Great!

Is that all right?

Okay?

How are ya gettin’ on?

How are ya doin’?

rubbish

refuse, junk food, or something not real (depending on the context)

Eoin

Owen

Eoghan

See Eoin

As most of you know, I live in a world of words and orthography, not pictures and design.  I have some feelings on typography but not strong ones.  I have been known to inhabit rooms with empty walls.  Let’s not let this blog reflect my philistine sensibilities.

I’m looking for someone to create a banner image for me, perhaps out of photos I took this summer.  I always welcome suggestions on a WordPress theme for the blog.  What do you get out of it?  The fame and glory of having your keen aesthetic sense shared with the readers of this blog.

I arrived a bit over a week ago for a six-month stint as visiting metadata manager at the Digital Humanities Observatory and am slowly getting settled in.

I flew from Baltimore to London the day after Thanksgiving on British Airways and found the service disappointing.  The plane felt old (even though it was supposedly only a few years old), and the choice of dinner entrees was “a traditional Thanksgiving dinner,” which, when announced by the lead flight attendant with a British accent, I became skeptical of.  I opted for the pasta dish but was given a Thanksgiving dinner.  I didn’t care for much of it.  But even more disappointing was breakfast: a cinnamon roll and juice.  BA used to serve hot English breakfasts (beans, stewed tomatoes, and all!) when it used to fly from Detroit, but I guess the glory days are over. I’ve long debated signing up for vegetarian options when flying even though I’m not a strict vegetarian just for the the better food. However, after this flight I think I should declare that I would like the “Hindu” option. That’s what the guy next to me got, and not only his dinner but even his breakfast looked much better than either of mine.

We landed to a bright and sunny day in London (imagine that!), where I took the bus to Terminal 4 for a short stay at Yotel before taking Heathrow Express to Terminal 1 to fly on Aer Lingus to Dublin.  After following a maze of corridors to get to the gate area, passing signs along the lines of “last women’s toilet before gates”, you end up in a long corridor with insufficient seating. But it’s not simply a corridor: when a flight arrives, they close glass doors on either side of the gate to allow arriving passengers to pass directly through the passport control and customs, leaving those waiting to depart unable to pass through to gates beyond this one.  It seems that they always use gates closest to the center to avoid this problem, but I can only imagine how many passengers get stuck behind two panes of glass, within eyeshot of their gate.  In short, it makes Sheremetyevo Terminal 2 (pre-renovation) look well designed.

We landed in Dublin to the thickest fog I can recall ever seeing.  Not just thick but cold: the temperature was just a bit above freezing—the coldest day all year.

For now I’m staying in the Booterstown neighborhood with a single mom and her two kids (ages 9 and 7) but am busy searching out apartments with available rooms closer to the center.  I have my heart set on the Grand Canal Dock area, inhabited by yuppies who work at Google, investment banks, and law firms.  Some call it “the Google ghetto.”

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You probably are looking for some photos.  Until I get my act together, please content yourself with some photos I took this summer.