Tuesday, September 23, 2008

a l'Italia

I just got back from my first trip across the continent, this time to Cesena, Italy to do some training with a partner we have there for work. The flight was cheap and easy, since Ryanair (for now, at least) flies a direct flight from Dublin to the airport in Forli, which is about a 20 minute drive. Anyway, the work went very well, but that's beside the point.

The point is that I got to go to Italy for four days, and I got to see a bunch of really awesome things. First off, I stayed at a little hotel right in the center of Cesena, the Hotel Cappello.

Hotel Cappello.


Cesena is a very pretty little Italian city (around 100,000 people, according to my work host) about 25 minutes from the Adriatic coast in the Emilia-Romagna region. The sun was shining pretty much the whole trip--a welcome change after the standard Dublin weather--and the food was great, of course. We ate a fair bit of local seafood, and also they have a local dish from Romagna called "piadina", which is a type of bread somewhere between a tortilla and a pita. From what I could gather, the main attractions include a fairly imposing pentagonal fortress on the top of a big hill right in the center of town, and the Biblioteca Malatestiana, the first ever public library in Italy (opened somewhere around 1450).

The Rocca Malatestiana, Cesena's castle


The highlight of this round in Italy came on Saturday of the trip, though, when we caught the train from Cesena down to Florence, via Bologna. The train ride was fun and rather relaxing, and only took about two hours of travel through the beautiful Italian countryside.

The country surrounding Cesena, from the hill in the center of the city


Florence was packed with tourists, and for good reason. Being the seat of the Renaissance, the architecture and the art are amazing, especially the main sights such as the cathedral and the campanile...

The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Il Duomo) in Florence, with the Campanile di Giotto


...and the Piazza della Signoria, which houses (copies of) a bunch of the famous statues by the Ninja Turtles and their contemporaries, like Michelangelo's David, Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, and Ammanati's Fountain of Neptune.

The copy of David and Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus.


We also wandered past the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence's most famous art museum, but the line was absurd and our time limited, so we didn't go in.

All in all, I'd say the trip was a resounding success. Good food, good wine, good company (I even met the mayor of Cesena, for some reason), and a great location make for a good weekend. I also got to improve my Italian, which was immediately noticeable when I came home to Dublin and my Italian roommate had his parents visiting.

So, until the next trip, enjoy the pictures!

Sunday, September 14, 2008

if you blow chunks and she comes back

This weekend was a big weekend for me.

I had my first guests (Brian and Erica), so I had an excuse to go do some of the touristy things I hadn't hit since getting here. Some of the highlights:
  • We went down to the Temple Bar region and wandered around for a while (i.e., got a bit lost) looking for Irish music and food (we weren't entirely successful).

  • Saturday started with a tour of the Guinness Storehouse, which is fun if somewhat expensive. It's a self-guided, wandering-around-the-old-brewery sort of thing, where they tell you the basics of beer brewing and talk about the history of Guinness. The marketing floor is the coolest part of the actual tour, but the best thing is the Gravity Bar on the top, which has a killer view of the surrounding city (also that's where you get your free Guinness).

  • Dublin Castle isn't much of a castle. If castles are your thing, go to Blarney.

  • We ate lunch at a little Indian restaurant a bit off Grafton Street; I don't remember the name (Meloti, or something) but it was tasty. It wasn't the best value Indian restaurant on the street, but it was the only one open for lunch on a Saturday.

  • As far as guided tours go, the Old Jameson Distillery one is pretty good. They tell you about whiskey making, and how Irish whiskey differs from scotch and bourbon, then there's a taste comparison for a few lucky volunteers and a free Jameson for everybody.

  • The food at the Brazen Head is pretty good, and for being as big a tourist destination as it is, it is still has a pretty traditional feel.

  • At the end of the night Saturday, we finished at The Cobblestone, a real traditional Northside pub that has live music most nights. When we got there, there were three people with instruments playing away in the corner, and a host of locals crowding the bar, but still enough seating that we got a table in the back. It was great, and I'll be going back.

  • One of my Kiwi friends got the use of the corporate box at Croke Park today, so she offered us some of her free tickets for the hurling and camogie (women's hurling) finals that were going on. It's an interesting game; sort of a cross between field hockey and rugby. Anyway, I might actually try to take in a bit more of the hurling next season.

So, that's the update. I have a lot of pictures, and I'll probably post some of them later. For now, though, I'm tired and I think I'm going to sleep.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

taking it to the house

So, to advance my policy of keeping everyone up-to-date on the benefits and pitfalls of living in Ireland, I think tonight is a good night to give you an update on what I have been doing for the last few days. Let's start with Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I took a psuedo-business trip (there's a woman I've met here who runs a startup tech company who is in sore need of an IT manager) out to Athlone, in the center of Ireland (along the Shannon River, in fact). I met some of the folks at the Athlone Institute of Technology (and for you JDEers/Raikes Scholars reading this, let me assure you--that bullshit we went through for Design Studio is primo experience in Ireland) and after the business was dealt with, I got a free trip out to the ancient monastery at Clonmacnoise. That's one of the best things about Ireland, at least in comparison to the United States; about every 20 miles or so, there's some ancient monastery or circle tomb or something that has been raided by the Celts in 300 AD, and/or the Vikings in 800 AD, and/or the Normans in 1100 AD, and/or the English in 1300 AD, etc. The history here is (dare I say) palpable.

Anyway, that was Tuesday--during the day, anyway. When I got back that night, I was invited out by my Italian roommate to go to the Temple Bar area, and in fact we went to the Temple Bar itself, which was quite nice. Very touristy, a bit pricey in comparison to the pubs outside the Temple Bar area, but it was fun. They had live Irish music, in any case, which is always a plus.

Yesterday was a bit worthless (I admit, I was a bit hung-over), so I hit Dublin hard again today. I took off around lunch time to go find a good place to eat, and I'd previously found a street (I don't remember which, but if you visit I can show you precisely the one) which had a number of interesting restaurants--Italian, French, Lebanese, Indian, etc. Today, I picked one of the Indian places (Jewel in the Crown) and had their very tasty rendition of lamb madras with some naan bread. With the price at €7.50, that puts it about the same as The Oven (in downtown Lincoln), and I would say that the dish here was better. More complex flavors, in any case.

The real adventure tonight, however, was the place I headed to for my evening pint (or two...or three...or four)--The Porterhouse. This place is Dublin's answer to the microbreweries we have back home, and the beer was quite excellent. According to the website, they have live music every Thurs-Sat, but tonight at the Temple Bar location I did not hear any. Still, I'm not going to give up on them. I had a few really great beers, and had a great chat about American politics with an Irish fellow named Pat (so far, everyone I talk to here would count as a Democrat). Anyway, I promised a review of the beers I tried, so here you go:
  • Hop Head: Even though they don't know it, this was the Porterhouse's answer to Hopluia. It did provide some of the floral, hoppy aroma that we are blessed with back in the States, but I've had far better hopped ales back home. Maybe we should teach these people about dry-hopping...

  • Wrassler's XXXX Stout: This one was a very good stout. If this were exported to Nebraska, I would recommend that you buy as much as possible. When you people come visit, I'm taking you to the Porterhouse, and I'm buying this one.

  • Porterhouse Red: This was a pretty generic (although very smooth) red ale. Not much to say about it really; if anyone remembers the red that Empyrean made back in the spring and the way it tasted on the cask...that's about what this one was like.

  • An Brain Blasta: Ok, so this one is a bit of a challenge for me. In theory, this beer is copper ale, sort of like Singletrack Ale from Boulder. However, it had far more of a hopped flavor than any Singletrack I've ever had. Plus, the alcohol content was the highest of any currently on tap at the Porterhouse (7%, if I remember right). So, it was a strange combination of hoppy and malty, almost as though it were a dry-hopped Belgian-style beer. It's worth a try anyway; when you come visit, and I take you to the Porterhouse to get my Wrassler's XXXX Stout, I will get you a Brain Blasta first.

So, that's the story about Dublin over the last week. Otherwise, St. Stephen's Green is nice, Temple Bar is a great place for tourists, and letters back to the states cost €0.82.

When I have something more to report, I'll let you all know.