For all of you who have been faithfully checking my blog every hour to see if I've managed to get my life together yet and update, never fear. This weekend will bring an onslaught of posts describing the weeks leading up to midterms, spring break, and my recent excursion to Amsterdam. :-)
Love,
Amanda
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
In the Land of the Quiet Man (and the not so quiet Tom)
As the title suggests, this blog is still about my trip to Ireland. I know this is getting really lengthy, but I really loved Ireland, so much that I already picked out housing plans for when I build my summer house there. And yes, I know that that's a bit premature, but it makes me feel better that I'm taking steps, even though there's a severe lack of financial steps involved, toward having my Irish home.
So, picking up where we left off, after we returned home from the pub on St. Patty's Day...
I ran upstairs and got a lovely hot shower. Trust me, after the soaking I had on the way to town, something that hot was amazing. Then all of us girls did our prep for the night, which included Meghan cooking our pizzas. Once I was ready, I ran downstairs to grab mine because we had decided to eat upstairs in her room. Her roommate Hugh had a ton of friends over and the kitchen looked like a bomb went off or the morning after a frat party and they were all smoking, which was super gross. I told Meghan she should just through all of the crap in Hugh's room when he wasn't looking -- then he might get a hint and clean up after himself. When I was down in the kitchen, I heard a voice with one of those Irish accents call out, "I like the look of her." I glanced up and that was my first impression of Tom. Needless to say, he got the *eyebrow.* And then I took my pizza and hard cider and went upstairs to eat.
But eventually all peace must come to an end, and we had to wash our dishes. This was after procrastinating as long as possible to avoid the smoke. Downstairs, the situation had only deteriorated. There were a crapload more people and even more of them were smoking. This time when I stepped in the kitchen, I heard "Hello, Beautiful" and without thinking, I looked up. This made him laugh because apparently I know my "name." At least I can say he had good taste. :-)
As we four girls stood surveying the room, and the other three pregamed, Tom finally made his way over to us to chat. I think we might have talked for about half an hour before he even introduced himself. And let me tell you, when I say "we," I mean "he." That boy could talk the ear off the corn in the field. And it was fast. Add in an accent, and it took a while for me to stop saying, "Huh?" after every sentence. But I have to admit, I have a soft spot for Irish accents. Now, just so you have a visual, Tom was taller than me, maybe about Matt's height, slim, with dark hair and hazel eyes. Also not exactly clean-shaven, but it worked for him. He was in his third year of studying at the university, and since they only have three years of classes as opposed to our four, he was about a year older than me.
Now this boy was just silly. He was self-described as "luscious, long, and lean" and he thought I had green eyes, which he used his "words" to describe as "prettier than the treetops." This got the *eyebrow.* Tom also adamently proclaimed that he had a "passionate heart and a poetic thought." Like I said, he was silly. And most definitely outrageous, but he made me laugh.
Eventually, all of his friends left to go to a pub somewhere, and Tom kind of didn't. He stuck around with us and I harassed him about the mess he left. He said he did nothing of the kind, that its was his "fookin'" friends. To which I told him, he "better man up and take charge o' his fookin' friends" in my own imitation of an Irish accent. At some point in here, he started ragging on how worthless the dollar is, and how Ireland is so much better because they have a stronger currency. Now there is no better way to rouse an American than to tell them that their country is worth nothing, so I told him that Ireland was a third-world country until ten years ago and that they were a "parasite on the European Union." Oops. I thought I might have crossed a line here, but he just laughed and said he liked my spunk. Go figure. That's the Irish for you.
So we caught a couple of taxis and made our way into town. I made sure I was in Meghan's taxi, and the other two girls were in the taxi with Tom. When we all met up again in town, there was no Tom to be seen. He had jumped out of his taxi a bit early and went to meet up with his friends at another pub. We four girls looked at the pub we were thinking about going to, but there was a line out the door and it was cold, so we changed our minds and went to 309 instead. This was another pub on Eyre Square. It's called 309 because Galway is three degrees and nine minutes west of the Greenwich Meridian.
And you'll never guess who we ran into once we got there. Darn, you guessed. Yup, Tom was in the house. The whole thing still makes me laugh because when he saw us, his whole face lit up. Then he asked me to take a walk with him so he could get some cash from an ATM. Like I said before, it was cold, so I told him I'd meet him when he got back. During this conversation, he took my hand and made it seem like we were together, staking his claim or whatever boys do, so that the other guys in residence would keep their hands off. Personally, I'm not seeing the draw because you have all these Irish girls dressed to the nines, and I'm there in the same thing I had worn all day -- a tank, polo, and jeans. It wasn't exactly my best-dressed moment.
Either way, Tom left and the girls and I snagged a table near the back. They drank whatever they had gotten from the bar and I watched the Irish "dance." This was a sight to behold because I'm pretty convinced that they can't dance. It was reminiscent of a midschool dance where you have the boys on one side and the girls on the other, each dancing in their own groups, and not a lot of intermingling. And I wasn't impressed with the dancing. They just don't have the rhythm you find in the United States.
And then there was Tom. He had found us at the back of the pub and pulled up a chair. We sat and talked for a while, covering cars, politics, education, why I think socialism is nutty, why he thinks capitalism is crazy, Matt of course and so forth. He asked me if Matt a) challenged my thoughts and ideas (to which I replied, "If you were mine, would you?" - No), b) if he was rich ("I don't know" -- "Good, neither am I") and c) if he had "words" ("Yes, but not so many as you"). There was another random guy at our table who remarked suddenly that Tom and I were going to "shag" that night. This comment most definitely got the *double eyebrow.* Then Tom said something more Irish and masculine than "How dare you" but it followed in the same vein. We chatted for a bit longer, and I have to give the boy brownie points because he said that I was intimidating, which is something Matt also says. He also said that I was a "darling" and asked if there were many more like me in America. Of course there aren't. :-)
Then we girls left for a club, and that was the last I saw of Tom. He was a nice boy, and very entertaining. We decided to go to Cuba, which was right next door and cost ten Euro to get in. I thought that was a bit extreme, but I guess that's how it is in Ireland. We met another boy in line named Sean, and he entertained us while we waited. Sean thought the four of us should make a "Sex in the City -- Galway" because apparently the four of us resemble the four main characters in the show. It was a pretty great experience because as much as we laughed at him and the Irish, he laughed as us and Americans. And that pretty much sums up Ireland's attitude toward Americans, at least as far as I saw. There's a whole lot of laughing going on from both sides, and it's just a jolly good time. At one point Sean said something about Italians, and when we asked him about it, he said, "Oh, no -- I love Italians. Spaghetti -- yum!"
The club was interesting enough. There was a lot of dancing going on, and the music they played was pretty much the same stuff they play at home. But since I haven't been home to listen to the radio in over two months, I didn't know some of the songs. It was a good time nonetheless. They had pop playing on the lower level of the club and an Indie band upstairs. Most of our time was spent in the pop section, but we were upstairs for about half an hour. I swear I had a sign on my forehead, "Creepy people welcome" because I met some interesting characters. The girls said it was because I looked friendly. Go figure. At one point, this guy came up to dance with us, bent down, and picked me up around my thighs. The he took me to the center of the dance floor and said, "Look out for bouncers" and we "danced" for a bit before I was like, Ok, put me down now please.
The Irish also don't stress out about broken glass at all. At the King's Head, we must have heard the bartenders break twenty glasses, and they don't pick them up. They just push the glass off to the side and deal with it later. It's such a different approach to it than in the United States where we'er like, "OH MY GOD!! There's broken glass, nobody move until I get a broom!!"
Finally, it was getting late enough that we left the club and went to a 50's diner that does not compare at all to Baby's. However, there are these huge windows and I sat facing them. The people on the outside put on shows for the people on the inside, and I almost died laughing. The other three girls were totally not amused, but it was just really cute and funny. Just before we left there, I saw some of Meghan's friends walk past, so I ran out to meet them while the others paid their bills. And then we all walked home to go to bed.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Because I have a thing against sleeping in, especially when I'm someplace new and exciting, I was awake by 9:30 the next morning. Apparently, the rest of the apartment didn't subscribe to this view, and continued to sleep until about noon. Since I had nothing to do after I had gotten dressed and ready for the day, I went downstairs. And saw the kitchen. And remembered who was there the night before. And then thought about how Meghan was really upset about how dirty the kitchen was. So I cleaned. All the beer cans and bottles got thrown away, the counters wiped down, the furniture rearranged, and the floor mopped and swept. Eventually the High Dirty Person himself, Hugh, got his arse out of bed and took out the trash and loaded the dishwasher for me. But by the time I was done, the kitchen area looked good again. This was my thank you to Meghan and her roommates for letting me crash there over the weekend.
After everything was back in order, I still had to wait a bit before Meghan woke up. I didn't know if she'd be ok with me going to town by myself, but just as I started to really consider it and go up to get my stuff, Meghan got up and we had toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam for brunch. That's another thing -- people in Europe don't have grape flavored anything. I guess it's just an American thing.
But it was starting to get late and the other girls still weren't up, so we decided to go into town and get some shopping done while they slept. We left them a note and off to town we went. Now the weather today was really fickle. It went from snow to hail to rain to sun and back again in the space of twenty minutes. We bundled ourselves up and prepared for anything, we left the apartment. Meghan took me on a bit of a tour on the way to town. We saw the catholic church there where she goes to Mass every couple of weeks. She goes to the University church on the other weeks. Then we saw the old part of the river and the new part of the river. On the old side, you can see the water and nothing man-made disturbs it. On the other side of the path is the new side of the river where you can see fence-like structures that were used when the river was fished. They don't fish there anymore, but the fences remain.
We also shopped around for an Irish Nationals patch. I'm determined to find one so I can put it in my scrapbook when I get home. It's green and white, of course, and has three shamrocks and a rugby ball on it. It's on my earlier post from St. Patty's Day. Finally, the other girls showed up and we went to lunch at the same restaurant Meghan and I had gone to on my first day in Galway. This time, I got the seafood chowder and a Sprite. The chowder was amazing. When you order it in the States, they kind of wave seafood over the pot and call it seafood chowder. In Ireland, there were actual pieces of mussels, salmon, and calamari in it. It was pretty much wonderful. There were also pieces of that amazing brown bread with the soup.
After lunch, we ran around downtown and I bought some yarn to make a scarf and a hat for next winter and also a bunch of Bailey's Creme Fraiche chocolates from Butler's for my friends and roommates in Vienna. And of course, several for me. Then it was time for me to catch the bus back to Dublin, so I said goodbye to Meghan and the girls, and prepared for another long bus ride.
This ride was a bit more exciting because I took pictures until it got too dark, and then I managed to get in a nap. I also woke up and saw snow, which was horrible. I'm totally against snow, and was very happy to see that it wasn't sticking. When we got to the bus station in Dublin, I walked around until I found my hostel, which was kind of sketchy because it wasn't in the nicest neighborhood, and then I went to bed.
Monday, March 19, 2007
When I got up today, I walked around and bought a muffin at a Spar for breakfast. Then, since I had a few hours before I had to be at the airport, I crossed the river and walked some more. I was looking for the rugby patch, and although I didn't find it, I did find some interesting things. I managed to stumble onto the pedestrian shopping district, and even though the shops weren't open, I got to see some pretty things. The whole area was very pretty, and because it was my last day in Ireland, it was sunny, if not warm. I also found a "green" mall. It looked like a giant greenhouse, and had plants growing from window boxes on the outside. Inside it had a huge clock made from glass and metal that was so cool that I took a picture of it. Also, which I thought was very entertaining, they have TK Maxx in Ireland as opposed to our TJ Maxx in the United States. This store wasn't open, but I took a picture of the sign anyway because it was funny.
Across the street from the mall was a large garden, called St Stephen's Green. It was kind of like Dublin's version of Central Park. It had ponds and birds and lots of flowers. I really enjoyed my walk in there because I got some very pretty pictures, which came out really good once I got back to Vienna and had a look at them. I was in there for about forty-five minutes and then started making my way back to the bus station because I needed to get to the airport. The bus that brought me into Ireland took such a long time that I wanted to make sure I had enough time to get back. Naturally, I arrived at the airport obscenely early, but because they have nifty little automatic check-ins, I could get my boarding pass and go through security to the mall inside. I'm starting to get good at going through security because I didn't even beep this time through. :-)
Anyway, I killed a lot of time in a bookstore and finally bought a rather hefty book that I thought would entertain me while I waited for the plane and also on the ride home. It was a pretty good story, but books here are very expensive. If I can find the rest of the series at home, I'll probably if not buy them, then borrow them from the library.
I've also learned that the Germanic countries really have their transporting of people down pat. The plane arrived on time, and I was through customs and getting on the Schnellbahn within twenty minutes. Gotta love that Austrian efficiency. I still haven't figured out the whole ticket thing with the S-Bahn, so I got in a bit of trouble and had to buy another ticket once I was on it, but the conducter was very nice and didn't give me a hard time because I made sure I spoke English to him.
And then I was finally back in my apartment in Vienna, and I've really come to appreciate just how much time it takes to travel anywhere because I spent about eight hours either in an airport or in transit just on Monday, without taking into account the bus to and from Galway or the trip to Ireland.
Some sidenotes on Ireland:
They have extremely fickle weather. Like worse than Seattle.
They have smoke-free bars, which I thought was wonderful. I wish Vienna would do that.
People from America only come from three places -- Boston, New York City, and California. The rest of the country doesn't exist.
All the strange things in the world come from Mexico.
Girls with bangs are called "birds with fringe."
Rugby is a national obsession.
People have "words" in Ireland.
The country is colder than expected because everything is run on electricity, including heat and hot water.
The showers in Ireland were designed for skinny people because they're not big at all.
The Irish are bad dancers when it comes to pop dancing.
The whole country is kind of flat compared to Austria.
Seeing baby lambs in a field is good luck.
People were obsessed with the contaminated water and the fact that Ireland beat Pakistan at cricket, which they all claim isn't played in Ireland.
They have these driving circles, kind of like they have in Jersey, and there aren't any lights or traffic signals, so Meghan calls them the Circles of Death.
The Irish have developed indestructable mascara, but nothing to take it off with. Which should tell you something about the Irish in general. Oh, how I love them.
People don't visit Ireland for the buildings or the weather, they visit for the people and the landscapes.
Bulmers Cider is amazing.
And that pretty much sums up my trip to Ireland. And now I'm off to Rome for Easter vacation!
Love,
Amanda
PS -- look for lengthy posts on Rome when I get back the week after Easter.
So, picking up where we left off, after we returned home from the pub on St. Patty's Day...
I ran upstairs and got a lovely hot shower. Trust me, after the soaking I had on the way to town, something that hot was amazing. Then all of us girls did our prep for the night, which included Meghan cooking our pizzas. Once I was ready, I ran downstairs to grab mine because we had decided to eat upstairs in her room. Her roommate Hugh had a ton of friends over and the kitchen looked like a bomb went off or the morning after a frat party and they were all smoking, which was super gross. I told Meghan she should just through all of the crap in Hugh's room when he wasn't looking -- then he might get a hint and clean up after himself. When I was down in the kitchen, I heard a voice with one of those Irish accents call out, "I like the look of her." I glanced up and that was my first impression of Tom. Needless to say, he got the *eyebrow.* And then I took my pizza and hard cider and went upstairs to eat.
But eventually all peace must come to an end, and we had to wash our dishes. This was after procrastinating as long as possible to avoid the smoke. Downstairs, the situation had only deteriorated. There were a crapload more people and even more of them were smoking. This time when I stepped in the kitchen, I heard "Hello, Beautiful" and without thinking, I looked up. This made him laugh because apparently I know my "name." At least I can say he had good taste. :-)
As we four girls stood surveying the room, and the other three pregamed, Tom finally made his way over to us to chat. I think we might have talked for about half an hour before he even introduced himself. And let me tell you, when I say "we," I mean "he." That boy could talk the ear off the corn in the field. And it was fast. Add in an accent, and it took a while for me to stop saying, "Huh?" after every sentence. But I have to admit, I have a soft spot for Irish accents. Now, just so you have a visual, Tom was taller than me, maybe about Matt's height, slim, with dark hair and hazel eyes. Also not exactly clean-shaven, but it worked for him. He was in his third year of studying at the university, and since they only have three years of classes as opposed to our four, he was about a year older than me.
Now this boy was just silly. He was self-described as "luscious, long, and lean" and he thought I had green eyes, which he used his "words" to describe as "prettier than the treetops." This got the *eyebrow.* Tom also adamently proclaimed that he had a "passionate heart and a poetic thought." Like I said, he was silly. And most definitely outrageous, but he made me laugh.
Eventually, all of his friends left to go to a pub somewhere, and Tom kind of didn't. He stuck around with us and I harassed him about the mess he left. He said he did nothing of the kind, that its was his "fookin'" friends. To which I told him, he "better man up and take charge o' his fookin' friends" in my own imitation of an Irish accent. At some point in here, he started ragging on how worthless the dollar is, and how Ireland is so much better because they have a stronger currency. Now there is no better way to rouse an American than to tell them that their country is worth nothing, so I told him that Ireland was a third-world country until ten years ago and that they were a "parasite on the European Union." Oops. I thought I might have crossed a line here, but he just laughed and said he liked my spunk. Go figure. That's the Irish for you.
So we caught a couple of taxis and made our way into town. I made sure I was in Meghan's taxi, and the other two girls were in the taxi with Tom. When we all met up again in town, there was no Tom to be seen. He had jumped out of his taxi a bit early and went to meet up with his friends at another pub. We four girls looked at the pub we were thinking about going to, but there was a line out the door and it was cold, so we changed our minds and went to 309 instead. This was another pub on Eyre Square. It's called 309 because Galway is three degrees and nine minutes west of the Greenwich Meridian.
And you'll never guess who we ran into once we got there. Darn, you guessed. Yup, Tom was in the house. The whole thing still makes me laugh because when he saw us, his whole face lit up. Then he asked me to take a walk with him so he could get some cash from an ATM. Like I said before, it was cold, so I told him I'd meet him when he got back. During this conversation, he took my hand and made it seem like we were together, staking his claim or whatever boys do, so that the other guys in residence would keep their hands off. Personally, I'm not seeing the draw because you have all these Irish girls dressed to the nines, and I'm there in the same thing I had worn all day -- a tank, polo, and jeans. It wasn't exactly my best-dressed moment.
Either way, Tom left and the girls and I snagged a table near the back. They drank whatever they had gotten from the bar and I watched the Irish "dance." This was a sight to behold because I'm pretty convinced that they can't dance. It was reminiscent of a midschool dance where you have the boys on one side and the girls on the other, each dancing in their own groups, and not a lot of intermingling. And I wasn't impressed with the dancing. They just don't have the rhythm you find in the United States.
And then there was Tom. He had found us at the back of the pub and pulled up a chair. We sat and talked for a while, covering cars, politics, education, why I think socialism is nutty, why he thinks capitalism is crazy, Matt of course and so forth. He asked me if Matt a) challenged my thoughts and ideas (to which I replied, "If you were mine, would you?" - No), b) if he was rich ("I don't know" -- "Good, neither am I") and c) if he had "words" ("Yes, but not so many as you"). There was another random guy at our table who remarked suddenly that Tom and I were going to "shag" that night. This comment most definitely got the *double eyebrow.* Then Tom said something more Irish and masculine than "How dare you" but it followed in the same vein. We chatted for a bit longer, and I have to give the boy brownie points because he said that I was intimidating, which is something Matt also says. He also said that I was a "darling" and asked if there were many more like me in America. Of course there aren't. :-)
Then we girls left for a club, and that was the last I saw of Tom. He was a nice boy, and very entertaining. We decided to go to Cuba, which was right next door and cost ten Euro to get in. I thought that was a bit extreme, but I guess that's how it is in Ireland. We met another boy in line named Sean, and he entertained us while we waited. Sean thought the four of us should make a "Sex in the City -- Galway" because apparently the four of us resemble the four main characters in the show. It was a pretty great experience because as much as we laughed at him and the Irish, he laughed as us and Americans. And that pretty much sums up Ireland's attitude toward Americans, at least as far as I saw. There's a whole lot of laughing going on from both sides, and it's just a jolly good time. At one point Sean said something about Italians, and when we asked him about it, he said, "Oh, no -- I love Italians. Spaghetti -- yum!"
The club was interesting enough. There was a lot of dancing going on, and the music they played was pretty much the same stuff they play at home. But since I haven't been home to listen to the radio in over two months, I didn't know some of the songs. It was a good time nonetheless. They had pop playing on the lower level of the club and an Indie band upstairs. Most of our time was spent in the pop section, but we were upstairs for about half an hour. I swear I had a sign on my forehead, "Creepy people welcome" because I met some interesting characters. The girls said it was because I looked friendly. Go figure. At one point, this guy came up to dance with us, bent down, and picked me up around my thighs. The he took me to the center of the dance floor and said, "Look out for bouncers" and we "danced" for a bit before I was like, Ok, put me down now please.
The Irish also don't stress out about broken glass at all. At the King's Head, we must have heard the bartenders break twenty glasses, and they don't pick them up. They just push the glass off to the side and deal with it later. It's such a different approach to it than in the United States where we'er like, "OH MY GOD!! There's broken glass, nobody move until I get a broom!!"
Finally, it was getting late enough that we left the club and went to a 50's diner that does not compare at all to Baby's. However, there are these huge windows and I sat facing them. The people on the outside put on shows for the people on the inside, and I almost died laughing. The other three girls were totally not amused, but it was just really cute and funny. Just before we left there, I saw some of Meghan's friends walk past, so I ran out to meet them while the others paid their bills. And then we all walked home to go to bed.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Because I have a thing against sleeping in, especially when I'm someplace new and exciting, I was awake by 9:30 the next morning. Apparently, the rest of the apartment didn't subscribe to this view, and continued to sleep until about noon. Since I had nothing to do after I had gotten dressed and ready for the day, I went downstairs. And saw the kitchen. And remembered who was there the night before. And then thought about how Meghan was really upset about how dirty the kitchen was. So I cleaned. All the beer cans and bottles got thrown away, the counters wiped down, the furniture rearranged, and the floor mopped and swept. Eventually the High Dirty Person himself, Hugh, got his arse out of bed and took out the trash and loaded the dishwasher for me. But by the time I was done, the kitchen area looked good again. This was my thank you to Meghan and her roommates for letting me crash there over the weekend.
After everything was back in order, I still had to wait a bit before Meghan woke up. I didn't know if she'd be ok with me going to town by myself, but just as I started to really consider it and go up to get my stuff, Meghan got up and we had toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam for brunch. That's another thing -- people in Europe don't have grape flavored anything. I guess it's just an American thing.
But it was starting to get late and the other girls still weren't up, so we decided to go into town and get some shopping done while they slept. We left them a note and off to town we went. Now the weather today was really fickle. It went from snow to hail to rain to sun and back again in the space of twenty minutes. We bundled ourselves up and prepared for anything, we left the apartment. Meghan took me on a bit of a tour on the way to town. We saw the catholic church there where she goes to Mass every couple of weeks. She goes to the University church on the other weeks. Then we saw the old part of the river and the new part of the river. On the old side, you can see the water and nothing man-made disturbs it. On the other side of the path is the new side of the river where you can see fence-like structures that were used when the river was fished. They don't fish there anymore, but the fences remain.
We also shopped around for an Irish Nationals patch. I'm determined to find one so I can put it in my scrapbook when I get home. It's green and white, of course, and has three shamrocks and a rugby ball on it. It's on my earlier post from St. Patty's Day. Finally, the other girls showed up and we went to lunch at the same restaurant Meghan and I had gone to on my first day in Galway. This time, I got the seafood chowder and a Sprite. The chowder was amazing. When you order it in the States, they kind of wave seafood over the pot and call it seafood chowder. In Ireland, there were actual pieces of mussels, salmon, and calamari in it. It was pretty much wonderful. There were also pieces of that amazing brown bread with the soup.
After lunch, we ran around downtown and I bought some yarn to make a scarf and a hat for next winter and also a bunch of Bailey's Creme Fraiche chocolates from Butler's for my friends and roommates in Vienna. And of course, several for me. Then it was time for me to catch the bus back to Dublin, so I said goodbye to Meghan and the girls, and prepared for another long bus ride.
This ride was a bit more exciting because I took pictures until it got too dark, and then I managed to get in a nap. I also woke up and saw snow, which was horrible. I'm totally against snow, and was very happy to see that it wasn't sticking. When we got to the bus station in Dublin, I walked around until I found my hostel, which was kind of sketchy because it wasn't in the nicest neighborhood, and then I went to bed.
Monday, March 19, 2007
When I got up today, I walked around and bought a muffin at a Spar for breakfast. Then, since I had a few hours before I had to be at the airport, I crossed the river and walked some more. I was looking for the rugby patch, and although I didn't find it, I did find some interesting things. I managed to stumble onto the pedestrian shopping district, and even though the shops weren't open, I got to see some pretty things. The whole area was very pretty, and because it was my last day in Ireland, it was sunny, if not warm. I also found a "green" mall. It looked like a giant greenhouse, and had plants growing from window boxes on the outside. Inside it had a huge clock made from glass and metal that was so cool that I took a picture of it. Also, which I thought was very entertaining, they have TK Maxx in Ireland as opposed to our TJ Maxx in the United States. This store wasn't open, but I took a picture of the sign anyway because it was funny.
Across the street from the mall was a large garden, called St Stephen's Green. It was kind of like Dublin's version of Central Park. It had ponds and birds and lots of flowers. I really enjoyed my walk in there because I got some very pretty pictures, which came out really good once I got back to Vienna and had a look at them. I was in there for about forty-five minutes and then started making my way back to the bus station because I needed to get to the airport. The bus that brought me into Ireland took such a long time that I wanted to make sure I had enough time to get back. Naturally, I arrived at the airport obscenely early, but because they have nifty little automatic check-ins, I could get my boarding pass and go through security to the mall inside. I'm starting to get good at going through security because I didn't even beep this time through. :-)
Anyway, I killed a lot of time in a bookstore and finally bought a rather hefty book that I thought would entertain me while I waited for the plane and also on the ride home. It was a pretty good story, but books here are very expensive. If I can find the rest of the series at home, I'll probably if not buy them, then borrow them from the library.
I've also learned that the Germanic countries really have their transporting of people down pat. The plane arrived on time, and I was through customs and getting on the Schnellbahn within twenty minutes. Gotta love that Austrian efficiency. I still haven't figured out the whole ticket thing with the S-Bahn, so I got in a bit of trouble and had to buy another ticket once I was on it, but the conducter was very nice and didn't give me a hard time because I made sure I spoke English to him.
And then I was finally back in my apartment in Vienna, and I've really come to appreciate just how much time it takes to travel anywhere because I spent about eight hours either in an airport or in transit just on Monday, without taking into account the bus to and from Galway or the trip to Ireland.
Some sidenotes on Ireland:
They have extremely fickle weather. Like worse than Seattle.
They have smoke-free bars, which I thought was wonderful. I wish Vienna would do that.
People from America only come from three places -- Boston, New York City, and California. The rest of the country doesn't exist.
All the strange things in the world come from Mexico.
Girls with bangs are called "birds with fringe."
Rugby is a national obsession.
People have "words" in Ireland.
The country is colder than expected because everything is run on electricity, including heat and hot water.
The showers in Ireland were designed for skinny people because they're not big at all.
The Irish are bad dancers when it comes to pop dancing.
The whole country is kind of flat compared to Austria.
Seeing baby lambs in a field is good luck.
People were obsessed with the contaminated water and the fact that Ireland beat Pakistan at cricket, which they all claim isn't played in Ireland.
They have these driving circles, kind of like they have in Jersey, and there aren't any lights or traffic signals, so Meghan calls them the Circles of Death.
The Irish have developed indestructable mascara, but nothing to take it off with. Which should tell you something about the Irish in general. Oh, how I love them.
People don't visit Ireland for the buildings or the weather, they visit for the people and the landscapes.
Bulmers Cider is amazing.
And that pretty much sums up my trip to Ireland. And now I'm off to Rome for Easter vacation!
Love,
Amanda
PS -- look for lengthy posts on Rome when I get back the week after Easter.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Shoulder to Shoulder, We'll Answer Ireland's Call...
Alrighty, part three of five coming up!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Let me just say this right off the bat -- I love St. Patrick's Day. It ranks right up there in my top three favorite holidays, the others being Christmas and Halloween. So this whole vacation was pretty much amazing!!
Anyway, here goes. Breakfast was at 10:30 and it was pretty much like whoa. Meghan and her friends have a "family" dinner night once a week, and St. Patrick's Day breakfast was an extension of that. They break up all the work and do it kind of like a pot-luck meal. We had green pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, toast, tea, and punch. And then, in keeping with the spirit of the day, we had a round of drinks before we walked to the pub. I had my first Bulmers hard cider, which is wonderful. It's a bit sweeter than beer and it doesn't have that yeasty aftertaste, so I liked it a lot.
Our walk to town in the early afternoon was what one could call damp if they were the world's best underestimater. It was misting, but it was also windy, so by the time we got to the pub, I was soaked all the way up my thighs and down through two layers of coats. And naturally, I didn't have my umbrella since it's useless to use them in Ireland. The locals certainly don't. It was so bad, I had mascara running down my face, and from then on, I carried my liner and mascara in my pocket when we went out somewhere. Apparently, Ireland makes this incredible mascara that never comes off. Meghan bought some earlier in the semester and she said it was great because it never ran, but that she literally could not get it off her face and she's tried almost everything. Maybe the make super mascara remover in Ireland too. I wasn't there long enough to need to invest in it, but I do think it's pretty amazing stuff because non of the local girls looked like drowned rats.
The pub we went to was called the King's Head Pub and it's on the main drag of Galway. The pub was absolutely packed by the time we got there, and the rugby match didn't start until 1:30. But people were staking out claims to tables with good views of the televisions since early morning. It's really cool, because the pubs in Ireland aren't like the bars we have in the United States. Pubs are more like family gathering places, and people literally bring babies to them. It was also really nice because about a year ago, Ireland banned smoking in public establishments, so there was no smoke inside. I loved it. The pub itself was three stories high, and eventually we got a seat on the third floor, which is called the Ruby Room. That's where we watched the game. But before then, when we were still drying off, we ordered Irish Coffees. They make it with instant coffee, hot water, and Jameson. It's really important to get it down before it gets cold because then it's just nasty. So I was a trooper and finished mine first (don't worry, Poppop, Mom says you think I'm an alcoholic -- cross my heart, I'm not). Then the Ruby Room opened up and we went up to grab our seats. Once we were settled, we ordered more drinks and this time I got Bailey's. They couldn't serve it with ice because they were having a water problem in Galway when I was there. It was really cute and funny because everybody and their brother made it into the biggest news. Everyone you talked to told you about the "contaminated" water and told you not to drink it. The pure fascination with it really reminded me of a small town, and not the fact that Galway is Ireland's fourth largest city.
Then the game started. It was really intense because Ireland National was playing the Italian team, and they would win the Six Nations if they won their game and Wales won their game against England. The Ruby Room was full to the brim with people and everybody cheered when we scored. It was the coolest experience ever. Ireland National has their own song because they don't really play an anthem (they're made up of people from both Northern Ireland and Ireland, and there's been some controvesy about which national athem to play). It goes something like this:
Pretty much, Ireland kicked Italy's butt. I think the final score was something like 52-17. I forget exactly how it is scored, but the idea is similar to that of our football. Leah, Meghan's friend, had played rugby at one point, and explained some of the rules as the game went along.
About at halftime, we got another round of drinks. I didn't want anything because I didn't want to go to the poorhouse, but the bartender made a mistake and gave them an extra drink. That's how I got my second Bulmers of the day. Now I know by this point, my grandpa is probably having a heart attack because he thinks I'm not ready to be drinking. And I know myself that it was a little weird to be starting before noon, or even while it was still light out. But it was St. Patrick's Day in Ireland!!!! And Irish alcohol agrees with me because I didn't even get tipsy -- I'm good at spacing things out. Phil, Lauren's boyfriend, had gotten a pint of Guinness and he let me try a sip before we left after the game. I really didn't like it because it tasted burned.
Information on Bulmers:
Commercial cider production was started in Clonmel in 1935, by local man William Magner. Mr. Magner quickly established a very successful business and, in 1937, he joined forces with the famous English cider-makers H.P. Bulmer and Company, securing the rights to the Bulmers brand name in the Rpublic of Ireland. Dowd's Lane in Clonmel was the location of this burgeoning enterprise. In 1949, Mr. Magner withdrew from the business and the Bulmers name came to the fore.
Today, Bulmers Ltd. is a formidable Irish company by an standards, with a well-deserved reputation for innovative and successful product development and marketing. The company employs more than 500 people and is a substantial part of the economic infrastructure of the community of Clonmel. Bulmers Ltd. has an extensive portfolio of drinks brands which include Bulmers Original Cider, Strongbow Cider, Linden Village Cider, Samsons Cider and Ritz Crisp Dry Perry.
Drinking cider in moderation can have health benefits. The acid/sugar balance of cider, along with being served carbonated and chilled, provides a long alcoholic drink that is very refreshing. Recent research shows cider contains a number of antioxidants, the same amount as wine.
During the 14th century, children were baptized in cider -- it was cleaner than water -- and in the 18th century, part of a farm laborer's wages was paid in cider. By the year 1800, cider was said to be "the" cure for stomach upset, rheumatic disease, and various other diseases. (Information taken from bulmers.ie)
Information on Bailey's: (from wikipedia)
Baileys Irish Cream (the registered trade mark omits the apostrophe), is an Irish whiskey and cream based liqueur, made by R. A. Bailey & Co. of Dublin, Ireland. The trademark is currently owned by Diageo. It has a declared alcohol content of 17% alcohol by volume[1].
Draught Guinness is served cool with the beer line run through a cooler to chill the liquid to the required temperature. Due to the foaming action of the nitrogen it can take a while for the beer to settle as it is poured, often requiring a pause. Guinness has made a virtue of this wait with advertising campaigns such as "good things come to those who wait" and "it takes 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint". Some bartenders also draw a simple design, using the head of the tap, such as a shamrock in the head during the slow pour.
A long time subject of bar conversations is the Guinness cascade, where the gas bubbles appear to travel downwards in a pint glass of Guinness.[5] The effect is attributed to drag; bubbles that touch the walls of a glass are slowed in their travel upwards. Bubbles in the centre of the glass are, however, free to rise to the surface, and thus form a rising column of bubbles. The rising bubbles create a current by the entrainment of the surrounding fluid. As beer rises in the center, the beer near the outside of the glass falls. This downward flow pushes the bubbles near the glass towards the bottom. Although the effect occurs in any liquid, it is particularly noticeable in any dark nitrogen stout, as the drink combines dark-coloured liquid and light-coloured bubbles.
Guinness uses the harp of Brian Boru, or Trinity College Harp as their trademark. This circa 14th century harp which is still visible at Trinity College, Dublin, has been used as a symbol of Ireland since the reign of Henry VIII (16th century). Guinness adopted the harp as a logo in 1862, however it is shown in a form that faces left instead of right as in the coat of arms.
Continuing on...
As we left the bar, I got Phil to hid a Guinness glass in his jacket for me. So now I have a bona fide Guinness glass from Ireland sitting on my desk. I'm not exactly sure how to get it back to the States in one piece, but I'll let Mom worry about that since I'm sending it with her. :-)
Our walk back to the apartment wasn't as damp as the walk to town had been. In fact, I don't think it was misting at all. Meghan and I stopped at the convenience shop in her apartment complex to pick up frozen pizzas for dinner. After we stored them in the freezers, I ran upstairs to get a hot shower and warm up before we started St. Patrick's Day Round Two.
I think that's enough for now, because I really do have to write a paper for one of my classes, but as soon as I've either finished it or made real progress, I'll write more about my visit to Ireland and the craic (pronounced crack, translation: fun) I had there.
Love,
Amanda
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Let me just say this right off the bat -- I love St. Patrick's Day. It ranks right up there in my top three favorite holidays, the others being Christmas and Halloween. So this whole vacation was pretty much amazing!!
Anyway, here goes. Breakfast was at 10:30 and it was pretty much like whoa. Meghan and her friends have a "family" dinner night once a week, and St. Patrick's Day breakfast was an extension of that. They break up all the work and do it kind of like a pot-luck meal. We had green pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, toast, tea, and punch. And then, in keeping with the spirit of the day, we had a round of drinks before we walked to the pub. I had my first Bulmers hard cider, which is wonderful. It's a bit sweeter than beer and it doesn't have that yeasty aftertaste, so I liked it a lot.
Our walk to town in the early afternoon was what one could call damp if they were the world's best underestimater. It was misting, but it was also windy, so by the time we got to the pub, I was soaked all the way up my thighs and down through two layers of coats. And naturally, I didn't have my umbrella since it's useless to use them in Ireland. The locals certainly don't. It was so bad, I had mascara running down my face, and from then on, I carried my liner and mascara in my pocket when we went out somewhere. Apparently, Ireland makes this incredible mascara that never comes off. Meghan bought some earlier in the semester and she said it was great because it never ran, but that she literally could not get it off her face and she's tried almost everything. Maybe the make super mascara remover in Ireland too. I wasn't there long enough to need to invest in it, but I do think it's pretty amazing stuff because non of the local girls looked like drowned rats.
The pub we went to was called the King's Head Pub and it's on the main drag of Galway. The pub was absolutely packed by the time we got there, and the rugby match didn't start until 1:30. But people were staking out claims to tables with good views of the televisions since early morning. It's really cool, because the pubs in Ireland aren't like the bars we have in the United States. Pubs are more like family gathering places, and people literally bring babies to them. It was also really nice because about a year ago, Ireland banned smoking in public establishments, so there was no smoke inside. I loved it. The pub itself was three stories high, and eventually we got a seat on the third floor, which is called the Ruby Room. That's where we watched the game. But before then, when we were still drying off, we ordered Irish Coffees. They make it with instant coffee, hot water, and Jameson. It's really important to get it down before it gets cold because then it's just nasty. So I was a trooper and finished mine first (don't worry, Poppop, Mom says you think I'm an alcoholic -- cross my heart, I'm not). Then the Ruby Room opened up and we went up to grab our seats. Once we were settled, we ordered more drinks and this time I got Bailey's. They couldn't serve it with ice because they were having a water problem in Galway when I was there. It was really cute and funny because everybody and their brother made it into the biggest news. Everyone you talked to told you about the "contaminated" water and told you not to drink it. The pure fascination with it really reminded me of a small town, and not the fact that Galway is Ireland's fourth largest city.
Then the game started. It was really intense because Ireland National was playing the Italian team, and they would win the Six Nations if they won their game and Wales won their game against England. The Ruby Room was full to the brim with people and everybody cheered when we scored. It was the coolest experience ever. Ireland National has their own song because they don't really play an anthem (they're made up of people from both Northern Ireland and Ireland, and there's been some controvesy about which national athem to play). It goes something like this:
- Come the day and come the hour
- Come the power and the glory
- We have come to answer
- Our Country's call
- From the four proud provinces of Ireland
- Ireland, Ireland,
- Together standing tall
- Shoulder to shoulder
- We'll answer Ireland's call
 |
Pretty much, Ireland kicked Italy's butt. I think the final score was something like 52-17. I forget exactly how it is scored, but the idea is similar to that of our football. Leah, Meghan's friend, had played rugby at one point, and explained some of the rules as the game went along.
About at halftime, we got another round of drinks. I didn't want anything because I didn't want to go to the poorhouse, but the bartender made a mistake and gave them an extra drink. That's how I got my second Bulmers of the day. Now I know by this point, my grandpa is probably having a heart attack because he thinks I'm not ready to be drinking. And I know myself that it was a little weird to be starting before noon, or even while it was still light out. But it was St. Patrick's Day in Ireland!!!! And Irish alcohol agrees with me because I didn't even get tipsy -- I'm good at spacing things out. Phil, Lauren's boyfriend, had gotten a pint of Guinness and he let me try a sip before we left after the game. I really didn't like it because it tasted burned.
Information on Bulmers:
Commercial cider production was started in Clonmel in 1935, by local man William Magner. Mr. Magner quickly established a very successful business and, in 1937, he joined forces with the famous English cider-makers H.P. Bulmer and Company, securing the rights to the Bulmers brand name in the Rpublic of Ireland. Dowd's Lane in Clonmel was the location of this burgeoning enterprise. In 1949, Mr. Magner withdrew from the business and the Bulmers name came to the fore.
Today, Bulmers Ltd. is a formidable Irish company by an standards, with a well-deserved reputation for innovative and successful product development and marketing. The company employs more than 500 people and is a substantial part of the economic infrastructure of the community of Clonmel. Bulmers Ltd. has an extensive portfolio of drinks brands which include Bulmers Original Cider, Strongbow Cider, Linden Village Cider, Samsons Cider and Ritz Crisp Dry Perry.
Drinking cider in moderation can have health benefits. The acid/sugar balance of cider, along with being served carbonated and chilled, provides a long alcoholic drink that is very refreshing. Recent research shows cider contains a number of antioxidants, the same amount as wine.
During the 14th century, children were baptized in cider -- it was cleaner than water -- and in the 18th century, part of a farm laborer's wages was paid in cider. By the year 1800, cider was said to be "the" cure for stomach upset, rheumatic disease, and various other diseases. (Information taken from bulmers.ie)
Information on Bailey's: (from wikipedia)
Baileys Irish Cream (the registered trade mark omits the apostrophe), is an Irish whiskey and cream based liqueur, made by R. A. Bailey & Co. of Dublin, Ireland. The trademark is currently owned by Diageo. It has a declared alcohol content of 17% alcohol by volume[1].
Introduced in 1974, Baileys was the first Irish Cream liqueur on the market but there are now a growing number of other brands available.
Baileys was first maunfactured in 1927 by Swiss dentist Dr Guttimesenhousen as an all purpose tooth whitener, anesthetic and 24hr contraceptive. However due to the rise of conservative Nazisim and economic hard (ooh) times in the 1930's the good doctor's dream was never realised
Baileys was the first liqueur to use cream and alcohol together in a manner sufficiently stable to allow commercial distribution. The cream and whiskey are homogenized to form an emulsion, with the aid of an emulsifier containing refined vegetable oil. This process prevents separation of the whiskey and cream during storage. The quantity of other ingredients used is not known but they include chocolate, vanilla, caramel and sugar.
According to the manufacturer no preservatives are required, the whiskey alone is used to preserve the cream.
Information on Guinness: (from wikipedia)
Guinness is a dry stout that originated in Arthur Guinness's St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. The beer is based upon the porter style that originated in London in the early 1700s. It is one of the most successful beer brands in the world, being exported world wide. The distinctive feature in the flavour is the roasted barley which remains unfermented. For many years a portion of the beer was aged to give a sharp lactic flavour, but Guinness has refused to confirm if this still occurs. The thick creamy head is the result of a nitrogen mix being added during the serving process. It is extremely popular with Irish people and is the best selling alcoholic drink of all time in Ireland, where Guinness & Co. makes almost 2 billion euro annually.
Now available around the world, the brand is still heavily associated with Ireland, though the parent company has been headquartered in London since 1932, and was later developed into a multi-national alcohol conglomerate and re-named Diageo.
Guinness stout is made from water, barley malt, hops, and brewers yeast. A portion of the barley is flaked (i.e. steamed and rolled) and roasted to give Guinness its dark-ruby colour and characteristic taste. It is pasteurised and filtered. Despite its reputation as a "meal in a glass" or "liquid bread", Guinness only contains 198 calories (838 kilojoules) per imperial pint (20oz UK) (1460 kJ/L), fewer than an equal-sized serving of skimmed milk or orange juice and most other non-light beers.
The water used comes from Lady's Well in the Wicklow Mountains. The barley used is Irish-grown.
Draught Guinness and its canned counterpart contain nitrogen (N2) as well as carbon dioxide. Nitrogen is very much less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. The high pressure of dissolved gas is required both to enable very small bubbles to be formed and to force the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic "surge" (the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect). The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. "Original Extra Stout" tastes quite different; it contains only carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste.
Contemporary Guinness Draught and Extra Stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century, when they had an original gravity of over 1070. Foreign Extra Stout and Special Export Stout, with ABV over 7%, are perhaps closest to the original in character.Draught Guinness is served cool with the beer line run through a cooler to chill the liquid to the required temperature. Due to the foaming action of the nitrogen it can take a while for the beer to settle as it is poured, often requiring a pause. Guinness has made a virtue of this wait with advertising campaigns such as "good things come to those who wait" and "it takes 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint". Some bartenders also draw a simple design, using the head of the tap, such as a shamrock in the head during the slow pour.
A long time subject of bar conversations is the Guinness cascade, where the gas bubbles appear to travel downwards in a pint glass of Guinness.[5] The effect is attributed to drag; bubbles that touch the walls of a glass are slowed in their travel upwards. Bubbles in the centre of the glass are, however, free to rise to the surface, and thus form a rising column of bubbles. The rising bubbles create a current by the entrainment of the surrounding fluid. As beer rises in the center, the beer near the outside of the glass falls. This downward flow pushes the bubbles near the glass towards the bottom. Although the effect occurs in any liquid, it is particularly noticeable in any dark nitrogen stout, as the drink combines dark-coloured liquid and light-coloured bubbles.
Guinness uses the harp of Brian Boru, or Trinity College Harp as their trademark. This circa 14th century harp which is still visible at Trinity College, Dublin, has been used as a symbol of Ireland since the reign of Henry VIII (16th century). Guinness adopted the harp as a logo in 1862, however it is shown in a form that faces left instead of right as in the coat of arms.
Guinness has a long history of marketing campaigns, from award-winning television commercials to beer mats and posters.
Guinness's iconic stature can be attributed in part to its advertising. The most notable and recognisable series of adverts was created by Benson's advertising, primarily drawn by the artist John Gilroy, in the 1930s and 40s. Benson's was responsible for creating posters which included such phrases such as "Guinness for Strength", "Lovely Day for a Guinness", "Guinness Makes You Strong," "My Goodness My Guinness," (or, alternatively, "My Goodness, My Christmas, It's Guinness!") and most famously, "Guinness is Good For You". The posters featured Gilroy's distinctive artwork and more often than not featured animals such as a kangaroo, ostrich, seal, lion, and notably a toucan, which has become as much a symbol of Guinness as the harp. (An advertisement from the 1940s ran with the following jingle: Toucans in their tests agree/Guinness is good for you./Try some today and see/What one or toucan do.) Dorothy L. Sayers, then a copywriter at Benson's, also worked on the campaign; a biography of Sayers notes that she created a sketch of the toucan and wrote several of the adverts in question. Guinness advertising paraphernalia, notably the pastiche booklets illustrated by Ronald Ferns, attracts high prices on the collectible market.[citation needed]
In 2000, Guinness's 1999 advert Surfer[7] was named the best television commercial of all time in a UK poll conducted by The Sunday Times and Channel 4. Surfer was produced by the advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO; the advertisement can be downloaded from their website.[8]
Guinness was awarded the 2001 Clio Award as the Advertiser of the Year, citing the work of five separate ad agencies around the world.[9]
Recently, commercials for Guinness Draught have been using paper cutout animation (in the style of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python animations) featuring two scientists. One scientist makes some claim about Guinness and the other responds "BRILLIANT!".
In 2005 their commercial won the European Epic Award. In it, 3 men drink a pint of Guinness, then begin to both walk and evolve backward. Their 'reverse evolution' passes through an ancient homo sapiens, a monkey, a flying lemur, a pandolin, an ichynisaurus and a velociraptor until finally settling on a mud skipper drinking dirty water, which then expresses its disgust at the taste of the stuff, followed by the line "Good Things Come To Those Who Wait". The official name of the ad is "Noitulove" - which is "Evolution" backwards. There are three spin-off versions of this advert, promoting the Extra Cold draught.[citation needed]
In 2007 a new ad campaign appeared: Hands, which broke on February 12, starts a £2.5m campaign that includes cinema, online, digital and outdoor ads in stadiums, pubs and London Underground stations. The ad has a dedicated website and, in a first for Guinness, visitors to the site will have the opportunity to direct and customise their own Guinness "Hands" film, which they can send on to friends.[10] The ad features a pair of hands waiting for a pint of Guinness and is in black and white. The final scene reveals a perfectly poured pint of Guinness as the hands re-appear to type the line "Good things come to those who wait".[11]
Guinness has recently taken the dominant share in the African beer market with its Michael Power advertising campaign.[citation needed]
Despite widespread advertising, sales of Guinness have been falling in Ireland since 1998, with a 3% decline since August 2005.[citation needed] It has, however, become more popular in the US, displaying a 9% sales increase.Continuing on...
As we left the bar, I got Phil to hid a Guinness glass in his jacket for me. So now I have a bona fide Guinness glass from Ireland sitting on my desk. I'm not exactly sure how to get it back to the States in one piece, but I'll let Mom worry about that since I'm sending it with her. :-)
Our walk back to the apartment wasn't as damp as the walk to town had been. In fact, I don't think it was misting at all. Meghan and I stopped at the convenience shop in her apartment complex to pick up frozen pizzas for dinner. After we stored them in the freezers, I ran upstairs to get a hot shower and warm up before we started St. Patrick's Day Round Two.
I think that's enough for now, because I really do have to write a paper for one of my classes, but as soon as I've either finished it or made real progress, I'll write more about my visit to Ireland and the craic (pronounced crack, translation: fun) I had there.
Love,
Amanda
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Friendship, Love, and Loyalty
Here's the next installment of the Great Irish Saga!!!
Friday, March 16, 2007
Like I said in my last post, I was up way early. For some reason, I think it's perfectly acceptable to get my butt out of bed at ungodly hours when I'm on vacation, but not during the regular week. Go figure. Anyway, after being shivering cold the night before, I made sure I put on a lot of layers and added my fleece jacket under my grey trench coat. Since I don't really believe in wearing socks, and only had my little brown shoes, my feet were cold a lot of the time. And wet too, because even though it never actually rains in Ireland, it's misty pretty much all the time. Either way, my feet survived.
The walk to the bus station was very pretty and took a lot less time than finding the hostel had taken the night before. I swear I saw the sun coming up, and took a couple of pictures to commemorate the fact that I was up that early. One of them was of a streetlight that was decorated with a shamrock. Another was of a random building that had an interesting statue on top and some pretty sunrise-colored clouds behind it.
Once I was on the bus, I contemplated napping, but I didn't want to miss a thing and I ended up writing down notes of what I had done and looking out the window at the scenery. Ireland reminded me a bit of Virginia because it had a lot of rolling hills and pastureland. The stone walls helped with that whole image. Did you know that they don't use anything to actually hold the stones together? It's all just how they stack them. Meghan says they just pile rocks very well. At least the Irish are good for something! And I feel totally justified in making fun of them since I happen to be more than slightly Irish.
I also saw a ton of sheep and cattle with their babies. They were so incredibly cute. And Meghan told me that seeing a lamb is good luck, so I figure since I saw a bazillion of them, then I should have pretty good luck for a really long time. I also saw some horses, but they seemed stockier than my fourleggers. Two of them were pintos and when the bus stopped in the middle of the road so the driver could talk on his cell phone, they walked over to their fence and said hi. They kind of reminded me of the Gypsy horses.
Finally, we arrived in Galway. It seemed to take forever, but that might be because I expected the trip to take three hours and it actually took four. When I met Meghan and mentioned it, she said that that was typical. This was another one of those times where I missed Germanic efficiency with public transportation. It was really awesome to see Meghan and she told me all about Galway as we walked to her apartment so I could put my stuff down. We'll be traveling together in Rome over Easter break, so we talked about that a bit too.
Meghan's apartment is more like a townhouse. She lives with five other people -- one girl and four boys. Three of the boys are Irish, but most of them were home for the weekend. That's the thing with students in Ireland. Most of them study at a university within three hours of home (which is most of the island, in all truth) and go home on the weekends. Anyway, the apartment was REALLY nice. It had three floors and Meghan lives on the top floor. I dropped off my stuff in her room and added another layer because Galway was rather damp. It was the theme of the weekend, but really, as much as I'll pretend to complain about it, I really didn't mind the mist because it kind of goes along with being in Ireland. At least it wasn't snow.
Just a quick sidenote: There seem to be a lot of blue doors in Ireland. I don't know if it's a symbolism thing, but I think it might have to do with keeping the bad spirits out. Ireland is also known for it's Georgian doors that have elaborate door frames and brightly colored doors. They had a lot of calendars with pictures of them.
On the way into town, we took a different route than we had going to the apartment. I got to see where she goes to school, and the administration building there has a courtyard that reminds me of Hogwarts. The whole area is really pretty, like wow. Meghan also showed me some of town on our way in to the restaurant for lunch.
I don't remember the name of the restaurant/pub, but if Meghan is reading this, she can add a comment with the name so I can put it in the final edition of my blog before I make it into a lovely book. They have lunch specials there, just like we do in Austria. Since it was a Friday in Lent, Meghan skipped the meat, but I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, which I had been dreaming about for the previous few weeks. We both got the vegetable soup and Meghan got fries too. The sandwich was good, and the soup was glorious. It was really thick, like a stew, and very orange, so I thought they put something in it like pumpkin. The soup also came with all different sorts of breads, and I liked the brown bread the best. It tasted/felt homemade and they even have salted butter in Ireland, which is really cool because they don't have that in Austria. And since I was in Ireland, I drank tea with lunch. It wasn't as good as the Irish Cream Tea at Am Moos, but it was wonderful with milk and sugar in real sized mugs, not the tiny bitty ones we have in my apartment here.
After lunch, we walked through town a bit and Meghan pointed out different things like churches. We visited a chruch that was somehow tied to Christopher Columbus (? - Meghan can you clarify that?) and saw a memorial from back in the day. There was once a man convicted of murder whose father was the mayor of Galway. Since he was the mayor's son, nobody wanted to be the one that hung him, so his father had to do it, and the Irish, being the slightly morbid people they are, kept the wall where the man was hung.
During our wanderings, Meghan introduced me to the place where the original Claddagh rings were made. The store had been in business since 1750 and had a mini museum in the back. The signs were very pretty and they had a stained-glass claddagh in the window of the door. We also walked to the shore and we saw the Claddagh district, which is an area of Galway. The houses here are very pretty colors and we took lots of pictures of them. We also met a swan that I named Harold, and he walked with us for a few meters. Let me just get this out here now, swans are huge! And since I was kind of intimidated by Harold, I made Meghan get close enough for a picture with him. After taking some pictures of the shore, we walked back toward town.
Sidenote: In my pictures is an image of a license plate. The first number on it is the year the car was bought. The letter(s) in the middle represent the town the car was bought in, and the last set of numbers is how many cars had been sold from there. I wonder what they do when the car is sold as a preowned vehicle. Do they change the license plate or is it stuck with it until it hits the scrap yard?
When we were back in Galway proper, we stopped in the non-original claddagh place. I was kind of leaning toward getting an original ring, so we didn't spend too much time there. On our return to the original claddagh shop, whose name I have to look up, the lady behind the counter sized me for a ring. I took off the claddagh that I've worn for the past few years and she picked out a ring of a similar size. She also examined the ring I had given her and asked me where I got it. I replied the United States, and she said it wasn't made in Ireland because it hadn't gone through their offices that stamp them. When something is made in Ireland, it has to be inspected to make sure it is as it is advertised, and my lovely little ring from QVC didn't have the stamp. The lady said it was probably made in Mexico, and Meghan explained to me when we got out of the shop that the Irish blame everything that's kind of strange to them on Mexico. And I mean really random stuff too, not just manufactured items. Anyway, the ring needed to be resized and they could take care of it that afternoon, we just had to come back in about an hour or so. So we continued our adventures through town.
Meghan took me to this little candy shop that one of her friends visits every day to buy two pieces of chocolate. She's working on tasting every kind they make. Meghan said I should try the Bailey's Creme Fraiche (I know I murdered the spelling of that, but you all know what I mean) because that's her favorite. And let me tell you, it was a little bite of Heaven. It was incredible! Like whoa. It's like I found a new addiction, but they don't sell individual types at their online store because I already looked (I was going to have boxes of that luscious candy sent to me in Vienna).
Afterward we had gotten the ring, we walked back to the apartment to meet the others for dinner. Meghan had a friend from high school visiting her and one of the friend's friends from college. They had been on a tour to the Cliffs of Mohr that day. I got to meet Leah (Meghan's other friend), Ashley (Leah's friend), Kathy (Meghan's neighbor), Lauren (another neighbor), and Phil (Lauren's boyfriend who was visiting over his spring break). They're all really awesome people. For dinner, we went back into town for fish and chips, which was really good. Then, since St. Patrick's Day was the next day, we ran to the store to stock up on the necessary items (hard cider and Bailey's for me, beer for the others). Afterwards, we just relaxed in the apartment for a bit because it had been a long day and I was kind of tired. When it was time for bed, we stole the cushions from the chairs and couches in the livingroom area and took them up to Meghan's room to sleep on. She had enough pillows and extra comforters for us all to have our own, which was really nice. All in all, it was a wonderful first day in Ireland!
Next chapter: St. Patrick's Day, due out later today.
Love,
Amanda
Friday, March 16, 2007
Like I said in my last post, I was up way early. For some reason, I think it's perfectly acceptable to get my butt out of bed at ungodly hours when I'm on vacation, but not during the regular week. Go figure. Anyway, after being shivering cold the night before, I made sure I put on a lot of layers and added my fleece jacket under my grey trench coat. Since I don't really believe in wearing socks, and only had my little brown shoes, my feet were cold a lot of the time. And wet too, because even though it never actually rains in Ireland, it's misty pretty much all the time. Either way, my feet survived.
The walk to the bus station was very pretty and took a lot less time than finding the hostel had taken the night before. I swear I saw the sun coming up, and took a couple of pictures to commemorate the fact that I was up that early. One of them was of a streetlight that was decorated with a shamrock. Another was of a random building that had an interesting statue on top and some pretty sunrise-colored clouds behind it.
Once I was on the bus, I contemplated napping, but I didn't want to miss a thing and I ended up writing down notes of what I had done and looking out the window at the scenery. Ireland reminded me a bit of Virginia because it had a lot of rolling hills and pastureland. The stone walls helped with that whole image. Did you know that they don't use anything to actually hold the stones together? It's all just how they stack them. Meghan says they just pile rocks very well. At least the Irish are good for something! And I feel totally justified in making fun of them since I happen to be more than slightly Irish.
I also saw a ton of sheep and cattle with their babies. They were so incredibly cute. And Meghan told me that seeing a lamb is good luck, so I figure since I saw a bazillion of them, then I should have pretty good luck for a really long time. I also saw some horses, but they seemed stockier than my fourleggers. Two of them were pintos and when the bus stopped in the middle of the road so the driver could talk on his cell phone, they walked over to their fence and said hi. They kind of reminded me of the Gypsy horses.
Finally, we arrived in Galway. It seemed to take forever, but that might be because I expected the trip to take three hours and it actually took four. When I met Meghan and mentioned it, she said that that was typical. This was another one of those times where I missed Germanic efficiency with public transportation. It was really awesome to see Meghan and she told me all about Galway as we walked to her apartment so I could put my stuff down. We'll be traveling together in Rome over Easter break, so we talked about that a bit too.
Meghan's apartment is more like a townhouse. She lives with five other people -- one girl and four boys. Three of the boys are Irish, but most of them were home for the weekend. That's the thing with students in Ireland. Most of them study at a university within three hours of home (which is most of the island, in all truth) and go home on the weekends. Anyway, the apartment was REALLY nice. It had three floors and Meghan lives on the top floor. I dropped off my stuff in her room and added another layer because Galway was rather damp. It was the theme of the weekend, but really, as much as I'll pretend to complain about it, I really didn't mind the mist because it kind of goes along with being in Ireland. At least it wasn't snow.
Just a quick sidenote: There seem to be a lot of blue doors in Ireland. I don't know if it's a symbolism thing, but I think it might have to do with keeping the bad spirits out. Ireland is also known for it's Georgian doors that have elaborate door frames and brightly colored doors. They had a lot of calendars with pictures of them.
On the way into town, we took a different route than we had going to the apartment. I got to see where she goes to school, and the administration building there has a courtyard that reminds me of Hogwarts. The whole area is really pretty, like wow. Meghan also showed me some of town on our way in to the restaurant for lunch.
I don't remember the name of the restaurant/pub, but if Meghan is reading this, she can add a comment with the name so I can put it in the final edition of my blog before I make it into a lovely book. They have lunch specials there, just like we do in Austria. Since it was a Friday in Lent, Meghan skipped the meat, but I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, which I had been dreaming about for the previous few weeks. We both got the vegetable soup and Meghan got fries too. The sandwich was good, and the soup was glorious. It was really thick, like a stew, and very orange, so I thought they put something in it like pumpkin. The soup also came with all different sorts of breads, and I liked the brown bread the best. It tasted/felt homemade and they even have salted butter in Ireland, which is really cool because they don't have that in Austria. And since I was in Ireland, I drank tea with lunch. It wasn't as good as the Irish Cream Tea at Am Moos, but it was wonderful with milk and sugar in real sized mugs, not the tiny bitty ones we have in my apartment here.
After lunch, we walked through town a bit and Meghan pointed out different things like churches. We visited a chruch that was somehow tied to Christopher Columbus (? - Meghan can you clarify that?) and saw a memorial from back in the day. There was once a man convicted of murder whose father was the mayor of Galway. Since he was the mayor's son, nobody wanted to be the one that hung him, so his father had to do it, and the Irish, being the slightly morbid people they are, kept the wall where the man was hung.
During our wanderings, Meghan introduced me to the place where the original Claddagh rings were made. The store had been in business since 1750 and had a mini museum in the back. The signs were very pretty and they had a stained-glass claddagh in the window of the door. We also walked to the shore and we saw the Claddagh district, which is an area of Galway. The houses here are very pretty colors and we took lots of pictures of them. We also met a swan that I named Harold, and he walked with us for a few meters. Let me just get this out here now, swans are huge! And since I was kind of intimidated by Harold, I made Meghan get close enough for a picture with him. After taking some pictures of the shore, we walked back toward town.
Sidenote: In my pictures is an image of a license plate. The first number on it is the year the car was bought. The letter(s) in the middle represent the town the car was bought in, and the last set of numbers is how many cars had been sold from there. I wonder what they do when the car is sold as a preowned vehicle. Do they change the license plate or is it stuck with it until it hits the scrap yard?
When we were back in Galway proper, we stopped in the non-original claddagh place. I was kind of leaning toward getting an original ring, so we didn't spend too much time there. On our return to the original claddagh shop, whose name I have to look up, the lady behind the counter sized me for a ring. I took off the claddagh that I've worn for the past few years and she picked out a ring of a similar size. She also examined the ring I had given her and asked me where I got it. I replied the United States, and she said it wasn't made in Ireland because it hadn't gone through their offices that stamp them. When something is made in Ireland, it has to be inspected to make sure it is as it is advertised, and my lovely little ring from QVC didn't have the stamp. The lady said it was probably made in Mexico, and Meghan explained to me when we got out of the shop that the Irish blame everything that's kind of strange to them on Mexico. And I mean really random stuff too, not just manufactured items. Anyway, the ring needed to be resized and they could take care of it that afternoon, we just had to come back in about an hour or so. So we continued our adventures through town.
Meghan took me to this little candy shop that one of her friends visits every day to buy two pieces of chocolate. She's working on tasting every kind they make. Meghan said I should try the Bailey's Creme Fraiche (I know I murdered the spelling of that, but you all know what I mean) because that's her favorite. And let me tell you, it was a little bite of Heaven. It was incredible! Like whoa. It's like I found a new addiction, but they don't sell individual types at their online store because I already looked (I was going to have boxes of that luscious candy sent to me in Vienna).
Afterward we had gotten the ring, we walked back to the apartment to meet the others for dinner. Meghan had a friend from high school visiting her and one of the friend's friends from college. They had been on a tour to the Cliffs of Mohr that day. I got to meet Leah (Meghan's other friend), Ashley (Leah's friend), Kathy (Meghan's neighbor), Lauren (another neighbor), and Phil (Lauren's boyfriend who was visiting over his spring break). They're all really awesome people. For dinner, we went back into town for fish and chips, which was really good. Then, since St. Patrick's Day was the next day, we ran to the store to stock up on the necessary items (hard cider and Bailey's for me, beer for the others). Afterwards, we just relaxed in the apartment for a bit because it had been a long day and I was kind of tired. When it was time for bed, we stole the cushions from the chairs and couches in the livingroom area and took them up to Meghan's room to sleep on. She had enough pillows and extra comforters for us all to have our own, which was really nice. All in all, it was a wonderful first day in Ireland!
Next chapter: St. Patrick's Day, due out later today.
Love,
Amanda
Luck o' the Irish
Dear People,
I know it's been forever, and I've been slacking a bit about my blogging, which I feel horrible about, but I'm here now, so it's all better, and you can hear about my Irish escapades!! But first, there's just a few random things that I want to throw out there to enhance your reading enjoyment.
A few weeks ago, March first to be exact, the entire face of Kartnerstraße (the main drag in the first district) was changed. Apparently, it's the first day that outdoor cafes can be set up and the Austrians built them with vigor! Everywhere you look now, there are tables and chairs set up in front of their respective businesses. Some have tents over them or borders around them created by potted plants. Even Mickey D's got in on the act and has their outside seating set up. It's pretty impressive, and someday when it's a bit warmer, I'll be sitting at one of those little tables drinking my Melange.
There's also a bit of a carnival atmosphere on Stephensplatz, which is infront of Stephensdom. Artists, living statues, and millions of tourists gather there every afternoon. It's just so cool to see because up until this month, although the streets weren't empty, they weren't as populated. I know by the end of the semester I'm going to want to mow over the tourists with a Straßenbahn, but right now I think they're kind of entertaining with all their cameras. Especially the Asian tourists because they live up to all stereotypes including traveling in large herds and taking a bazillion pictures of EVERYTHING.
In not so happy news, I heard back from Boeing. Unfortunately, they don't need me to intern with them this summer, so I'll be at home. I was kind of upset by this because it would have been cool to live in Seattle this summer. But as it is, I can find a waitressing job somewhere and put together the amazing book/scrapbook that I'm building this semester. It's going to be a major project because I have super big plans, but pretty much it's going to incorporate this entire blog reformatted and the best of my pictures from my time abroad. I'm really excited to start it, and I think it is going to come out really good. :-)
Continuing on in the same not so positive vein, I was told by my internship boss that my German translation is "weak" and that he couldn't use my article as it was. He said that he would translate the articles for me. Now this was pretty devastating because I honestly thought my German was improving. I'd been receiving better marks on my graded papers and I've even been more comfortable speaking the language. But business German is in a league by itself because so much of it is made up of English cognates. And the online dictionaries don't have the words I need in the forms I need them. Of course, I also think that maybe he wasn't interested in teaching me the business German, which I would be fine with, except that the point of this whole internship is to work on my German fluency. I was down for about twenty minutes or so, and then I pretty much just got mad. I thought, "How dare he renege on his end of the internship bargain." So I went to a bookstore in the first district and bought a German-English business dictionary and one of those fold out vocabulary helpers. Then I got home, wrote the next article, and sent it to him in English with an email that said that I'd like to try translating it, and asking if he would take the time to read it over. My first article should have been published by this point, and although the ideas are mine at this point, the words are not and I don't feel like it's my work. I feel like I've been cheated out of something that was mine. And I'm going to fix it for the next article and every single one after that, because I don't like that feeling, and I refuse to allow it to exist.
And for bad thing three of three, I heard that Unkie passed away. It wasn't a really big shock because he had been so sick for so long, but at the same time, I wasn't told right away, which did hurt. There was no way that I could be home for the services, which is why I wasn't told, but it felt like I was being excluded. I know he's happier now because he's in Heaven, but I hurt for Aunt Dorothy, who had been married to him for over fifty years. It has to be hard for her to face everyday knowing that she isn't going to see her husband again. *tear*
Luckily for me, I believe that bad things come in groups of three, so by this point, I was in for a lot of good in my life. Which just so coincided with my lovely trip to Ireland.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I went to three of my classes today and skipped the fourth because I had to pack. I was obsessed with packing within the weight limit (even though absolutely nobody checked my backpack) and probably underpacked a bit. Luckily for me, I decided to pack my fleece jacket. I have this thing that if it's warm in Vienna, then it automatically has to be just as warm wherever I'm going, and life doesn't usually work out that way. At least it didn't in Berlin or Galway. I also managed to write two essays for my German class and finish an article on the NASDAQ for the newspaper. It was a very productive day.
Getting to the airport was a bit of an adventure. I needed to take Straßenbahn 46 to the U6 and then the U3. When I got off at my stop from the U3, I walked out the wrong exit, but in doing so, found a magic shop in Vienna, which reminded me of Matt. On the front of the store there was a huge hat with a rabbit being pulled out it. It was really kind of cute and of course I took a picture of it. All my pictures from Ireland are up on my picasa site, by the way, and captioned.
Then from the U3 I needed to take the Schnellbahn (S-Bahn) to the airport. You buy a special ticket from a machine for it. I was told it was only 1,50 Euro, so I brought exact change, and it turned out that it was 1,70. I had already asked a lady for help using the machine, and I didn't think I should try to bum another twenty cents from her, so I had to use my card. Not cool. Then it was a matter of finding the right platform and train. I got to use some German at this point (I used some with the ticket thing too) and eventually I found out where I needed to be. The train wouldn't be coming until about 6:30, and it was about a half hour ride to the airport. I had until about 7:30 to check in, but I was still a bit nervous about making it on time.
Check in at the airport was really cool. As I walked in, I had visions of coming home and having people waiting for me at the gate, and I felt just a little bit homesick. It's ok though, because it's only a few more weeks until Mom and Dad visit, and then Erika and Paul will be here a few weeks after that. Waiting in line was the best part because there were all these Irishmen who were talking to one another and their accents were just adorable. I think I fell in love with Ireland before I even made it out of the Vienna Airport, just because of their accents.
Two other girls from IES, Jenn and Ally, were also going to Ireland for the weekend, so I had people to hang out with while I waited to board the plane. It was really nice because we talked about what we were going to be doing during the weekend. Those girls were staying with friends in Dublin for the holiday, and were coming back the night before I was. There were also several boys that had dyed their hair green!! I think they must have bleached it first because it was a true kelly green and they had dark eyebrows. But it made for something to look at! Boarding wasn't a big deal; they checked us in and then we rode buses over to the plane and got on. The announcements were amusing because they came across in Irish/Gaelic, English, and German.
Because Aer Lingus is a discount airline, you don't get free anything. No drinks, no crackers, nothing. I found it amusing -- really gives life to the economic saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The flight lasted about two hours, and I think I just zoned out for the most part. I forgot to bring a book or some sort of amusement, so I got a bit bored. There's also a time change between the continent and the islands and they're an hour behind us.
I don't think I appreciated German efficiency until I tried to get through Customs in Dublin. Now, the Irish are a very wonderful people, but it's just silly to have two lines for non-EU citizens and eight for them, especially when there's about the same amount of people in both lines and about four or five flights arrived at roughly the same time. I think I spent an hour just trying to get into the country. But I did get a stamp in my passport, which was exciting.
Getting the ticket for the bus to the center of Dublin was my next big adventure. I had only taken out big bills from the bank, and the machine only accepted change and smaller bills. So I had to find an ATM, wait in line, take out twenty Euro, go to the airport bar, get change for the twenty, buy the ticket, and stand on line for the bus. The whole exercise took about half an hour. Realize by this time that it was about midnight and I still hadn't actually gotten to Dublin proper.
On the bus to the city were about four or five wonderfully drunk Irishmen who cursed with that lovely (luvly) Irish accent of theirs. There was also a couple who made the mistake of mentioning that it was one of their birthdays. So the lovely drunken Irishmen sang their lovely drunken hearts out to the tune of "Happy Birthday" about ten or twelve times during the forty-five minute trip. What made it even funnier was that they didn't know the guy's name, which turned out to be Philip, and called him Davy, Daniel, and Seamus before they got it right. They were the best kind of entertainment to start off a trip to Ireland.
I also sat next to a girl from Canada who was in Dublin for the weekend. She was studying in France for the semester and we had a nice conversation in between the bouts of "Happy Birthday."
Sidenote: It's generally a good idea to have a map with you when traveling to a foreign city. I kind of neglected this detail, and since I didn't get into Dublin until about 1:30, there was really nobody on the street to ask. Instead, I found a nice looking hotel, and asked the cute boy at the front desk where Gardiner Street was. I also made sure I smiled pretty. Now, I just want to mention here that I had my hair done up nicely and I was wearing my grey trench coat and my blue scarf, so I looked very pretty and very Continental. He pointed me in the right direction and even gave me the map. It was so nice of him. :-) It still took about forty-five minutes to find the hostel, not because it was far away, but because the numbering system in Ireland can be a bit absent. It was getting late enough that if I hadn't found something soon, I was going to look for another room. Luckily though, I asked directions at another hostel and they told me where to go.
Once I got to the hostel, check in was a breeze. The guy at the front desk even asked me if I was French or German. Now, I'm not sure where this came from, but I'm taking it as a good sign because it means I'm fitting it just a little bit. Because of the time change, I was actually awake until about three or so (continental time) even though Irish time told me it was only about two. I was restless all night and worried that I would oversleep and miss my bus, which would have been a pain to say the least. So I was up by six and getting ready to be at the bus station by seven. I honestly don't know how I did it, but I'm glad I did it while I'm still young because if I tried that in about forty or fifty years, I think I might die.
Part 2: Friday, March 16th, 2007 will be in the next posting.
Love,
Amanda
I know it's been forever, and I've been slacking a bit about my blogging, which I feel horrible about, but I'm here now, so it's all better, and you can hear about my Irish escapades!! But first, there's just a few random things that I want to throw out there to enhance your reading enjoyment.
A few weeks ago, March first to be exact, the entire face of Kartnerstraße (the main drag in the first district) was changed. Apparently, it's the first day that outdoor cafes can be set up and the Austrians built them with vigor! Everywhere you look now, there are tables and chairs set up in front of their respective businesses. Some have tents over them or borders around them created by potted plants. Even Mickey D's got in on the act and has their outside seating set up. It's pretty impressive, and someday when it's a bit warmer, I'll be sitting at one of those little tables drinking my Melange.
There's also a bit of a carnival atmosphere on Stephensplatz, which is infront of Stephensdom. Artists, living statues, and millions of tourists gather there every afternoon. It's just so cool to see because up until this month, although the streets weren't empty, they weren't as populated. I know by the end of the semester I'm going to want to mow over the tourists with a Straßenbahn, but right now I think they're kind of entertaining with all their cameras. Especially the Asian tourists because they live up to all stereotypes including traveling in large herds and taking a bazillion pictures of EVERYTHING.
In not so happy news, I heard back from Boeing. Unfortunately, they don't need me to intern with them this summer, so I'll be at home. I was kind of upset by this because it would have been cool to live in Seattle this summer. But as it is, I can find a waitressing job somewhere and put together the amazing book/scrapbook that I'm building this semester. It's going to be a major project because I have super big plans, but pretty much it's going to incorporate this entire blog reformatted and the best of my pictures from my time abroad. I'm really excited to start it, and I think it is going to come out really good. :-)
Continuing on in the same not so positive vein, I was told by my internship boss that my German translation is "weak" and that he couldn't use my article as it was. He said that he would translate the articles for me. Now this was pretty devastating because I honestly thought my German was improving. I'd been receiving better marks on my graded papers and I've even been more comfortable speaking the language. But business German is in a league by itself because so much of it is made up of English cognates. And the online dictionaries don't have the words I need in the forms I need them. Of course, I also think that maybe he wasn't interested in teaching me the business German, which I would be fine with, except that the point of this whole internship is to work on my German fluency. I was down for about twenty minutes or so, and then I pretty much just got mad. I thought, "How dare he renege on his end of the internship bargain." So I went to a bookstore in the first district and bought a German-English business dictionary and one of those fold out vocabulary helpers. Then I got home, wrote the next article, and sent it to him in English with an email that said that I'd like to try translating it, and asking if he would take the time to read it over. My first article should have been published by this point, and although the ideas are mine at this point, the words are not and I don't feel like it's my work. I feel like I've been cheated out of something that was mine. And I'm going to fix it for the next article and every single one after that, because I don't like that feeling, and I refuse to allow it to exist.
And for bad thing three of three, I heard that Unkie passed away. It wasn't a really big shock because he had been so sick for so long, but at the same time, I wasn't told right away, which did hurt. There was no way that I could be home for the services, which is why I wasn't told, but it felt like I was being excluded. I know he's happier now because he's in Heaven, but I hurt for Aunt Dorothy, who had been married to him for over fifty years. It has to be hard for her to face everyday knowing that she isn't going to see her husband again. *tear*
Luckily for me, I believe that bad things come in groups of three, so by this point, I was in for a lot of good in my life. Which just so coincided with my lovely trip to Ireland.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I went to three of my classes today and skipped the fourth because I had to pack. I was obsessed with packing within the weight limit (even though absolutely nobody checked my backpack) and probably underpacked a bit. Luckily for me, I decided to pack my fleece jacket. I have this thing that if it's warm in Vienna, then it automatically has to be just as warm wherever I'm going, and life doesn't usually work out that way. At least it didn't in Berlin or Galway. I also managed to write two essays for my German class and finish an article on the NASDAQ for the newspaper. It was a very productive day.
Getting to the airport was a bit of an adventure. I needed to take Straßenbahn 46 to the U6 and then the U3. When I got off at my stop from the U3, I walked out the wrong exit, but in doing so, found a magic shop in Vienna, which reminded me of Matt. On the front of the store there was a huge hat with a rabbit being pulled out it. It was really kind of cute and of course I took a picture of it. All my pictures from Ireland are up on my picasa site, by the way, and captioned.
Then from the U3 I needed to take the Schnellbahn (S-Bahn) to the airport. You buy a special ticket from a machine for it. I was told it was only 1,50 Euro, so I brought exact change, and it turned out that it was 1,70. I had already asked a lady for help using the machine, and I didn't think I should try to bum another twenty cents from her, so I had to use my card. Not cool. Then it was a matter of finding the right platform and train. I got to use some German at this point (I used some with the ticket thing too) and eventually I found out where I needed to be. The train wouldn't be coming until about 6:30, and it was about a half hour ride to the airport. I had until about 7:30 to check in, but I was still a bit nervous about making it on time.
Check in at the airport was really cool. As I walked in, I had visions of coming home and having people waiting for me at the gate, and I felt just a little bit homesick. It's ok though, because it's only a few more weeks until Mom and Dad visit, and then Erika and Paul will be here a few weeks after that. Waiting in line was the best part because there were all these Irishmen who were talking to one another and their accents were just adorable. I think I fell in love with Ireland before I even made it out of the Vienna Airport, just because of their accents.
Two other girls from IES, Jenn and Ally, were also going to Ireland for the weekend, so I had people to hang out with while I waited to board the plane. It was really nice because we talked about what we were going to be doing during the weekend. Those girls were staying with friends in Dublin for the holiday, and were coming back the night before I was. There were also several boys that had dyed their hair green!! I think they must have bleached it first because it was a true kelly green and they had dark eyebrows. But it made for something to look at! Boarding wasn't a big deal; they checked us in and then we rode buses over to the plane and got on. The announcements were amusing because they came across in Irish/Gaelic, English, and German.
Because Aer Lingus is a discount airline, you don't get free anything. No drinks, no crackers, nothing. I found it amusing -- really gives life to the economic saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The flight lasted about two hours, and I think I just zoned out for the most part. I forgot to bring a book or some sort of amusement, so I got a bit bored. There's also a time change between the continent and the islands and they're an hour behind us.
I don't think I appreciated German efficiency until I tried to get through Customs in Dublin. Now, the Irish are a very wonderful people, but it's just silly to have two lines for non-EU citizens and eight for them, especially when there's about the same amount of people in both lines and about four or five flights arrived at roughly the same time. I think I spent an hour just trying to get into the country. But I did get a stamp in my passport, which was exciting.
Getting the ticket for the bus to the center of Dublin was my next big adventure. I had only taken out big bills from the bank, and the machine only accepted change and smaller bills. So I had to find an ATM, wait in line, take out twenty Euro, go to the airport bar, get change for the twenty, buy the ticket, and stand on line for the bus. The whole exercise took about half an hour. Realize by this time that it was about midnight and I still hadn't actually gotten to Dublin proper.
On the bus to the city were about four or five wonderfully drunk Irishmen who cursed with that lovely (luvly) Irish accent of theirs. There was also a couple who made the mistake of mentioning that it was one of their birthdays. So the lovely drunken Irishmen sang their lovely drunken hearts out to the tune of "Happy Birthday" about ten or twelve times during the forty-five minute trip. What made it even funnier was that they didn't know the guy's name, which turned out to be Philip, and called him Davy, Daniel, and Seamus before they got it right. They were the best kind of entertainment to start off a trip to Ireland.
I also sat next to a girl from Canada who was in Dublin for the weekend. She was studying in France for the semester and we had a nice conversation in between the bouts of "Happy Birthday."
Sidenote: It's generally a good idea to have a map with you when traveling to a foreign city. I kind of neglected this detail, and since I didn't get into Dublin until about 1:30, there was really nobody on the street to ask. Instead, I found a nice looking hotel, and asked the cute boy at the front desk where Gardiner Street was. I also made sure I smiled pretty. Now, I just want to mention here that I had my hair done up nicely and I was wearing my grey trench coat and my blue scarf, so I looked very pretty and very Continental. He pointed me in the right direction and even gave me the map. It was so nice of him. :-) It still took about forty-five minutes to find the hostel, not because it was far away, but because the numbering system in Ireland can be a bit absent. It was getting late enough that if I hadn't found something soon, I was going to look for another room. Luckily though, I asked directions at another hostel and they told me where to go.
Once I got to the hostel, check in was a breeze. The guy at the front desk even asked me if I was French or German. Now, I'm not sure where this came from, but I'm taking it as a good sign because it means I'm fitting it just a little bit. Because of the time change, I was actually awake until about three or so (continental time) even though Irish time told me it was only about two. I was restless all night and worried that I would oversleep and miss my bus, which would have been a pain to say the least. So I was up by six and getting ready to be at the bus station by seven. I honestly don't know how I did it, but I'm glad I did it while I'm still young because if I tried that in about forty or fifty years, I think I might die.
Part 2: Friday, March 16th, 2007 will be in the next posting.
Love,
Amanda
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Silver-white Winters that Melt into Spring...
So I had an adventure last night with Wini. We went to see "The Sound of Music" performed at the Volksoper. But I have to tell you about the adventure I had just getting there, then we'll move onto the actual performance.
On Sunday, we said we wanted to go see the SoM performed, but it wasn't playing that night, so we put it off until Monday. So I did my normal Monday things -- laundry, baking, cleaning, grocery shopping, just in general practicing my domestic skills -- and pretty much got pumped to go see the show. Well, I talked to Wini in the afternoon, just to reconfirm that we were going, and we were still on, so when 5:45 rolled around, I jauntily stepped out of the apartment building and sauntered down to the Strassenbahn stop. From there it was only about a fifteen minute ride to the Volkstheater. We had agreed to meet in front of the building and buy our tickets together.
It was getting a little late and I couldn't get ahold of Wini, so I gave Mandy a call. She couldn't actually make it to the performance because she had to work in the library and there wasn't anybody to cover for her. She said the Volkstheater was right. But all I saw were signs for "Liebelei," an Austrian production that I'm going to see with my drama class on Wednesday night. And I had one of those feelings, you know?
Then I got a call from Mandy -- she double-checked the schedule of things going on that's posted near the IES library, and saw that "The Sound of Music" wasn't playing at the Volkstheater, it was playing at the Volksoper. And then I didn't know where the address was that she gave me. Luckily, I thought I remembered seeing it on Saturday night while I was on the U6 when I went out to dinner with a bunch of people. And since there was a very convenient U-Bahn station nearby, I checked their map and sure enough, the Volksoper was a stop on the U6. From there it was just a matter of calling Wini to let her know I'd be there as soon as possible, then hopping on the 48A and changing lines to the U6. Just as a sidenote: I love Viennese public transit. It's so incredibly reliable.
Once I got to the Volksoper, I met Wini and we got online to buy our tickets. The girl in front of us was from IES and we saw that she had her ID out, so we got ours out too. Originally, we had planned on buying Stehplatz, which were only 1.50 Euro, but we could get seventh row seats for only 8 Euro with our student card. Can you guess what we decided to do? Yup, went with the seats. And I think it ranks up there with the best reasons to spend a little bit more.
The seats we got were big and comfortable and covered in red velvet. We had to check our coats, but we could put them together, so it was only half as expensive. About two minutes after we got to out seats, the show started. And I was super impressed from the start.
The scenery was really cool. They had part of the stage that could move up, down, forward, and backward depending on where they wanted it. Then there were mountain cutouts that they were raise and lower. And they had a nifty crinkle curtain that they lit from the side or the back.
The performances were really good too. It was a little weird not to see Julie Andrews as Maria, but all of the actors and actresses were strong singers and possessed good acting skills. I think the best were the children because they had some very young kids cast in the roles of Marta and Gretl. And they could all sing -- it was absolutely fabulous. And of course, it was all in German. They had "overtitles," but I tried not to pay attention to them because they were more like summaries of what was being said, than what was actually said. The costume changes were also pretty impressive. I mean, they might have had thirty seconds to do a full costume change, and the woman that played Maria probably had at least five complete changes.
The songs were out of order compared to the movie, and some things were glossed over, but I guess you have to do that in theater. The general story line was the same, but certain details were altered, and there was a much more political feeling to it, especially in the second act that I think was downplayed a lot in the movie.
In the play, the Captain and the Baroness decide to not get married not because he's in love with Maria, which I think was part of it, but because they have completely different political views. She is of the mindset to lay low and go along with the Anschluss whereas he was very much against it. There was even a song or two about it. The butler in the play was also very pro-Nazi, which you didn't see in the movie. I think it might have been hinted at a little bit, but it's been a very long time since I've seen it, so I can't be sure.
The Reverend Mother also plays a much larger role in the play than she does in the movie. It may be because she was played by a younger woman that it seemed she was less serene and had more energy. But she also sang the "Favorite Things" song with Maria at one point.
At the end of the play, when they are hiding in the Abbey, Franz doesn't actually blow the whistle on the von Trapp family, so they get away, but you don't get to see the car scene.
I think one of my favorite parts of the play was when the von Trapps were at the festival singing because the audience in the theater was the audience at the festival if that makes sense. They had actors dressed as Nazis come out into the audience and station themselves in the walkways and by the doors. Then, once the von Trapp family had gone missing, the actors ran through the audience and there were whistles blowing and they had search lights going too. It was all very dramatic, and it made me wonder how many people in that audience might remember stuff like that happening.
The encore at the end was the "Edelweiß" song. The entire cast was on the stage to sing it, and on the "overtitles" they put up the German words so everybody could sing along, like they did in the movie at the festival. It was seriously cool.
And it turns out that this was Wini's first time seeing the end of "The Sound of Music" because she always stopped before they got to the festival. I absolutely LOVED this production. And I think it might have been even cooler because I had been to some of those places -- like the gazebo and the nunnery. So now I pretty much can't wait to watch the movie again because I want to be able to say, "I was there" at all the appropriate moments. I think one of the girls here has it, and we'll do a movie night soon!
Some information on the Broadway production:
On Sunday, we said we wanted to go see the SoM performed, but it wasn't playing that night, so we put it off until Monday. So I did my normal Monday things -- laundry, baking, cleaning, grocery shopping, just in general practicing my domestic skills -- and pretty much got pumped to go see the show. Well, I talked to Wini in the afternoon, just to reconfirm that we were going, and we were still on, so when 5:45 rolled around, I jauntily stepped out of the apartment building and sauntered down to the Strassenbahn stop. From there it was only about a fifteen minute ride to the Volkstheater. We had agreed to meet in front of the building and buy our tickets together.
It was getting a little late and I couldn't get ahold of Wini, so I gave Mandy a call. She couldn't actually make it to the performance because she had to work in the library and there wasn't anybody to cover for her. She said the Volkstheater was right. But all I saw were signs for "Liebelei," an Austrian production that I'm going to see with my drama class on Wednesday night. And I had one of those feelings, you know?
Then I got a call from Mandy -- she double-checked the schedule of things going on that's posted near the IES library, and saw that "The Sound of Music" wasn't playing at the Volkstheater, it was playing at the Volksoper. And then I didn't know where the address was that she gave me. Luckily, I thought I remembered seeing it on Saturday night while I was on the U6 when I went out to dinner with a bunch of people. And since there was a very convenient U-Bahn station nearby, I checked their map and sure enough, the Volksoper was a stop on the U6. From there it was just a matter of calling Wini to let her know I'd be there as soon as possible, then hopping on the 48A and changing lines to the U6. Just as a sidenote: I love Viennese public transit. It's so incredibly reliable.
Once I got to the Volksoper, I met Wini and we got online to buy our tickets. The girl in front of us was from IES and we saw that she had her ID out, so we got ours out too. Originally, we had planned on buying Stehplatz, which were only 1.50 Euro, but we could get seventh row seats for only 8 Euro with our student card. Can you guess what we decided to do? Yup, went with the seats. And I think it ranks up there with the best reasons to spend a little bit more.
The seats we got were big and comfortable and covered in red velvet. We had to check our coats, but we could put them together, so it was only half as expensive. About two minutes after we got to out seats, the show started. And I was super impressed from the start.
The scenery was really cool. They had part of the stage that could move up, down, forward, and backward depending on where they wanted it. Then there were mountain cutouts that they were raise and lower. And they had a nifty crinkle curtain that they lit from the side or the back.
The performances were really good too. It was a little weird not to see Julie Andrews as Maria, but all of the actors and actresses were strong singers and possessed good acting skills. I think the best were the children because they had some very young kids cast in the roles of Marta and Gretl. And they could all sing -- it was absolutely fabulous. And of course, it was all in German. They had "overtitles," but I tried not to pay attention to them because they were more like summaries of what was being said, than what was actually said. The costume changes were also pretty impressive. I mean, they might have had thirty seconds to do a full costume change, and the woman that played Maria probably had at least five complete changes.
The songs were out of order compared to the movie, and some things were glossed over, but I guess you have to do that in theater. The general story line was the same, but certain details were altered, and there was a much more political feeling to it, especially in the second act that I think was downplayed a lot in the movie.
In the play, the Captain and the Baroness decide to not get married not because he's in love with Maria, which I think was part of it, but because they have completely different political views. She is of the mindset to lay low and go along with the Anschluss whereas he was very much against it. There was even a song or two about it. The butler in the play was also very pro-Nazi, which you didn't see in the movie. I think it might have been hinted at a little bit, but it's been a very long time since I've seen it, so I can't be sure.
The Reverend Mother also plays a much larger role in the play than she does in the movie. It may be because she was played by a younger woman that it seemed she was less serene and had more energy. But she also sang the "Favorite Things" song with Maria at one point.
At the end of the play, when they are hiding in the Abbey, Franz doesn't actually blow the whistle on the von Trapp family, so they get away, but you don't get to see the car scene.
I think one of my favorite parts of the play was when the von Trapps were at the festival singing because the audience in the theater was the audience at the festival if that makes sense. They had actors dressed as Nazis come out into the audience and station themselves in the walkways and by the doors. Then, once the von Trapp family had gone missing, the actors ran through the audience and there were whistles blowing and they had search lights going too. It was all very dramatic, and it made me wonder how many people in that audience might remember stuff like that happening.
The encore at the end was the "Edelweiß" song. The entire cast was on the stage to sing it, and on the "overtitles" they put up the German words so everybody could sing along, like they did in the movie at the festival. It was seriously cool.
And it turns out that this was Wini's first time seeing the end of "The Sound of Music" because she always stopped before they got to the festival. I absolutely LOVED this production. And I think it might have been even cooler because I had been to some of those places -- like the gazebo and the nunnery. So now I pretty much can't wait to watch the movie again because I want to be able to say, "I was there" at all the appropriate moments. I think one of the girls here has it, and we'll do a movie night soon!
Some information on the Broadway production:
The Sound of Music is a Broadway musical based on the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. The famous soundtrack includes the songs "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", "Climb Every Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", and "Sixteen Going On Seventeen".
The music was written by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The script was written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It would prove to be the final musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein; the latter would die of cancer nine months after the premiere.
After screening a German film about the von Trapp family, stage director Vincent J. Donehue began shopping the project around before it was picked up by Broadway producers Leland Hayward and Richard Halliday (husband of star Mary Martin). It was originally envisioned as a non-musical play to be written by Lindsay and Crouse with authentic Austrian music. Then it was decided to add an original song or two, perhaps by Rodgers and Hammerstein. However, it was soon agreed that the project should feature all new songs and be a musical rather than a play.
Trivia from the Musical:
- Many people believe "Edelweiss" to be a traditional Austrian song, or even a national hymn. In fact the song was written for the musical and is little known in Austria.[2]
- The Edelweiss is the unofficial national flower of Switzerland and popular in Austria. In the Republic of Austria, it appeared on the 1 Schilling coin and can now be seen on the 2 cent Euro coin. The edelweiss is also worn as a cap device by certain Austrian Army mountain units.
- The musical itself is virtually unknown in Austria, except in backpacker's hostels in Salzburg, where the film is screened daily on DVD.[3]
- Maria von Trapp's book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, was made into two successful German films before it was adapted as The Sound of Music. Maria sold the rights for less than $10,000, so the von Trapp family did not benefit greatly from its success.
- The Ländler dance as performed by Maria and the Captain during the party is only loosely based on the traditional Austrian dance of the same name.[4]
- The song lists of the stage play and film are slightly different, thanks to the screenwriting of Ernest Lehman. In the musical, "My Favorite Things" is sung at the convent, whereas in the movie it is sung to the children in the von Trapp house. "No Way to Stop it" was dropped for the film, and "How Can Love Survive?" (deemed to not fit the flow of the movie) was reduced to being only one of the several waltz numbers played at the party. The title song's four-line prelude ("My day in the hills has come to an end, I know..."), sung by Mary Martin in the stage play, is also reduced to an instrumental hint during the overture and dramatic opening shot of Julie Andrews.
- On an episode of Seinfeld, George and Jerry decide to use a song as a signal to let each other know when George's girlfriend is coming while they replace an answering-machine tape containing numerous insulting messages. George requests "Maria" and then proceeds to sing it, much to Jerry's chagrin.
- The Guinness Book of World Records once had an entry for "worst film editing", noting that when a Hong Kong exhibitor felt that the movie was overly long, he remedied the situation by cutting out all the musical numbers.
- During the Cold War, in the event of a nuclear strike on the United Kingdom, the BBC planned to broadcast The Sound of Music on radio as part of an emergency timetable of programmes designed to "reassure" the public in the aftermath of the attack. A television broadcast would not have been planned or possible, though, as televisions would be rendered inoperable by the Electromagnetic pulse effect. [5]
- Gwen Stefani's 2006 single "Wind It Up", from her second solo album The Sweet Escape, samples "The Lonely Goatherd."
- On The OC, the Cooper family watch The Sound Of Music every year on Kaitlins birthday. Melinda Clarke, a colotura soprano, can be heard singing "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" in episode 313, The Pot Stirrer.
- "So Long, Farewell" was used in early 2007 in TV ads for Kia Motors, with orchestration similar to the play's version, as a team of car dealers sang to the many sold cars that were leaving their lot.
Dubbing information from the movie:
Several key members of the cast had their singing voices dubbed by others. Peggy Wood, who played Mother Abbess and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this movie, was dubbed by Margery McKay after she struggled to sing Climb Ev'ry Mountain. Anna Lee, who played Sister Margaretta, was dubbed by Marie Greene. Christopher Plummer was dubbed by Bill Lee, who also did the singing voice for Yogi Bear. Plummer, who has performed in stage musicals, did have his singing recorded but decided it was not good enough.
There were once rumors that some or all of the children's voices were dubbed.[citation needed] Director Robert Wise insists that none of their voices were dubbed, though at times other children's voices were added to theirs for a stronger effect; the extra singers included Randy Perkins, Diane Burt, Darlene Farnon (a.k.a. Darlene Carr) and Sue McBain. Additionally, Farnon, sister of Charmian Carr, who played Liesl, sang the high note for Duane Chase, who played Kurt, in the song, So Long, Farewell, because it was well beyond his vocal range.
Trivia from the Movie:
- Many people believe "Edelweiss" to be a traditional Austrian song, or even the national anthem.[2]. In fact the song was written for the musical and is little known in Austria. The song was the last that Oscar Hammerstein II wrote.
- The Ländler dance that Maria and the Captain shared was not performed the traditional way it is done in Austria.
- "I Have Confidence" is a song that Rodgers wrote as a musical bridge, needed in the movie to get Maria from the convent to the von Trapp manor (as he explained). During that segment, at one point Julie Andrews passes under an archway. As pointed out in one of the DVD's extras, the real Maria von Trapp, one of her daughters, and one of her daughters (Maria's granddaughter) can be seen starting to cross the road at that point. The von Trapps arrived on set that day and director Wise offered them this walk-on role. It has also been reported that Andrews tripped at one point during the filming, a moment the editors left in because it seemed to fit the character.
- The order of several of the songs is markedly different between the stage play and the film, thanks to the screenwriting of Ernest Lehman. One example is that in the play, "My Favorite Things" is sung at the convent, whereas in the movie it is sung to the children. A couple of the songs were altered. "How Can Love Survive?" (which did not fit the flow of the movie very well) was reduced to an instrumental, one of several waltz numbers played at the party occurring just before intermission. The title song's four-line prelude ("My day in the hills has come to an end, I know..."), sung by Mary Martin in the stage play, is reduced to an instrumental hint during the overture and dramatic zoom-in shot to Julie Andrews on the mountaintop at the start of the movie.
- Ironically, the movie featured a rare onscreen performance by Marni Nixon, who plays Sister Sophia and is well known to have dubbed the singing voices for many famous movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. In fact, the producers weren't sure how Julie Andrews would react to her after Marni dubbed Hepburn in a role made famous by Andrews; however, when Andrews first met Nixon, she exclaimed, "Marni, I'm a fan of you!" and the producers were relieved.
- Despite the enormous popularity of the movie, which at the time became the largest grossing picture of all time, noted film critic Pauline Kael blasted the film in a review in which she called the movie "The Sound Of Money." This review allegedly led to Kael's dismissal from McCall's magazine.
- The Sound of Music became the highest grossing film of all time in December 1965, when it beat Gone With the Wind by slightly less than one million dollars. The Sound of Music remained the highest grossing film of all time, until 1970 when Gone With the Wind was re-released and it became #1 again. After that, several films (The Godfather, Jaws, etc) have pushed The Sound of Music further down on the list.
- In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
- According to boxofficemojo, the film ranks third in both all-time number of tickets sold (142,415,400) and in gross adjusted for inflation ($911,458,400) in North America (behind Gone with the Wind and Star Wars) Combine this with its success around the world in sales of tickets, videocassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and its frequent airings on television, it is called "the most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio" by Amazon.uk
- The film was released in several foreign countries. In Germany it was re-titled Meine Lieder, Meine Träume (My Songs, My Dreams); France -- La mélodie du bonheur (The Melody of Happiness); Portugal -- Música no Coração (Music in the Heart); Brazil -- A Noviça Rebelde (The Rebel Novice); Italy -- Tutti insieme Appassionatamente (All Together with Passion); Netherlands -- De mooiste muziek (The Most Beautiful Music); Spain -- Sonrisas y Lágrimas (Smiles and Tears); Greece -- E meloudia tees Efti-hias (The Melody of Happiness); Israel -- Tze-leh ha-musica (The Sound of Music); Saudi Arabia -- Sauth el musika (The Sound of Music); Mexico -- La Novicia Rebelde (The Rebel Novice); Iran -- Ashkha va labkhandha (Tears and Smiles); Yugoslavia -- Moje pesme, moji snovi (My Songs, My Dreams)
- Controversy surrounded the film's release in Germany. According to a 2000 documentary: "...the film's Nazi overtones brought about the unauthorized cutting of the third act." The third act, with its initial images of post-Anschluss Austria, begins directly after Maria's wedding to the Baron. Eventually, the third act was restored to the German release, but audience attendance did not improve.
- According to the British tabloid The Sun, the movie was selected by BBC executives as one to be broadcast after a nuclear strike, to improve the morale of survivors. The BBC did not confirm or deny the story, saying "This is a security issue so we cannot comment" [1]. However, this would not be broadcast on television, due to both the electromagnetic pulse and blast knocking down power lines, though radio broadcasts could be possible.
- Legend has it that South Koreans were even more taken by the movie. A theatre owner in South Korea, wanting to show the movie more times per day to take the money of more customers, allegedly cut out the musical pieces [2].
- While the von Trapp family hiked over the Alps to Switzerland in the movie, in reality they walked to the local train station and boarded the next train to Italy. From Italy, they fled to London and ultimately the U.S. [3] Salzburg is in fact only a few miles away from the Austrian-German border, and is much too far from either the Swiss or Italian borders for a family to escape by walking. Had the von Trapps hiked over the mountains, they would have ended up in Germany, near Hitler's mountain retreat.
- Ironically, the US-movie is virtually unknown in Germany and Austria. This can be mainly attributed to the former German-made movie "Die Trapp-Familie" (1956) and its sequel "Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika" (1958) but also to the dark period of Austrian history which is cursory displayed in the later US-movie as well as in the former Austro-German films, which starred popular German and Austrian actors. According to the German Wikipedia entry for the movie, the real baroness von Trapp says of the first film that 'not a word in it is true, but it is delightful'.
- All of the children who played the Von Trapp children in the film are actually older than their characters.
- The soundtrack album was included in the stockpile of records held in 20 underground radio stations of Great Britain's Wartime Broadcasting Service, designed to provide public information and morale-boosting broadcasts for 100 days after a nuclear attack[4].
- In her autobiography, Charmaine Carr mentions that during filming the gazebo scene, her shoes were too slippery to dance in. As a result, she crashed through the glass side of the gazebo during the dance. Luckily, the only injury was a twisted ankle. She still wanted to do the scene, though, and make-up was applied to the wrap on her ankle and a few camera angles changed so that the injury wouldn't show.
- Christopher Plummer likened working with Julie Andrews to "being hit over the head with a Valentine's Day card every day!" and reportedly didn't like working on the movie. Still, he and Andrews are good friends to this day.
- The Cult adult humour comic Viz had a pastiche of the film poster on the front cover of issue 163, with Millie Tant as Maria.
The Vienna Volksoper (Volksoper Wien or Vienna People's Opera) is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions each season which runs from September to June. The theatre seats 1,473 and 102 standees.
The opera house was built in 1898 as the Kaiser-Jubiläums-Stadttheater (Kaiser's Jubilee Civic Theatre), originally producing only plays, but in 1903, operas and operettas became part of the program. The Volksoper is Vienna’s largest venue for operas, operettas, musicals and dance theater.
The first Viennese performances of Tosca and Salome were given at the Volksoper in 1907 and 1910 respectively. World famous singers such as Maria Jeritza and Richard Tauber appeared there; the conductor Alexander Zemlinsky became the first kapellmeister in 1906. In the years up to and through the First World War the Volksoper attained a position as Vienna's second prestige opera house but, after 1929, it focused its repertoire on light opera. After the Second World War, the Volksoper Wien became the alternative venue to the devastated Wiener Staatsoper. In 1955 the Volksoper returned to its former role of presenting opera, operetta, and musicals.
Chacteristic of its presentations is the 2006-2007 season during which seven operettas will be staged. These include such favorites as Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow and The Count of Luxemburg and Johann Strauss II's The Gypsy Baron and Die Fledermaus plus two popular musicals, La Cage aux Folles and The Sound of Music and dance programs.
In September 2003, Rudolf Berger - former opera director at the Strasbourg Opera - became the company’s director, while Marc Piollet became musical director.
And I guess in closing I'll leave you all with the German lyrics to Edelweiß:
Edelweiß, Edelweiß,du grüßt mich jeden morgen,
Sehe ich dich, freue ich mich, und vergeß meine Sorgen.
Schmücke das Heimatland, schön und weiß, blühest wie die Sterne.
Edelweiß, Edelweiß, ach, ich hab dich so gerne.
Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me,
Small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me.
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.
Edelweiss, Edelweiss, bless my homeland forever.
Liebe,
Amanda
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