Category Archives: You Are Here

Questions of geography.

Before Midnight, Part II

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Photo courtesy © Berlinale

Once again, somewhere in the world, audiences are seeing that movie I really want to see.

Before Midnight had its European premiere tonight at the Berlin Film Festival. In reality, the film is already over and they’re all talking about it at the theater’s bar. It was some event called the Presentation of European Shooting Stars 2013, and I really, really, really wanted to go.

Really. I tried to buy a ticket online. They went on sale at 9am Friday morning, and I was at my laptap promptly at 9am. I went through a 30-second pop-up “waiting room” window twice, and when I finally thought I had booked a ticket, I was denied. Then I saw on the programme page that the event was sold out.

I would have gone, too. I was trolling LastMinute.com for hotel deals within a kilometer of the theatre and scoping out Berlin travel sites. I haven’t been anywhere since Christmas and was looking forward to a quick getaway.

It’s definitely for the best. I really can’t afford the jet-set lifestyle right now, and as badly as I want to, I don’t need to skip any more classes.

What gets me is that the festival had a massive spoiler about the film in its programme. I say massive, although they really just gave away part of the set-up, but if you’re familiar with the story at all, you know that giving away the set-up of one of these films basically steals nine years’ worth of magic from the audience. I can also see a review up online, but I only read the subheading, which contains a slight criticism that really could apply to any of the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight films.

You can probably expect another of these posts when Before Midnight plays at South by Southwest. My boyfriend has offered to sneak in with a video camera, but that is generally frowned upon at film festivals.

UPDATE: Of course, the film’s stars were in Berlin tonight.

Madam President

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20130114-233130.jpgTonight, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson spoke on campus about her life and her career.

NIUG is set to receive her archives, minus the reproductive rights hate mail she received in the 70s, which her husband destroyed.

She made a very good point about Ireland’s status in developing countries, how having the Great Famine in the cultural DNA helps the Irish empathize with those who are still suffering today.

Hello, Again

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Been a while.

School started today, but I don’t have class on Mondays this semester, so back to the grind tomorrow.

Tonight, a new night-time soap opera set in Galway, Deception, premiered on the telly. I read about it in the Advertiser (which had a cameo on the show itself!) and made risotto (a recipe also from the Advertiser) and sat down to watch.

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Neither one was great. There’s definitely room for improvement [insert joke about one lacking cheese and the other having too much].

Travelling and Writing and Traveling

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Back in Galway again, after two weeks of traveling the British Isles. Feels good to be… home?

A decade ago, when I was on my London semester abroad, I took a course called Traveling and Writing. It was more or less a writing workshop where we shared personal essays about our experiences in a new culture.

I didn’t have a laptop at the time, so I would always type my papers in the computer lab of the study abroad office. We were in central London, so all the computers were set to British English, not American English. Spellcheck behaved a bit differently:

American English = Traveling

British English = Travelling

For an entire semester, I turned in essays for my Traveling and Writing class with a heading that included my name, the date, and the name of the course: Travelling and Writing. I actually became convinced that was how traveling was spelled, which took a while to unlearn once I got back home.

I have been thinking about that combination a lot over the past two weeks: Traveling and Writing or even Travelling and Writing. We’re in the middle of finals at school right now, but because all my finals are 5,000-word essays, and the appeal of a writing career is that one can do it anywhere, I decided to take this show on the road and write one of my essays whilst travelling (“whilst travelling” – doubly British).

It worked. I missed out on some stuff, but we planned the trip accordingly and with my writing habits in mind (performs best under a deadline). I really wouldn’t mind a life of Traveling and Writing.

Indulge Me

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The plan is to get my long-dormant Flickr account up and running again so I have somewhere to put all the photos I’ve been taking during my postgrad year abroad (and I have been taking them – I promise).

For now, though, I just want to share a few photos of the Antrim coast. I have long held the belief that the Glenns of Antrim are home to the most beautiful scenery on the planet. Some people like rocks and desert; some people love the sun and sandy beaches. Me, I like trees and the ocean, so the pretty coast of Northern Ireland is my idea of heaven. I first visited eight years ago, and immediately fell for the Glenns of Antrim, nine valleys that run along the northeastern coast of the island. I was almost scared to come back, because I’ve built it up so much in my mind, but nope – still beautiful.

These photos will not do justice to the scenery because 1) I have little-to-no photography skills and 2) the bus never actually stopped in the Glenns, which are the best part of the coastline, in my humble opinion. But here are a few shots of the more touristy destinations, just as a taster.

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Look at that orb! So cool, and such an accident!

“At least I have a chocolate waffle in my pocket.”

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So our stay in Belfast was a comedy of errors, which included two nights in the world’s worst hostel, an overpriced meal at the world’s worst Tex-Mex restaurant (to be fair, we should have known better), and essentially walking straight past a Loyalist protest that made the front page the next day in favor of the Christmas market where I bought the waffle mentioned in the title of this blog post (and pictured in that terrible blurry photo). The waffle-in-pocket quote, an empty snug at the famous Crown Saloon, and a fantastic meal at The Potted Hen were the high points in Belfast, a beautiful city that we did not get to appreciate fully.

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Glasgow didn’t start off much better, as our hotel reservation, booked through a third-party service online, was not handled properly. In between dealing with that and doing laundry at the lovely Cotton Fresh laundromat on Paisley Road West, we didn’t get to see much of Glasgow proper. We were also a little disappointed with our hotel, which was not the three-star we had been promised, and cost a lot more than we had planned because of the reservation snafu.

Then, when we set out for a walk to try and find free wi-fi, we discovered the coolest place, directly across the street from our hotel. The Glasgow Climbing Centre is AN OLD CHURCH THAT HAS BEEN REFURBISHED WITH CLIMBING WALLS and has a lovely little cafe (with free wi-fi) located “at the top of the spiral staircase.” Suffice to say, I love this place. I’ve only been rock climbing once, and it was a terrible experience at a gym in Texas, but I am so glad the Glasgow Climbing Centre let us sit in their cafe (The Balcony) on a rainy Thursday afternoon and chill out for a spell. Completely redeemed Glasgow for me… possibly rock climbing as well.

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The Final Frontier

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My boyfriend and I were once sitting in front of the TV at home, and he was talking on the phone to one of his friends, who was also sitting in front of the TV at home with his girlfriend.

My boyfriend overheard his friend say to his girlfriend: “So, babe, are we gonna watch some Star Trek or what?”

To this day, we still refer to that as the smoothest line in all of romantic history.

20121203-135829.jpgWe had something of a Star Trek theme running through our weekend in Dublin.

On Day One, Saturday night, we arrived in Dublin on the last train. We checked into our hotel in Merrion Square, and I switched on the TV to see JJ Abrams’s 2009 Star Trek playing. My boyfriend and I saw this movie in the cinema with his mother, who had grown up watching Star Trek every day after school. She knew the name of each character as soon as they arrived on screen.

20121203-135841.jpgYesterday, after our Perfect Irish Sunday, we caught a 3D screening of Rise of the Guardians at the Savoy on O’Connell Street. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, but we had to sit through the credits to figure out who all the voices were (Alec Baldwin as Santa Claus? That was a surprise.) When we saw Chris Pine as Jack Frost, I’ll admit we didn’t know who that was, until I imdb’ed him when we got back to the hotel. We first saw him as “one of the skinheads” in Smokin’ Aces from 2006, but of course, he’s most known for his role as James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise in the 2009 film Star Trek.

Finally, today, Monday, we’re catching the train out of Connolly Station to Belfast. We found out that passengers en route to Belfast have their own special waiting room, and the train is a different model than the one that goes to Galway. It’s name? The Enterprise.

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Mall + Library

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20121203-110854.jpg20121203-110841.jpgWe tried to get up early and go to the National Leprechaun Museum this morning, but the the tour schedule didn’t mesh with our travel plans, so we just bought some leprechaun gold from the machine out front.

Since we had some free time, I wanted to check out something I’d seen in passing on a previous visit to Dublin.

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Basically, there’s a public library inside a shopping mall. I think this is genius, and really fascinating. As a former mall rat, I really could have used an arrangement like this.

20121203-110122.jpgWe were both surprised to find every possible seat full – with jobseekers, I’m guessing – so I found a shelf to browse while my boyfriend started reading a book about war.20121203-110138.jpgI kept returning to this German edition of Skippy Dies.

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It was a box set of three paperback volumes, which is not how I read Skippy Dies, but is actually very loyal to the story and the structure of the book.

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I suppressed the urge to pocket this handy little bookmark, which introduces all of the major characters (in German!), and left it in the case for the next reader – which should count as my good deed for the day, because it was really difficult for me.