Bakker Bugle Blog Say it three times fast. In Luxembourgish.

3 September 2007

Re-decorating the Blog

Filed under: culture,dublin,travel — Will @ 18:44

No Labor Day holiday here! While Americans are BBQ-ing and watching baseball and all that American stuff, I’m going to play with the blog’s code. So, to distract you from the experimentation over here, Photo 12 aug 2007I invite you to look at the new photos posted on flickr. The first two days of our holidays with Cindy generated a lot of photos of Dublin and its environs.

I’m sure you’ll find them useful for planning your own holidays. Here, the volume of tourism dropped noticeably last week. Anita and I speculate about how the city will change. After all, we moved here at the start of tourist season! Our prognostications focus on the incoming students for the several universities. Will they replace the tourists in the city centre, who tend to be backpack-wearing youngsters anyway? Or will this place show an entirely different face?

29 August 2007

Ah, the Dubs

Filed under: dublin,ireland,sports — Will @ 21:09

Sunday, County Dublin’s gaelic football team lost to County Kerry. So Kerry will play Cork for the All-Ireland title on September 16th.

In the spirit of self-deprecation, here are a few jokes that require a basic understanding of Irish culture to understand. In the spirit of sadness at the Dub’s loss, I’ll give bonus points towards Commenter of the Week to commenters who kill the comedy by explaining the jokes. (Jokes courtesy the culchies at askaboutmoney.com.)

What’s the difference between a Dublin jersey and a school uniform??
You can see school uniforms in September.

Paul Caffrey, Dubs manager, was arrested last night after vandalising a cigarette machine. He replied by saying he was in a bad way for 20 players!!

What is blue and navy and goes beep, beep, beep?
The Dubs’ bus reversing back into the garage.

What do you call a Dublin man with an all Ireland medal?
An antique dealer!

What I find remarkable is that County Dublin comprises almost 20% of the population of the island. Many of the 32 counties have less than a tenth of that population. Croke Park, the site for the All-Ireland contests, is in Dublin (although it is not Dublin’s home stadium). Yet Dublin is relatively unsuccessful in both football and hurling.

The Bakker Bugle staff are engaged in a long-term research project to determine the cause for this anomaly. We hope it will bring insights to similar oddities in American sport.

24 August 2007

Up the Dubs!

Filed under: dublin,sports — Will @ 18:25

Dublin’s football team will face Kerry in the semi-finals of the All-Ireland Football Championship, Sunday.

In Ireland: “soccer” means soccer. “Football” rarely means soccer, although it can. “Football” can also mean American football, but very rarely. In most cases, “football” means GAA (Gaelic Athletic Assocation) football, which is like a faster, less tackle-y form of rugby, played with a volleyball. Except when “football” refers to Australian Rules, which was even more confusing back when teams from Ireland and Australia would play each other. Recently, it seems, the difference over the linguistics of “football” lead to a game called “donnybrook,” which is (incidentally) a district of Dublin and a town in Australia. Anyway, Irish GAA football teams do not play Australian football teams, although players from Irish GAA football teams occasionally go to Australia to play professionally. All clear?

The Dublin County football team‘s colors are dark blue and light blue, and those colors have served as a casual uniform for Dubliners for about a month now. dublinnewcrest.png(The formal uniform is a fluorescent yellow safety jacket; more on that at a later date.) I didn’t know that there were so many variations on a blue striped collared shirt. Houses are festooned with the checkerboard of blues, especially on the northside.

There’s no chance of getting a ticket. But if we’re not busy after the Tour of Ireland passes through our neighborhood, we’ll probably go to a pub to watch the game. Dublin are the underdogs, so this should be fun.

14 August 2007

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Filed under: dublin,ireland,travel — Will @ 20:41

Cindy’s been here for six days, and we’ve seen a tremendous number of new things. Thursday and Friday, Cindy and I biked all over Dublin. Each time, I planned to visit place that was familiar to me. Each time, Cindy asked that we explore more — mostly because she knew that we needed to take advantage of the sunny weather. And so, I went lots of new places, too.

We were especially surprised by our adventure along the Great South Wall. We could see that there was a trail leading toward the Poolbeg power station, whose two smokestacks are the tallest Dublin landmarks. The trail was part of the Irishtown Nature Park and went much further out into the Bay than we expected. But the real surprise was the road that led even further. We’d found the Great South Wall, and it looked inviting.

It was bumpy. Very bumpy. The informational sign said that it was built without mortar, and my bouncing bike seat — not to mention bruised buttocks — confirmed that fact. But the view was spectacular, and although the wall was man-made, we felt like we were venturing into little-known territory. Cindy seemed exhilarated, and I hope it helped her feel like she has a special link to Dublin.

9 August 2007

B.B. B&B open for business

Filed under: dublin,ireland,travel — Anita @ 13:16

The Bakker Bugle Bed and Breakfast is officially open for business! We checked in our first guest today: Cindy Smith, my wonderful mother. She braved her first international flight with no issues or concerns. She flew out of O’Hare on Aer Lingus (motto: you’ve never seen green quite like our uniforms) and landed here in Dublin at 5:40 this morning, with two large suitcases full of love (and products) from the States.

Cindy is going to be here with us for two weeks, until 22 August. You can look forward to more stories about the American tourist in Dublin and the adventures the three of us have.

3 August 2007

Fallow Deer in Phoenix Park

Filed under: dublin,entertainment — Will @ 16:46

I think we had a proper summer week. There wasn’t much rain at all. It was even humid today! It felt like a late June day in Chicago, although the high was 71° F with 88% humidity. I guess I’ve adjusted.

I have a standard exercise ride — to and through Phoenix Park. I discovered a hill today that I couldn’t finish without dismounting, so now I have a goal on my standard ride.

Here’s the real story: I happened across a small group of the Park’s fallow deer.Fallow Buck from RTE There were two bucks with antlers just like the photo here. There were three or four smaller deer — whether juveniles or does, I don’t know. They were all tagged on their ears.

I was awestruck. I didn’t even stop to think. The two bucks ran in different directions. Their loping run is even more graceful when they have a large set of antlers that move up and down much less than their bodies. It’s been several hours, but I’m still struck by the memory.

I was biking along a road through a little-used part of the Park, southwest of the Papal Cross. It’s not as quiet as other parts of the Park, because it’s close to the River Liffey and the traffic noise from the roads that run alongside it. But now I think I’ll return often.

Nothing routine about my life in Dublin so far, even when I try!

I don’t know much about deer. For those who know and care more than me, here’s a few links. (No, you can’t shoot them, even with a bow.)

30 July 2007

Let’s Go to the Mall!!

Filed under: dublin,expat — Anita @ 8:24

On Saturday, we ventured out of the city and headed south into the suburbs. Will wanted to go to a specific bike shop and we needed to get some groceries. Will did some searching and found a spot with several stores that we wanted to go to. Turns out – it was a Mall!

Let’s Go to the Mall: #1 in Canada, 1993 This was the first time we had been to a more “American” shopping center, unlike back home when we went to the shopping center every Saturday morning. It started to rain when we arrived, so we spent a couple of hours wandering around, looking at the stores and seeing what was available. One major difference is most malls also have a large grocery store as one of the anchors. So we were able to get a storage container for the guest bedroom, a curtain for the living room and our groceries all in one stop.

While we love our city living, it was enjoyable on a rainy afternoon to wander around, killing time at the mall.

Video still courtesy Robin Sparkles.

20 July 2007

Our street in U2 video

Filed under: dublin — Will @ 10:05

The video for U2’s “The Sweetest Thing” was filmed in 1998. The video consists of a horse-drawn carriage ride down Fitzwilliam Street, heading northeast from the intersection with Leeson Street. In other words, it’s right through our neighborhood. And it’s a pretty good representation of what it feels like to go down that street today. (Well, without the marching bands and elephants most days.)

YouTube has the video. In that version, Bono passes closest to our home right after the banner that reads “I’m Really Sorry” at about 1:56. The next thing you see, behind the violinists on the flatbed truck, is Fitzwilliam Square, the private park across from our place.

The video doesn’t get much past that. I bet they chose to film down our section of Fitzwilliam Street because further down, you get to Merrion Square and the ESB building. Although Merrion Square is more famous, the ESB building breaks up the architectual impact of all those Georgian residences.

Another YouTube video: biking down Fitzwilliam. For sensitive viewers, beware the Blair-Witch camera work.

19 July 2007

Good Thursday Morning

Filed under: dublin — Will @ 11:25

I saw beautiful, sunny skies as I helped Anita out the door this morning. One must seize the sun when one finds it, so I decided to take another fitness ride as soon as possible.

I found a better way to get to Phoenix Park, and the rush-hour traffic was less intimidating than I’d thought. I saw another stunning part of the Park, and watched the rainclouds come over the Wicklow Mountains. I beat the rain home.

Good morning!

The new way to the Park takes me along the Grand Canal. On my way back, I saw two unusual boats making their way slowly down the canal. One was essentially a giant push-broom for the water’s surface. It skimmed the trash and the loose weeds along the grassy sides of the canal.

The other boat took a little time to figure out. It had one motorized blade poking just above the water. The blade looked like an oversized hedge-trimmer. When the boat passed, I saw that there was a second blade, well below the surface, so that the two blades made an inverted T-shape. So I guess that this boat was clearing the center of the canal of snags.

I’ll have to take photos of the boats someday. Always something new…

18 July 2007

Our first visitors

Filed under: dublin,entertainment,expat — Anita @ 21:03

Settling into our lives in Dublin has been a long (but fun) process since Will arrived. One of the fantastic parts about living in Dublin is how often colleagues from work have a reason to be in our city. Our first visitor was my former co-worker and friend, Jenny. Jenny had a conference the last week of June and she made sure to let us know that she was in town. We arranged for me to pick her up on my way home from work and bring her to the city centre. It was awesome to see her – she got to see our messy apartment and go to some of our favorite pubs with us. Since it was a Wednesday night, we were all very well behaved.

Which leads me to our next visitor, my friend Merle. Merle happened to be in Dublin over a weekend, so she joined our traditional Friday happy hour. Every Friday, Will, my co-worker Kathryn and I stop at a pub to call an end to the week and signal the start of the weekend. Merle was a welcome addition to our crew. We explored several establishments in the city that were new to us, which allowed us to extend our normal happy hour into an evening of … celebration! Kathryn’s boyfriend met up with us, so we were a happy group of five, enjoying some of the best sites Dublin has to offer.

I may be getting a bit too old to enjoy all the best sites Dublin has to offer. At least all in the same night.

Here’s a special thanks, to Jenny and Merle, for taking the time out of their busy trip schedules to spend some time with us. We enjoyed seeing you and we can’t wait for you to come back!

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