Download and print out your very own trading cards of the best Face Posters of Ireland 2009! Each PDF will be available for just a day or two, so be sure to check in frequently, so that you can…
Set One: Download the PDF today!
Anita and I so busy that we’re just now watching the Eurovision 2009 broadcasts from last week. (Fantastacular! Glorilicious!) Mostly, we’re preparing for the big move to Luxembourg in three weeks.
Today, we completed a task 18 months in the making: we bought a lovely painting from one of the regular exhibitors on Sundays at Merrion Square. We’ve strolled around the park at midday on dozens of Sundays, knowing that we would leave Ireland with a souvenir someday. (more…)
I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! …
Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. … For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.
Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, begins with a series of diary entries from the journal of one Jonathan Harker, who travelled to the Carpathian mountains to provide legal services for a certain Count Dracula. I humbly suggest that we follow him. (more…)
This week brought the return of Anita’s beloved “face posters,” the primary form of campaigning that we’ve noticed. These posters, of uniform size and a standard design, are attached to nearly every pole in the neighbourhood. Here are two examples near Baggot Street:
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The upcoming election (in Dublin) is for two levels of government: representatives to the local councils and to the European parliament. The newspapers lead me to believe that there is a close parallel between these elections and mid-term Congressional elections in the US. In both cases, the media and the parties take the results to indicate the popularity of the parties at the national level.
We announce, with both pride and sadness, that the Bakker Bugle B&B is fully booked through the end of its presence in Ireland. We will begin taking bookings for our new location in mid-summer 2009.
Here are two photos of the new location:
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Hello, friends! After a bit of a delay, the Bugle staff prepared another photo for your captioning virtuosity. Remember that your entries for one of Captions Six, Seven and Eight will be worth double-points.
The staff will award points for Caption Six in the next twenty-four hours, so contribute your best work to that post right now! Will says that the submissions so far are outstanding. Go Bugle Readers!
(We’ll also award a prize in the Guess the Number Taken!™ contest today. If you haven’t guessed yet, take a stab at it!)
So, we’re running about three months behind. (If you don’t count the unfinished Italy set.) But you better not complain! We used our four day Easter holiday weekend to catch up for you ungrateful gobshites!
The holiday in January was a full three days — County Donegal is a large and picturesque region, and we saw the city of Derry, too. (more…)
The Irish government presented its emergency budget for 2009 on Wednesday, and I’d picked up a newspaper to learn about it, after finishing some frivolous shopping. I was sitting outside a cafe, with coffee, reading that the changes would be hard on lower income residents of Ireland.
A women approached me to beg for spare change. I’d seen her around the area quite a bit. She didn’t recognise me, but that was no surprise. (more…)
No matter where you fall in the religious spectrum, you can get behind the Rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate — and that, quite frankly, is a bunny miracle that none of us want to examine too closely. 
We are in Ireland for our second Easter, so some of the subtleties of the season have become more apparent. (more…)
The staff had some fun on the first of this month, but our move to Luxembourg is no April Fool.
My work will take us from Dublin to Luxembourg City later this year. We will take the Bakker Bugle with us, and our beloved readers, of course. We’re excited about the move and, in the next month or two, we’ll find out more about where and when we’ll take up residence.
Will and I will be learning a new city and new languages. You’ll read about our adventures at our new home and all over Europe. Plus, the BBB&B will be open and accepting reservations as soon as possible.
This change is no fault of Ireland, of course. We have a long list of things we love about this island and its inhabitants, and an even longer list of things we’d like to do before we go. It is simply time to take new opportunities elsewhere. Thank you, Ireland, for your hospitality, for your good graces, and for letting us be part of this exciting place.
And thank you, dear friends, for being our patient audience for the past two years. Your support means the world to us. We are so glad that we can take you with us!
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