2011 for us was an interesting year. We played host to quite a few guests, mostly in the summer months, and returned home for the first time in a couple years for Diane’s brother’s wedding. There was a fair amount of uncertainty for us though as the future of my employer hung in the balance after some rather shocking revelations. More on that later. Here’s a month by month breakdown of the events of 2011 for us.

Sunny St Anton

January
We kicked off January by attending our friend Jay’s birthday party which was took the form of ‘pub golf’. In this pub crawl format, you are put on a team and given a score card that instructs your team to drink a particular set of drinks at each venue. Your team is scored for the number of sips it takes to down the chosen beverages. So for example a ‘hole’ might have 2 pints of beer to drink with a par of 10 sips. Needless to say, the competitive nature of people made for some interesting strategies. Diane and I joined the party halfway through for the ‘back nine’ and people were already quite drunk from the first part. Much fun was had by all.

January’s highlight trip though was the ski trip to St Anton which was the only thing I really blogged about for 2011. So for details you can go read that trip report.

All Ireland Hurling Championships

February
There was a bit of holiday hangover after skiing in Austria. The one trip I did get away for was a weekend trip to Nottingham to play a poker tournament there. The weekend included not just the tournament, but also a trip to see the Nottingham Panthers play hockey and witness the epic Hummus prop bet in which a friend of ours attempted to eat two liters of hummus in an hour (he failed).

March
Our first two-time visitor aside from our parents was Jess, who arrived in town in time for St Paddy’s day this year. Like the previous year we decided to go to watch the Hurling and Gaelic football. The next day, we went out to watch the Irish women’s rugby team face off against England for the women’s six nations championship. Ireland wasn’t victorious, but it was a pretty fun night out.

Another poker tournament weekend also happened in March, this time in Manchester. As a happy coincidence, Epica was playing a show while I was there so I picked up a ticket to see one of my favourite bands.

Delain in Concert

April
On April 15, the online poker world was collectively shaken by the announcement that the US DOJ seized the domains of the top 3 US facing online poker sites. With some hefty criminal charges levied at the owners of these sites, the day has been labeled ‘Black Friday’. The aftershocks of this day have yet to be totally determined, but suffice to say it made things pretty interesting work-wise for the rest of the year.

A week later, Diane and I headed to London to catch the Serenity / Delain show there. It was the first time we were there on our own: previous trips there had been with our parents on each side. So we spent a leisurely weekend there on our own seeing a few sights (St Paul’s Cathedral, and the Science museum).

May
Diane went back to Canada a couple weeks earlier than I did to help with the preparations for her brother’s wedding. In that between time, I made another trip to a poker tournament in Cork, Ireland in which one of my colleagues made a very deep run. He ended up finishing 2nd which was a pretty awesome result. I also got offered a ticket to see the Kings of Leon when they played at Slane castle. The ticket was a VIP one which meant we got to stay away from the gigantic pack of people. It was a fun concert to go to.

Dragonfly at Eric's Wedding

June
I joined Diane in Edmonton for a three week long trip. While there, we caught up with friends and family which made the three week period pretty packed of activity. Diane’s brother Eric got married in a lovely outdoor ceremony. We also paid a visit to my grandparents in Rimbey which was a nice trip out of Edmonton for a day.

Jacqueline and Rick were our next visitors just a week after we returned so a week of hanging out with them and showing them the sights was in order.

At the end of June a second blow to the company after black friday was dealt when the Alderney gambling control commission pulled the company’s license. This blow would mean the company lost its only revenue source and would result in a several months of uncertainty about how long I would retain a job. While this issue has yet to be resolved even today, things are looking quite a bit better now so the uncertainty that plagued the rest of the year is almost gone. It definitely made its mark though on the rest of year for us.

The other happening in June was I eeked out a victory in an internet based hockey pool. You can see my name atop this year’s NNPT here although that link will probably only be good until the playoffs start up again next year. Unfortunately the title is all I get for beating out 126 other registrants in this pool, but it is still pretty cool to win something like this.

Mike, Nolan, and I

July
June was a pretty hectic month, which meant that July was going to be relaxed just as a way of cooling down from the constant busy-ness. Still, we had yet more visitors: Mike and Nolan stopped by on their tour of Europe after a conference in Spain. They were only in town for a few days though as they moved on to London. But while they were here we took them to Glendalough. I also joined them at the Guinness storehouse before heading on to hang out with one of the competitors in the computer poker competition and his prof for dinner.

August
We went out one night in August to cheer on Ireland against Croatia in a ‘friendly’ football match. The game ended in a 0-0 draw, and was a reminder to me of how dull that particular sport is to watch for me. Of the sports that people enjoy over here I much prefer rugby – it just feels so much more exciting.

UKIPT Dublin

September
There was a big poker tournament in Dublin this time and a whole bunch of our group went to play. My boss ended up with a deep run finishing 2nd overall for a nice payday. Another friend of ours also made the final table and finished 4th, so it was a pretty exciting to watch from the rail.

Our friend Kepi was our next visitor. On one weekend we took him up to Derry and to see the giant’s causeway which was a nice trip.

At Diarmuid's Wedding

October
Soon after Kepi departed, Rebecca and Scott were our next visitors. Their visit coincided with a couple of leaving parties and stag parties that I was invited to, but we still managed to squeeze in a trip out west to Galway and Kylemore Abbey one weekend.

My line manager also got married in October. The festivities were held at Clontarf castle on the North end of Dublin. A muchly enjoyable evening.

November
Two events in November conspired to draw me back to North America within a week of each other: the first was the world series of poker main event, in which Sam Holden had made the final table. We met Sam during some of the poker tournaments we played in England and Ireland. A large group was headed over to Las Vegas to support him, and I thought it would be fun to hang out but had a little trouble justifying the trip on its own. The second event was my friends Curtis and Simone were getting married just a week later. After some deliberation I decided to book the flights: a few days in Las Vegas followed by a few more in Edmonton.

WSOP November Nine

Las Vegas is a crazy town. While I enjoy playing poker, it really is a ridiculous place. Still, being there for the main event final table was a pretty cool experience. It’s a shame Sam was the first eliminated from the final table – it would have been amazing for him to go deeper yet. Still, the trip wasn’t without its story value. The night I arrived I got there just in time for the big group going out for dinner at a brazilian bbq restaurant called “Texas to Brazil”. The place serves all you can eat beef/lamb/pork/chicken in various cuts served directly to your table on gigantic skewers. After eating way too much at dinner and entirely jetlagged we returned to our hotel where we ended up playing a poker tournament there which I eventually won a few hours later. The rest of the Vegas trip was quite fun. We went and saw Blue Man Group one night, and also had probably the best Sushi I’ve ever had in a place called Sen of Japan.

I then flew on to Edmonton for a few days of seeing some family and a few friends. Curtis’ wedding was quite fun, especially the time I spent catching up with my University buddies.

December
It’s been a pretty quiet December. There’s been a couple of small Christmas gatherings and an evening where I went to see Leinster play against Bath in rugby, but other than that it has been a time to relax.

That about does it for my review of 2011. As always, I’ll leave you with some of my favourite photos from the year (many of them not yet uploaded until now!). I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and all the best for 2012!

A Night Out

England v Ireland

Up and Up

Tables Set

Wedding Ceremony

Celtic Cross

Northern Coast

Causeway HDR

The Giant's Armchair

Hexes from the Water

Green and Blue

Kylemore Abbey

Where did it go?

I spent it here in the apartment, at the farm down the street, around town, around the island, around the other islands, and on the continent.

The beginning of January found us back in Ireland after spending last Christmas in Barcelona. The end of that month found us on a train to Belfast, to enjoy Giants’ hockey and Cathedral Quarter red ale. Water pipes froze and burst, and people had issues driving and flying. It was just another winter to gently acclimatize the island for the winter to follow.

In February, a group of us went on a ski vacation to Mayerhofen in Austria for a week to enjoy good food, good company, sauna, steam, and snow! Not to mention TV coverage of the winter Olympics and post-ski trip Gold Medal hockey and pizza. It was so enjoyable that we may have to make the pilgrimage again this year.

March and April saw the lambs born and me planting up my little allotment in Airfield, thanks to the generous head gardener. The produce that eventually made it to relative maturity was quite expensive to produce: 50 euro plus gifts and trades, and about 10 hours for approximately 5-10 lbs of beets, 2-3 lbs tiny little onions, 5-7 lbs potatoes (pulled early as I was too lazy to spray for blight), various herbs, way too much rhubarb, one carrot, and some leeks that are currently in the plot at their peril. I think I’ll do balcony tomatoes from seed again – ‘Gardener’s Delight’ are the bestest! The lettuces were a win though – cheap and long-lived – I got quite a few very tasty salads out of them. I also had a little strawberry patch that brought me a disproportionate amount of joy upon finding one juicy red treasure.

March also contained two trips up to Ashbourne RFC for some hot port and Six Nations women’s rugby: I got some pics of the ‘Ireland v Wales’ and ‘Ireland v Scotland’ games. And fans under umbrellas with warm drinks!

Lots of our friends came out to see my first spring concert with Dublin County Choir downtown. We did Beethoven’s ‘Mass in C’ and Rossini’s ‘Stabat Mater’, plus the world premier of the Magnificat one of our basses wrote in Irish. :) Before the concert I was fed dinner at one of my favourite restaurants. During the break I got a text from Jenny saying that her rugby team had won their division final! And afterward I had a pint and a few more songs with the choir crew. Hard to top that, but I’m excited for it again this year.

The spring and summer were absolutely gorgeous in Dublin this year! May was just lovely. It started out with a long weekend trip with my exit buddy around the ring of Kerry with stops at Killarney National Park, Muckross House, Torque Waterfall, some lovely restaurants and B&Bs, and as luck would have it, a walk on Skellig Michael on a warm, sunny day.

June was a very busy month indeed. We were in Prague for our second anniversary, visiting Morgan’s parents and cousins. There was a weekend in London with Morgan’s folks, strolling around St. James’ Park and Hampton Court. At the end of the month we travelled up to Donegal for the Sea Sessions music festival and a few mornings of surf lessons. Bundoran was the place to be that weekend. The ruggers were there in fancy dress, doing what they do best. The bands were battling. The surf was… salty!

During the summer, I fell in with some hill walkers through a choir friend, and thus got to experience parts of Wicklow I would never have otherwise seen. They are lovely and helpful and welcoming; if only you have a sturdy pair of hiking boots, bring water, a snack and maybe some rain gear, boy do I have a hook-up for you! I think the camera is going to have to come along for the next round of walking. Relative to the spike in photography interest last spring/summer, progress has definitely been slow, and since Morgan has a fancy new camera body, that should pick up again in the coming months.

At the end of August, my mom came over to Dublin and we were to be found somewhere around these isles throughout September and into October. We saw Riverdance and ANUNA while in Dublin, spent a day seeing the old passage tombs at Newgrange, and went kayaking in Howth harbour. Our UK road trip took us over on the ferry from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead, through north Wales, through the Peaks, to York, across the Dales to the Lakes, then down to Warwick, Bath, and back to Wexford via the south of Wales. I will make this new year’s resolution: I will create a separate post for all you adventurers to consult should your future path cross that of my past.

And the traveling wasn’t quite over! My dear friend Celine very kindly had us to stay with her in Switzerland, and we ate some very tasty noms: fondue, sausage, confections, and chestnuts that we gathered ourselves. I’m also completely spoiled by the local wine. My wine life will never be the same. And I love to meander around with Morgan, enjoying a bit of scenery. Also, would recommend the Olympic Museum in Lausanne and CERN in Geneva. Celine even came over to Dublin for a few days of rain and wind and excursions that did not nearly compare to our adventures in Vaud. Please come back in the summer, Celine!

Then teh travellingz slowed down and the only other places we went were over to Newcastle to see Joanna and catch a soccer game, and Glasgow and Aviemore to see Brasstronaut.

Once home, I decided it was finally time to join the Belvo rugby gals, so I signed up and started showing up for the Tuesday/Thursday night training sessions. My first game was down the road in Arklow, and though I only played half of it, I got muddied right away and had a few plays I felt alright about. Jenny thinks it’s funny that because the development team (that’s me) trains with the first division squad, we tend to do little things well, like ball presentation, but we’re not great at the basics, like running and passing and scoring. :) Most of the time, I just stand around trying to figure out what’s going on. And whenever the other team gets the ball and scores, I like to congratulate them for the hard work and dedication I can’t be bothered to muster. Don’t worry, though, the girls are teaching me, slowly but surely.

Other than that, I’ve been enjoying my two mornings a week on the farm, visits with the girls, outings with the groups, games with the boys. Pigs. Cows. Picnics. Tea. Beersbieques. Yoga. Monday/Wednesday choir, Tuesday/Thursday rugby. Gardening. Laundry. Eating. Sleeping. Karl has very kindly given me a loan of his viola and I have discovered that it is quite impossible to play, let alone hold properly. I’ve done a few bits with the choir committee and made a lot of cookies to take along to the farm. I’ve been to the Mill Theatre and the movies a few times. And the pub lots of times! Apart from that, it’s gone from the season of frozen pipes and running out of hay, to the season of frozen pipes and running out of hay, and life goes quite pleasantly on.

Diane

Our plan in 2010 was to try and do a bunch of trips. Since we returned home twice in 2009, we decided that we’d skip doing so this year. Instead, our plan was to try and do a bunch of trips in Europe to see some of the continent we found ourselves on.

Belfast Giants

After getting back from Barcelona over Christmas though, we spent a couple weeks relaxing at home and getting to know 2010. Near the end of the month, a group of us went up to Belfast to witness the Giants ice hockey team play against the Nottingham panthers in the British Elite League. Yes, us hockey-starved Canadians had to find the nearest place where they played just to get a fix. It was a fun group – a good ten of us at least headed up for the trip.

Skiing in Mayrhofen

In February, we went to Austria for a full week of skiing in Mayrhofen. A large group of 8 of us enjoyed some amazing skiing, some good food and the Austrian atmosphere. The trip coincided with a good portion of the winter olympics in Vancouver, so many nights were spent out at bars watching some of the events — and of course we needed to stay up late to watch several of the team Canada hockey games! It was an awfully fun trip.

For St Patrick’s day this year, we decided to skip the parade and instead watch some Hurling and Gaelic Football. On St. Patrick’s day, the all Ireland finals are played out in both sports so we decided to go and see what these sports to have to offer. Hurling is a crazy game … and it was a pretty good spectator sport. Players run up and down the field balancing the ball on their hurling sticks before swatting the ball large portions of the field in an attempt to split the uprights at the other end. Gaelic football, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as enjoyable to watch IMO. Seemed like a weird cross between football (soccer) and hurling.

Little Skellig

For the May bank holiday weekend, Diane and I hopped in the car for an Irish road trip down to the Ring of Kerry. We had some absolutely gorgeous weather, and took full advantage by not just doing the main Ring of Kerry loop, but also climbing up the Skelligs. These rocky outcroppings several miles off the coast of South-West Ireland were the home of monks centuries ago. Now, they are a tourist attraction with a fairly limited number of visitors per year. We were lucky to get a spot – the high season wasn’t quite there yet where people have to book weeks or months in advance … and we really couldn’t ask for better weather than what we got!

Dad, In London

In June, my folks returned to Europe to see us and our Austrian relatives. Since they had seen a lot of Dublin already, we decided to meet up in Prague to do some sight-seeing there. We spent almost a week in +30ºC weather walking around almost exclusively the old town. There was a lot to see just there! The food was good, cheap, and the beer was cheaper than the water! A weekend later, we headed to London with my folks to spend a weekend there before they headed back to Canada. We spent the main day out at Hampton Court: a historic palace associated with King Henry VIII. The next day we spent just walking around central London seeing some of the main landmarks before Diane and I had to head down to Gatwick to return to Dublin. We cut it a bit close: we ended up having to run for it after checking into our flight!

A weekend later, a few of us returned to Bundoran for another go at surfing in the ocean. This being our 3rd and 4th days in the water, we were already beginning to notice an improvement. Our teacher even went so far as to teach us how to turn. I’m actually pretty surprised how much I enjoyed it. Our trip coincided with the Sea Sessions music festival which gave us some live music to go listen to in the evenings.

July kept us busy as well. We headed up to the “Woolshed Sports Baaa” which was throwing a Canada Day party with Canadian beer in the fridge. There was a few of us PocketKings Canadians in attendance which made it a lot more fun than it might’ve been on our own. A week later, the office summer party was staged to an unfortunate day of rain. Still, the day was quite fun, and despite the rain much fun was had by all. We were also visited in July by our friend Jess whom we showed some of the sights including a trip up to Howth. Our friend Bryce had a milestone birthday as well in July and we partook in a really fun photo scavenger hunt.

Natural History Museum

Late in August, Diane’s mom arrived for a visit that started in Dublin and continued on with her and Diane taking the car on a ferry over to England. I didn’t take part of the road trip as I had to work, but that trip was bookended by a trip to Newgrange (which I hadn’t done yet) and another trip to London to see her off. The highlight of this trip to London was the Natural History museum: an impressive building all on its own, with a large number of displays in its not-insignificant size.

Switzerland

Almost immediately after returning to Dublin we were back at the airport to fly to Geneva to visit with Diane’s friend Celine. We spent a week touring the vineyards and attractions surrounding Geneva lake. This was the kind of trip I had wanted to get blog posts up for, but I kinda ran out of time so I guess this detail will have to do. We stayed with Celine in her apartment in Lausanne: a drive of an hour or so around the lake from Geneva. On a couple days where we were on our own, we took the ferry along the lake to some of the charming towns along the lake, We visited the Château de Chillon: an old castle neighbouring the Swiss alps. Our host took us to sample several of the areas wines … the whole valley was covered in vineyards with ready-to-harvest grapes! We also enjoyed the local fondue, and went to a restaurant in the woods for some seasonal game. Delicious! To top off the trip, we went to Geneva to see CERN. The tour of this large science facility was well worth doing!

Just a few days after returning from Switzerland, we headed back to the airport for a trip with Aaron to see his brother’s band play in Scotland. We caught Brasstronaut’s Glasgow show on October 15, and then took the train up to Aviemore to see them play there on the 16th. The two shows were played in very different venues — which was pretty cool actually. The first was a club that reminded me a lot of the Starlight room back in Edmonton. A relatively small venue, but great for bands that wouldn’t necessarily be able to fill a large venue … and good atmosphere for it too. Aviemore is a small ski resort town much like Jasper. The town’s main road is lined with mountain equipment stores, and the population of it can’t be very high. The venue was a small pub, and was a great intimate atmosphere. Before leaving Scotland, we had a few hours to spend before flying back to Dublin so we sought out the Science museum in Glasgow which was quite good.

Brasstronaut

Whew. That was a lot of travelling! We returned home and rested up a bit. We played host to another friend, Maria, and also met up with our friend David in early November. Later that month, we headed over to Newcastle to visit a former coworker who had moved back home. Newcastle had just got a big dump of snow – which turned out to be a lot of fun: we had a fun snowball fight the first night between the pub and the nightclub. On the Saturday we spent some time walking around the city before heading out for a lovely dinner, some more drinks, and a few of us ended up at one of the local casinos to play some poker. On that particular evening, I ran about as good as you can at a cash game and cashed out a profit of nearly 400 pounds! The next day, after sleeping in a bunch, we headed out to see the Newcastle football team play a match against Chelsea. It was my first Premier league football match — and I’ll have to admit that even though I’m not a big fan of the sport it was a pretty fun game to watch.

The big news in December was two separate dumps of snow: the first coinciding with our trip to Newcastle, and the second one leading right up to Christmas. Both times, the city ground to a halt with the lack of snow tires and proper process to clear the snow in place. The airport was backed up, and even the LUAS was closed a couple days. Luckily, we hadn’t planned on going anywhere over Christmas in an attempt to save some holiday days for another ski trip. So we spent a very quiet holiday time at home. The company threw its annual Christmas party earlier on in the month. As usual, they pulled out all the stops on an evening that lasted until 7 in the morning for some of us. The food was excellent, and it was open bar all night long. Yeesh!

It has been a very good year — lots of good things happening, and all kinds of fun trips to go on. Hopefully we can fill next year with a bunch more fun trips.

Like previous years in review, I’ll leave you with some of my favourite photos from the year. Happy new year everyone!

Skellig Michael

Stone Circle

Silky Waters

Stormy

Hedge Window

Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly

Natural History Main Entrance

Beauty

Organized Lines

Château de Chillon Panorama

Hampton Court by Heraldk

Let’s try to catch you up on what we’ve been up to, shall we? After our Prague trip, we spent a weekend in London with my mom and dad. This might come as a surprise, but despite living just a one-hour plane trip from London for almost two years, we hadn’t yet spent any time there that wasn’t spent in the airport. So this was our first trip there to actually see anything there. We spent most of Saturday visiting the Hampton Court palace. It was a nice place to visit with a mix of architecture, art, history, and gardens.

The other day in London we mostly spent walking around central london. We walked around St. James Park, saw Buckingham Palace from the outside, saw the London eye, walked around in China town for awhile. It was a pretty nice weekend — not too fast paced but we still saw a bunch. On the way home, we almost missed our flight by slightly underestimating the time it would take to train it to Gatwick airport. Luckily, we didn’t need to check any bags, and a bit of stressful running through the airport found us at our gate before anyone had boarded yet.

Sea Sessions in Bundoran by Heraldk

The weekend after London we went up to Bundoran for surfing classes. That weekend, there was a big music festival on called “Sea Sessions”. So our weekend involved going to surfing lessons in the morning, and then heading to the festival to listen to some live music and enjoy some tasty beverages. The festival itself was kind of fun, although I didn’t really know any of the bands. Probably the highlight was the battle of the bands. There was some pretty talented bands there and I enjoyed most of their sets. It was also the second time we’d been up to Bundoran for surfing, and our 3rd and 4th lessons went pretty well. By partway through the last one, we were starting to figure out turning. Maybe with a few more lessons we’ll be pro surfers!

On Canada Day, a pub in town called the Woolshed threw a party that we decided to attend. They served molson canadian, moosehead, and sleemans at the bar (in bottles and cans), played the men’s and women’s gold medal hockey games from the most recent olympics on the televisions, and had a Canadian DJ playing tunes from Canadian bands like Great Big Sea, The Tragically Hip, Our Lady Peace, etc etc. It was pretty fun.

Hanging Out by Heraldk

One of our friends, Jess, arrived in Dublin for a few days. On the weekend, we went up to Howth to walk along the cliffs and see the market up there. We had a nice lunch there and watched the seals being fed in the harbour. It was a nice little visit.

The summer really flew by in a hurry!

Morgan

One of the weekly highlights of my winter has been singing up a storm at St. Tiernan’s School. There are two nights I’ve been attending. One is super relaxed and fun (and is starting up again in late September if you’ve been craving that singing fix– all are welcome!), and the other is a little more formal than I’ve experienced yet, with something like 130 members divided into official parts (I am serving with the 2nd altos).

I sang with this big choir in their Christmas concert and again last week in the Spring concert, both held at the National Concert Hall downtown by St. Stephen’s Green. On both occasions I’ve been privileged to share in bringing an original composition to life. Here below is a clip from the more recent one, a Magnificat* in Irish composed by my friend Brian from the bass section. It’s really cool to sing local composers, to meet them and get to know them, and then to be part of a group large enough to give considerable power to the notes they’ve written. Almost as cool as sitting in rehearsal again (after more than a decade away for me) and feeling the shivers up your spine when some passage really comes together. The concert itself was great too – nobody screwed up too badly except maybe me – and for those who couldn’t make it, I’m sure there will be another soon. And then you can come see where I’ve begun to lean my appreciation of Irish and Latin and old school musak.

So, once again, a great big thank you to everyone for their fanship and encouragement.
It makes it even more fun to prepare the songs when we have such a lovely audience!

Diane

Magnificat (Mórann m’Anam an Tiarna) by Brian Ingoldsby

*For those like myself who initially suspected the Magnificat to be something out of an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, it’s from Christian tradition; a psalm echoed by Mary: “My soul magnifies the lord…”
**Sorry, video uploads seem to be eluding me at present. The same clip is on the choir’s website, at the bottom of the “performances” page.

2009 wasn’t set up to be quite as crazy a year as 2008 was — after all, we had set up shop in Ireland already and didn’t have a life-changing schedule involving getting married and moving to another country! It wasn’t without its share of adventures, however. We had visits from several people in 2009, including both my family and Diane’s family, as well as several friends. These visits necessitated trips to various corners of Ireland, and served as good excuses to explore the island we’re living on.

January was a pretty slow month as we went through a fairly lengthy post-holiday case of procrastination. One of the only noteworthy events was we got our Irish learner’s licenses, which was one part of a saga which we needed to go through in order to legally drive our car. The other major part of that saga was a trip home to renew our Canadian driver’s licenses in February. Unluckily for us, delays caused by a week of snow in Dublin made us take 3 days and unplanned sleeps in Dublin and London before finally getting home.. That meant that we unfortunately missed the ski trip out with our friends that we had planned. Doh!

St Patrick's Day Parade

March and April flew by. The company was ramping up for one of the biggest releases we’ve ever made, and tensions were high for what turned out to be an amazingly smooth transition. So I guess I was pretty preoccupied with work. The big event of March though was St Patrick’s day — which is a national holiday here. We headed into town to watch the parade and joined several people after that for pints which lasted well into the evening. In April we made one foray to the Dublin Zoo, and that’s all I can remember!

Budapest Parliament

In May, we finally got out and headed to Budapest to visit my friend Mike. He was planning on applying to work at the company later that year so getting there before he left was high on our list of things to do. Budapest was an excellent time, and we were quite happy to enjoy the time with friends and the wonderful food (I think I really want some goulash now …).

Cliffs of Moher

My parents arrived for a long visit in June, so that was a crazy busy month. We took them out on weekend trips out West to see the Cliffs of Moher, and up North to see the Giant’s Causeway, and Diane took them all around the various day trips outside of Dublin that we had seen while I worked during the weekdays. My dad headed home earlier than my mom who stayed on for a couple more weeks — allowing for a short trip out to see the Hill of Tara and Trim Castle as well as a weekend trip to Brighton to visit some friends of my Mom’s there. It was a pretty packed month and a half, and by the end of it we needed a vacation from all the tourism!

In the latter half of July, my friend Mike was in town for his interview, we had an epic company summer party, and we caught one of three Irish tour dates for U2′s U2360 tour.

Sheep

At the start of August, our friend Bryce came for a visit of about two weeks. That caused us to organize another couple road trips on the weekends – the first out to Galway and the Aran islands, and the second a trip that Christine organized up to Bundoran to go … surfing! I had never been surfing before, and I never expected that Ireland was the place I’d get my first try. But hey, you never know what life’s gonna throw at you!

JR and Shelly Married

In September, we headed back to Canada for our JR and Shelly’s wedding. It was held in Jasper, which to us Edmontonians is a pretty special place to us. The weekend went beautifully, and we were very glad to have made it home for that trip. Apart from that, we used the trip home to catch up with as many family and friends that we could conceivably squeeze into a week and a half.

Just a week after Diane and I returned back to Dublin, Diane’s mom and sister arrived in Europe. Diane went over to meet them and they saw some of Britain before coming over to Dublin. The first weekend they were here, we grabbed Carolyn and headed off to Munich with Mike for a whirlwind trip to Oktoberfest. We were there for all of 12 hours, and returned to Dublin just 24 hours after we had left. It was a blast! I’m not too sure that I’m doing that again though. The second weekend of the visit, we took the car back up north again and saw the Giant’s Causeway and the Glens of Antrim.

Oslo Opera House

Gaudí Mosaic Roof

In November, we went to Oslo, Norway for a weekend which was a pretty fun trip. We followed that trip up with a busy December in which we went to the company Christmas party and then followed it up with a week-long trip to Barcelona! We rang in the new year at a small party with a couple of friends which was a lot of fun — and the big feature of the evening was the inch or so of snow that proceed to fall over the course of the evening.

It was a pretty packed year, full of more traveling than I think I realized. We spent several weekends driving around Ireland, and made trips to Brighton, Budapest, Munich, Oslo, and Barcelona. Oh yeah, two trips home to Canada as well! We sure flew a lot!

Happy New Year

To sum up this post, here are some of my favourite photos from this year:

Rhinos at the Dublin Zoo

Statue Sunset in Budapest

Dad on the Irish West Coast

Vibrant Waters Northern Ireland

Sissinghurst Tower

Elk in Jasper

Rugby Tackle

Cable Car up to Montserrat, Spain

Misty Tree on Montserrat

Candles at Montserrat

This year has been pretty cool for me, I must say. Sailing, surfing, feeding the sheep… finding new recipes, and then making them over and over… hosting visitors and meeting up with friends and family… giving in to the gardening itch with a few bulbs and seeds in pots… witnessing concerts and matches… most recently finding a choir to sing with as well as an informal “barbershop” group… and I just created a flickr account with two pictures. That’s right, two blurry pics rate the new year post: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quebarbarakan/

Massage school continued through most of February and exams were in April. I missed a few sessions when we went home to renew driver’s licenses and so on, but I’m now an ITEC qualified holistic massage therapist. I haven’t taken any classes since, though I’m pondering music instruction in the new year. I finished up the rest of a sailing class owed me from the previous year, and got up for a surf lesson in Donegal, which was really fun. It’s pretty great living near an ocean for a change.

Throughout March a crop of lambs was born at Airfield, and thus began my first serious foray into photography with Morgan’s lovely Canon schtuff. It’s all mine now, especially the zoomy 70-200mm lens, which I like to pretend is a macro. (Thanks dear!) Quite a few afternoons were spent on the grounds of the Airfield Trust taking pictures of flowers and animals after the morning feeding. The farm should really get a post of its own at some point, as I’ve been volunteering a few times a week feeding animals and watching seasons go by in the gardens.

Or at least, I’ve volunteered during weeks that visitors aren’t staying. Both our families have been, as well as a handful of adventurous friends. The spare room has been getting good use, and I do love the apartment, so we’ve decided to stay in it for this year as well. So come make our rent worthwhile by visiting us! Guests are always good for getting us out and about to discover new spots.

Though we always want to travel more, this year had its fair share of trips: Oktoberfest in Munich (and again in Dublin in similar company), Budapest, Oslo, Paris, York, Brighton, and other bits of England, and most recently Barcelona. I’ve revisited favorite places in town (shops, restaurants, museums), and favourite places on the island to the North and the West. I got to see my sister and her boyfriend perform in Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Iolanthe” in Vancouver, and see my friends get married on a beautiful day in Jasper, which totally made my trip, not to mention my year.

Around town there is always good company to be had. And pints. I’ve discovered language exchange at the library, cheered on the Belvo ladies rugby team (well, I don’t really yell much, I just take pictures and wonder when I should bite the bullet and play), gone walking in the hills, arranged lunch dates with the girls, and seen a bunch of great concerts downtown, including Serenity’s only tour date before their singer got sick. And being part of the human tsunami that hit Croke Park for U2. Dublin `09, baby! Also, a shout-out at this point to the “pocket queens” who’ve been keeping my spirits up: a happy new year to you wherever you are, and all the best to you wherever you find yourselves in the coming seasons!

Looking ahead to 2010 now, I plan to keep up with my newfound vocal groups and keep spending time at Airfield. I hope to do more blogging and sort out a bunch of the pictures and videos we’ve amassed into something for us all to enjoy. I want to keep taking pictures for sure. Same thing with knitting – hey, I can cast on and off now! Pretty good eh? Almost ready for scarves…

Diane

Us at the Christmas Party

Once again this year, we are happy NOT to be going home for the holidays. The last cold snap in Edmonton bottomed out at -46. It doesn’t even really matter Celcius or Farenheit at this point. It’s only positive in kelvin. So, our condolences to all the folks at home. We’ve had fun at the epic company Christmas party and good weather for travelling, and it’s off to Barcelona for Christmas!

Happy Christmukkah to those in warm places and cold!

Diane

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  Sugarloaf

  Company Summer Party: The company pulled out the stops for the summer party. We spent the day at the Ritz-Carlton hotel next to powerscourt gardens. Starting with an excellent BBQ, free booze, massages, climbing wall, trampolines and more. Later on, Republic of Loose played a private show for us (I’m led to believe a pretty popular Irish band). Then when it got dark, we went inside to see some belly dancers, followed by a chocolate fondue fountain, more booze, and dancing. All in all, a very fun day!

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  U2 in Dublin

  U2 Plays in Dublin: At the last minute, we scored tickets to one of the three shows U2 played at Croke Park in Dublin. By the time we picked up our tickets and found our seats, we had just missed the opening bands (one of which was republic of loose!), but U2 played a pretty awesome show on a kick-ass claw stage. There’s nothing quite like going to see one of the biggest rock bands in the world play a sold out show to over 60,000 people! Definitely an awesome experience.



Streets of Galway

• Galway trip with Bryce: A little while later, our friend Bryce Paradis came to visit us for a couple weeks which was really fun. On the long weekend, we headed out to Galway which sadly was a little rainy. Highlights from the trip though was the few hours we spent peddling our (electric) bikes around the Aran islands. On one side of the island there’s the ruins of an ancient fort called Aonghasa where you can look over the tall cliffs into the oceans for a fabulous view. In addition to showing Bryce around Ireland, we spent a few nights playing Castle Crashers on the xbox which was pretty fun.
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  Over the Hill

  Surfing in Bundoran: The second weekend Byrce was here, Christine organized a surfing trip to the west coast of Ireland. So the three of us drove out to Bundoran to join Aaron and Christine there. I had never been surfing before, but it was a mighty fun time. It’s really quite hard though! We went out both weekend days for a two hour session each day. The first day, I only got up on the board once, which felt awesome after getting smacked in the face for an hour and a half with meter tall salty waves! The second day was much better conditions than the first, and as a result I think everyone did better than the previous day! After our surfing, we headed on a short hike to see Slieve League — apparently some of the tallest ocean cliffs in Europe. Thanks to Christine for organizing such a great trip!
• Another Visitor: Diane headed back to Canada for a visit a couple weeks before I left, leaving me at home, but I was able to keep myself pretty busy. For one thing, my travel buddy Mike Smith (I’ve been in more countries with Mike than anybody else, although Diane’s going to pass him someday I imagine!), started work at Pocketkings at the end of August. Right as he started, his friend Frano from Winnipeg came to visit — a guy I had known back at University. So it was pretty fun to hang out a little in Dublin with yet another visitor!
• Back to Canada: Our good friends JR and Shelly were getting married at the beginning of September, so we made the trip back to Canada to catchup with friends and family. Diane was there for a little longer than I, so she might fill you in on what she got up to before I got there. I got in and tried to see as many people as I could — but unfortunately missed a few people I really wanted to see. Sorry to those people! The theme of our trip back? All the engagements that had happened! I can count no fewer than five newly engaged couples. Eesh. Congrats to all of you!
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  Elk

  Jasper in September: JR and Shelly’s wedding was lovely! We spent two nights in Jasper in the lovely Canadian Rockies. We ran around taking a lot of photos — at the ceremony, and then taking scavenger hunt photos around Jasper. They had some pretty fun ideas for contests. The scavenger hunt had us taking creative photos, and we ended up with some great ones (including this lovely Elk!). The reception was also really fun — it has been a long time since Diane and I got out on the dance floor. So congrats to you guys, and here’s to many years of happy marriage!
• Back in Dublin: Life didn’t slow down at all after returning to Dublin. Work has been absolutely nuts, and now we’ve got Diane’s mom and her sister in town to entertain (look at all the visitors we’ve had!). They’re in town for about ten days or so, and we’ve got some plans to head up to the Giant’s Causeway on the weekend. In the meantime, we made a short, wild trip to …
• Oktoberfest! That’s right. Mike, Carolyn, Diane and I got on a plane headed to Munich for a very short, but pretty fun trip to check out Oktoberfest. We took off from Dublin around noon on Saturday and arrived back just 24 hours later the next morning! I’ll have to type more about the trip later, but it was really quite fun, even with the insane schedule.

I’m trying to get this post done, so I cut things a little short. I’ll try and flesh it out a little with a couple more posts, but no promises! It’s going to be a busy few weeks here still!

Morgan

Here’s a summary so you know what to expect:

1. The Arrival: Malahide Castle
2. West Coast Road Trip: The Burren, and the Cliffs of Moher
3. Northern Ireland Trip: Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Giants Causeway
4. Little Road Trip: Trim Castle and the Hill of Tara
5. Off to England: A weekend in Brighton

That’s what I’ll be writing about, and hopefully catching up with uploading pictures (as of this moment, I’m finally almost through the west coast trip photos, so I’ve got a lot to catch up on still!). If Diane gets a chance, she can fill you in on the other stuff she took my parents to see while I was at work. There’s a fairly long list there too!

So … on to the posts!

Morgan