Filed under: St Paul
Last weekend we also went to the Hmong Market in St Paul. According to Wikipedia Hmong are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. There is a very large population of Hmong living in St Paul. We had never been to the Hmong Market before – but Lily got the idea. It is an interesting market. Speaking English is only so helpful at the market – as Patrick found out when he tried to order lunch from a menu. The rest of us pointed and picked obvious things – like spring rolls. The food was good but a little different. For example, the sticky rice was purple. It was still good but purple is kind of a strange colors for food.
The market has lots of food. I said the people from Chopped should be getting their secret ingredients here. Some were totally new to me. You could also get lots of clothes, medicine, toys, videos, cell phones. It was part flea market – although everything looked pretty new. Well unused anyways – some of the stuff looked as if it had been left on a shelf for a while. I’d say if you were from Laos and now lived in Minnesota you’d see lots of things you missed from home here.
Filed under: Minneapolis
I swear we have done more since we’ve been home but I just can’t remember it and/or have no photo proof. I must admit that even though I’m very glad to me home – things don’t seem as noteworthy here. And in fairness I have been working a ton – but we’ve been trying to get in some outings before school starts.
Last weekend we went to Minnehaha. First we had a fantastic lunch at Sea Salt. We had mussels, clam strips, shrimp and a bunch of other things that probably not all kids love – but we liked them all. The best thing about Sea Salt is that it’s all outdoor dining and we scored a great table with a sun umbrella. The funny thing was that the umbrella was bombarded by acorns the whole time. At one point Kate stretched out and she caught an acorn in the head; that sort of thing is always funny, even if it happens to you. Also we got to see some American Indian dancing throughout the meal. I’m not sure why folks were demonstrating the dancing – but it was fun.
After lunch we trekked down to the waterfall. With all of the rain it was pretty spectacular. Then we hiked around Minnehaha Creek. There’s a place where you can wade in the rapids. I’d say if you lost footing you might find yourself down river, but they’ve done a nice job over the last few years of fixing it up so that you no longer fear for wandering toddlers. (Often it seemed that while I may be worried for toddlers, the parents didn’t so I’m glad to have one less worry even if no one else is.)
Actually the area all around the Creek has been fixed up quite a bit. You can walk all of the way to the Mississippi, which is always fun. The River really is beautiful and you pass some cool caves and old bridges along the way.
Filed under: Minneapolis
The Fringe Festival in Minnesota has been going on for about 15 years. Patrick had a play in the Fringe the first year – but since our participation has fallen off some. This year the girls and I went to two shows – but were Shakespear-related shows for kids.
First we saw Lost in Shakespeare. The premise is that kids time travel to Shakespearean times because someone (who also time travels) has been changing the plots of the plays to make then less tragic. So they try to warn Romeo & Juliet to save the bloodshed – but of course that ruins the story. It was a cute show with a lot of actors and activity.
The second show was Perchance to Dream featuring a sleeping Shakespeare whose imagination runs wild producing scenes and character introductions from various plays. Our cousin Jack played Bottom the Weaver from Midsummer Night’s Dream. Jack was very funny in the show and it’s always fun to know the funny one of the stage.
Both plays were fun opportunities to show snippets of shows, soliloquies and brief scenes that even kids would recognize. Both were done by and for kids. The witches from Macbeth featured highly in each production. I guess all kids must recognize the bubble, bubble babble. I watched Aine and her friend at Perchance to Dream – both girls are seven so I’m going to say their firsthand experience with Shakespeare would have been pretty limited – but they were both laughing at various parts. I on the other hand have seen tons of Shakespeare through the years, so for me it was kind of fun to see how long it took me to place each character and recall the plot of each show.
We’re definitely giving double thumbs up to both shows!
Filed under: St Paul
One of the reason for our timing coming home, ironically, is the Irish Fair in St Paul. Patrick is on the board. So some years we spend a ton of time there. This year we didn’t spend as much but I had to laugh at the one picture we got. Really the Irish Fair is pretty fun – but when you spend so much time there it sort of loses something.
Filed under: St Paul
I’ve been totally lax about the blog since we got home. For those who were worried. We did make it home. We stepped off the plane in Chicago and realized that Dublin isn’t hot or really even all that warm. My hope had been that we’d enjoy a couple of really hot days before the end of the summer. I’m happy to report that we have – not too many, just enough to make me feel like I had a summer.
One of the fun things I didn’t note much in the blog was how many old friends Patrick and I were able to see. I thought I’d add a few pictures.
We also saw family friends – or really friends that became family friends during our stays in Dublin – specifically Patrick’s adviser (Tony Roche) and his family. They were kind enough to have us to dinner, which is always brave of them since we usually stay forever. This time the kids played blind man’s bluff, which made me laugh. I had to take pictures!
Also I had to add one of our new friends – the Garden Heroes. We brought these little stuffed fruits and veg everywhere with us. I was on a mission for a client to take picture of the Garden Heroes in fun places for their Facebook contest. But now the funny thing is that Aine kind of remembers where we were based on which Garden Hero was with us.
Filed under: Dublin
It’s Sunday and we just enjoyed our last Sunday lunch of this trip. Fearghal – for years – has been so great to come out on Sundays *in a car*. When you don’t have a car, it’s really a treat to get out to see things that just aren’t accessible by foot, bus or train. Today we got to go to the lead mines. In the early 1800s the lead mines was a working lead mining and smelting center. Now it’sa tower that looms from the Dublin mountains. Patrick and I have tried to walk up to it – but it’s relaly just too far.
Anyways – we drove most of the way there – got to climb the last bit and the leadmine is very cool. There are stairs on the outside that lead to the top – now too many steps are broken to really climb up them, but they are cool. And the views are fantastic. One thing we kind of miss at home are the views. I just think it’s kind of amazing it being able to see certain things – like the leadmines, Bray head, smokestacks, ferris wheel and Howth from nearly all corners of Dublin.
Filed under: Dublin
The girls love a picnic! So on Saturday we trekked down to Kilmainham – one of the best gardens in Dublin. Patrick called it in the heart of Dublin – I might not go that far – but it’s pretty close to town. And it is beautiful. We had a nice picnic, walked through the gardens and popped into the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We saw a really interesting video by Orla Barry. Patrick doesn’t like modern art – but I drag the girls to a lot of modern and performance art stuff because I like it. Well it all paid off when I had to eventually drag them from a video by Orla Barry – about a man who wanted to live on an island and a girl who appeared to live in a cemetery.
After we walked into town along the Liffey. The Liffey can be a little rough looking in places – but it’s always a good walk.
Filed under: Dublin
Last week I dragged Patrick to the Science Gallery for a great DATA 47.0 event. There were three speakers who worked on techie, cutting edge performance arts stuff. The first was Teresa Dillon who worked on performance arts pieces in off-site locations where the scenes or acts seemed to be triggered by the audience. The audience members had RFID trackers that triggered the action. Next was Duncan Speakman who spoke about silent flash mobs or “lazy film making” where audience members are each given an MP3 – but they receive different MP3s. SO some may hear a narrative, while others are hearing instructions to perform acts (like shake someone’s hand) that would in effect lead them through acting out the stories that the other audience members are hearing.
Also he has used technology (cell phones, Google maps and an artist at a remote site) to lead individual residents through a conversation/tour of their city. Where the residents might talk out loud about what they would like to see happen (in terms of urban development) in various areas. While the residents talk, the artists work away to draw out the visions described. Then the residents convene – a map is created with the artist renderings of the ideas and talk together about their visions – making they cases as to why their visions would make sense.
Finally, Peter Petralia spoke about a project in Bristol where they had sort of a scavenger hunt that involved about 100 volunteers. People signed up, not knowing what was going on. Then for two weeks then received emails, texts, letters and phone calls inviting them to different tasks. If they were available – they participated. The participants interacted in the various tasks, which often involved some use of social media to track their impressions and thoughts.
So I have to say that all of the ideas sounded super interesting to me. Makes me wish I could participate or even lead something like that. Can you imagine anything better than a techie scavenger hunt that goes on for a week?
Filed under: Dublin
Last time we were here the girls and I spent a big day in Howth – including a boat out to Ireland’s Eye and a big hike. This time we went specifically to feed the seals. Sadly you can’t feed them anymore! We were crushed. Apparently the fee is up to 5000 euros – and the shops that used to sell the fish for seals no longer do it.
The good news is that you still see a lot of seals and we had a nice lunch. Although we were surprised to see that the Mussels and Frites did not include French fries. The very new waitress was a little surprised to hear that frites was French for French fries. (Regardless we ate French Fry-less.)
Filed under: Bray
Earlier this week we all trekked to Bray. We were trying to think of some fun things to do before we headed home. Bray is always good because they have a video arcade sort of a place and the beach front. Plus the Bray Fest is going on right now so there were carnival rides too.
So we started with a turn at Fun House. Or the kids did anyways. Then we hung out on the beach. It wasn’t warm enough for most of us to wear our swimsuits – but it was plenty hot for Aine as you’ll see. For the rest of us it was more fun to skip stones and look for shells rather than get wet.
Then we thought we’d hop up to the top of the Bray Head. I didn’t quite realize what we were getting into at the onset. You might notice in the picture (or if you can picture Bray yourself) that there are three bumps on the top of Bray Head. On the first bump is a cross – we climbed up that high. It starts out very easy – but really it’s a big climb. The view from the top is amazing!! Although I spent most of the time shouting at Aine – Get away from the edge. Quit walking to the cliff. Stop trying to run down the hill! Just quit moving. It was a fine combination of my abject fear of heights and Aine total disregard for gravity.
One the way up the hill we saw a hill runner on his way down. The hill/mountain runners just run straight down the hill. That was an idea that Aine liked. She really wanted run down too. There were a couple of key differences – starting with the fact that she was wearing flip flops. And not just any flip flops – flip flops that are broken so that they fly off all of the darned time. By the end of the trek even the girls were yelling at her. We don’t yell at Aine that often – but we were all afraid of making the news!
Anyways – we survived. And when we got to the end of the road we popped into the arcade to play the 10p machines. Well, they’re 20 cents machines now. Those are the machines where you try to knock coins off one shelf, onto another and into your hands. The first time I saw them was a Quadrophenia pilgrimage to Brighton, England. I could play those for hours!
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