10 Questions About…

Last week I went to a Facebook Developer Garage. It was interesting. It was fun to hear from folks who develop application that run on Facebook. I phrase it that way because only one of the five who spoke worked at Facebook. If you’re a Facebook user, you know how Facebook changes periodically. Most of us find that annoying – well imagine how well that works for a developer. Criminy! 

I learned a lot about gamers. The biggest gaming demographer is women, aged 48. But as the speaker pointed out any real gamers (the 18 year olds we all imagine) are out playing real games on game sites. Facebook is kind of gaming junior. I’m not saying I’ve never been sucked in by a Facebook game – my super nerdy score of 150,000 on Word Play will attest to some playing. (Although I haven’t touched it in a year since I did get a little addicted.)

It took place at the Science Gallery – my favorite place in Dublin.

So the reason we’re so busy this week is that the girls were off from school Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday we decided to have a church day.

First we went to Whitefriars, where they have bones from St Valentine. We wanted to see this before Valentine’s Day but that didn’t work out. It was fun to see them today. The church is very ornate. They seem to have relics (our word of the day) from lots of saints and plenty of candles to light. Whenever Irish Grandma picks up Aine from school, they go to the church at the school to light candles; so Aine was *very* into lighting candles at Whitefriar.

Whitefriar also has a life size oak figure of Our Lady of Dublin. I tried to get a good picture there. Hopefully it came out.

After Whitefriar, we went to St Michan’s. OK, first let me say that St Michan’s is an untapped gem. The church from the outside is pretty unassuming. It’s just north of the Liffey, kind of near Smithfield, very near a Viking ruin that’s currently being excavated. So while that way too much detail for most readers I guess what I’m saying is that this is pretty much off the tourist path.

According to Wikipedia, “While the exterior of the church may be unimpressive, the interior boasts some fine woodwork, and an organ (dated 1724) on which Handel is said to have composed his Messiah.” We didn’t hear that at the church, but clearly I’ll be adding that from now on. I did take a picture of the woodwork, which apparently was done from one piece of wood. Impressive.

On the altar is a drape that came from the Dublin Castle Chapel. They quit using the Dublin Castle Chapel years ago and folks figured the drape had been tossed – until someone noticed it decorating a stall in the Liberties market! Makes me want to go to more markets.

The coolest part of St Michan’s by far is the crypt beneath the church. Originally (1095) the site was a Danish Chapel. It was rebuilt/reconstructed in 1686 – but the crypt seems to date closer to the original structure – or at least the inhabitants too.

I tried to take some pictures. The walls in the crypt contain limestone, which has kept the air dry, the temperature is very temperate and apparently there is a lot of methane (a natural gas or as the tour guide told us, cow farts) creating ideal conditions for preservation. Among the preserved remains are a 400-year-old nun, a six-and-a-half foot alleged crusader, Henry and John Sheares (leaders of the 1798 rebellion), and a body with its hands and feet severed. The various holders of the title Earl of Kenmare were also interred here.

But the very best part is that apparently it’s lucky to touch the hand of a crusader – so they let you go in and touch the mummy!! It’s supposedly 800 years old. You have to climb over the 3 other mummies to get to it. We all touched his hand. Creepy, but cool!!

The tour guide was fantastic. He was so animated, informed and excited about everything. Never mind turning a blind eye to cameras. In the crypt are burial rooms. Back in the day, families would pay something like 2-3 years’ salary for the right to be buried in the crypt. Essentially they bought a room but then the families could always be buried there. None of them are buried there today – but if an Abbott or Hamilton wanted to be buried (I don’t know if that’s the right word, maybe laid out is better) there they would have to take them.

The Hamilton family is the family of Scientist Sir Wm Rowan Hamilton. What I love about all the stuff we do is that the pieces always fit together. Today we saw a statue of Hamilton – and I knew immediately who it was – or at least where he could be buried. (Also it’s a sign of how good the tour guide was – because really what a boring thing to remember or relay here – but I had to do it.)

To nip it in the bud, it was really good and we all got to touch a mummy. That’s the only thing that will be on the quiz.

On Lisa’s last full day in Ireland we went to Howth. Howth is the opposite side of Dublin Bay from where we live. You can take the DART from Bray to Howth, which is pretty much like taking it from start to finish. The journey can get a little long, but it’s pretty and it is a good way to get there.

Luckily the girls like to play on the poles in the DART so that passes the time.

We went down the pier and saw about 8 seals, which is always a thrill. The pier didn’t seem as high as when we went there with Aine 2 years ago. In fact I’m sure it wasn’t as high, since the water is definitely higher (bringing the pier closer to the top of the water). Sadly the boats don’t run to the Eye of Ireland (little island off Howth) yet. But we’re coming back in April, when they do run.

We climbed up to the abbey ruins. We had a nice lunch as a place called Deep. The girls and I shared an appetizer platter that included mussels and calamari; maybe a sign that we eat out too often. It was a good but tiring day. We got loads of good pictures because Howth really is very picturesque.

Last weekend, when Patrick and I were at the Dark Dining event, Lily and Kate went to see the All Ireland Talent Show. It’s a kinder, gentler American Idol. The girls got tickets through their friends Ailbhe and Cait. The show starts at 6:30 on Sunday nights. The girls had to be at the studio at 4:00 – but they had free cookies and drinks at the studio. They were surprised at how small the studio was.

Everyone was given a wristband. They got yellow bands, which meant they were in the Northern Ireland section. The contest has judges that has each selected acts from their location of origin: the North, South, East, West and Dublin. Dana is the celebrity star from the North. The girls sat right behind her and got to talk to her. They also got the host’s (Grainne Seoige) autograph for Patrick; he has a crush on her.

The audience had to practice cheering – a lot. (The girls have complained a ton about that one! Although I think they kind of enjoyed it.) I haven’t heard too much about the actual performers. I think once the show started things went very quickly. I did get texts from Lily every 10 minutes until they made every turn off their phones.

The big winners were the gymnastic team from Tuam. So the sad news was that the North didn’t win. The good news was that their dad was born in Tuam and that’s who their Irish Grandma wanted to win.

On Valentine’s we went to our Dark Dining event at the Science Gallery. It was maybe the strangest, most anxious night I have ever had. But we really enjoyed it.

About 50 people attended the dinner. Mostly it looked like couples – not group of folks or double dates. Everyone looked nervous. We were led into the dining room in groups of 14. We were in the last group. We all got into an elevator and then we had to put on our blindfolds and we were told we couldn’t take them off until the night want done and we were back in the elevator. And the blindfolds were serious. You couldn’t see anything with them on.

So they led us into the room and set us at the table. It was terrible at first. The room seemed really loud. We didn’t know if we were next to other people or if people were seated next to us. Patrick kept pulling my chair closer to him, which really disoriented to me. Luckily the people across from us were super friendly. They had been dating for a month – and both had a great sense of humor. As we talked to them we started to relax. The wine didn’t hurt.

The first course was a slice of baguette with brie and a pear/raspberry chutney. It was good and not scary! I called the brie; Roz, our new friend, called the chutney. They don’t tell you what the food is until the end of the night, which is clearly a little sunnerving – but fun. You had to guess what it was by feeling it and then tasting it. What was fun was that the first person served a plate had the responsibility of describing the food to the others. Also we had silverware, which I tried to use, but really you end up stuffing the morsel onto the tines with your fingers. Not super classy – but fairly efficient. The only time I was bummed with this process was with dessert. Ice cream is hard to eat blind.

Occasionally there would be performance interludes. It seemed as if the musicians were playing right behind me – well as if some of them were and some were walking around playing loads of different instruments. And sometimes people would come and run your back. The first time Patrick tried to stealthily ask it that was me. But I have to image that you’re not very sneaky when blindfolded – plus the person was close enough to be touching us so probably she heard. Really working an event like this has to be as much fun as attending.

I took some pictures – with my blindfold on. I was trying to be somewhat discreet but again – tough to be discreet when you’re blindfolded. It looks as if folks caught me and posed for the picture. Our new friends took a picture of us. Really I can’t even tell you how hard it is to sit in a room when you don’t know the layout. Even though I *think* I know what room we were in, I didn’t have a feel about how many tables there were or where folks were sitting or where the kitchen was or the waiters…

I won’t go into the whole menu in detail. (You can see it here.) But I will tell you that I ate the raw oyster. I’m not lining up to eat more but I ate it! I didn’t eat the asparagus. I know loads of people love asparagus – I don’t. Usually I love seafood – but I didn’t love it as much blindfolded. I think the smell of the oyster on the plate may have just been too overwhelming. The oyster had a very strong smell of the sea. Lily and I had actually been walking on the pier and then beach that morning so it was just a little too close.

Also there are interludes of romantic facts or lore. At one time Patrick was supposed to try to hold my wrist to feel the skin, then muscle, maybe down to bone. That kind of thing just makes me giggle.

Lily and I took a walk around Dun Laoghaire, Monkstown, Seapoint. We saw a rainbow, no seals, but someone swimming despite the fact that it was about 36 degrees! You can see the guy getting into the water in one picture.

We went to eat with everyone at The Pub in Monkstown, which is a great restaurant. It was Lisa’s birthday so they sent an extra dessert, which was nice.

At night Patrick and I took a walk down to the new Samuel Beckett Bridge, really we were wasting time before our super fun Dark Dining event – but the pictures were cool.

On Saturday night, we saw our friend Gary Murphy in a play at the Project Art Center – Off Plan. Off plan is an adaption of the Oresteia, a trilogy of plays about the fall of House of Atreus. I’m debating whether I try to give a Readers Digest version of the story. I guess I’ll tell what I need to – but leave the whole story at Wikipedia for those interested…

Agamemnon returns home to Clytemnestra after 10 years away at war. He is the victor, but to appease the gods he slaughtered his own daughter while out. So the wife is not so happy to see him. She’s so not happy she kills him. Cassandra is with him. You may recall Cassandra was the fortune teller whose curse was that no one believed or maybe understood her warnings until it was too late.

The play uses a lot of mixed media. The scene with Cassandra is very high tech. She seems to be very tied in with all of the technology as if she’s using the technology to speak. The stage was set where we could see half of the action as a play and half of the action we seen via video as it happened in a suburban house set on the stage. While she rules the technology we can see the filmed murder of Agamemnon.

Gary’s role is quite different from the others. He’s like the slick land developer. Most of the time he speaks, it’s in sound bites into a mini-video-camera. While the play is promoted as tying into modern Ireland and the recent fall of house of the developers, I think Gary’s character is the main tenet of that perspective. Gary is great with his dry lines – very funny at times. I thought his character was particularly effective.

The rest of the characters seem to have kept one leg in the days of Greek tragedy and a leg in a more modern time. The story goes on where Agamemnon’s son Orestes comes back and at the urging of the daughter who was left behind kills the mother and Gary’s character, the mother’s husband.

I also enjoyed the interaction between the sister (Electra) and brother (Orestes). The sister is brutal. She has been left behind to develop a real hate for the mother. The brother was sent away as is less invested in the mother’s demise. The difference in their accents is particularly effective, something that doesn’t work as well in the US. There’s a very funny but creepy scene between Orestes and his mother before she recognizes who he is.

We’ve had a houseguest for a couple of weeks. She and I spent an midweek afternoon doing some sightseeing. I took some quick pictures. I took a picture of the statue of Justice at Dublin Castle. The irony of the statue is that Justice is looking in, not looking out. After Dublin Castle we went to Christchurch. The nice thing is that we got there just as they were closing so they let us sneak in for a quick peek. I took one picture from the crypt underneath the church. It’s a picture of a petrified cat and mouse. They were found in the old organ pipes. Creepy, but cool! Also I took a picture of St Anne at Christchurch. If you squint I think it looks a lot like me.