Oct12

Game of Thrones studio tour

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Thursday, 29-Aug-2024


Game of Thrones was a really fun show, until the end.

I’d watched it first in New Zealand, if I’m remembering correctly, and was fairly quickly struck by the visuals and amazing acting. As the seasons wore on, I watched more… finally seeing the end while living in Portland, and nearly immediately forgetting the whole series due to the slapdash nature of the final season.

It still holds a place in my heart and memory, though I don’t have any intent of rewatching it any time soon.

As such, when I saw that a large portion of it was filmed in Northern Ireland, and that there was a tour organized from Dublin, I jumped on the opportunity to see both a peek behind the scenes… and the chance to visit another country before starting classes!

(That’s right – Northern Ireland is a completely different country. In fact, it’s not technically even in the European Union anymore, thanks to Brexit… though I didn’t dare ask too many questions about the minutia)

I hopped the bus, and appreciated the ride up.


This is going to be one of those posts where I don’t really type much, and instead let my photography tell the story. It was lovely, it was fun, and it was an amazing view behind the scenes of the show. Having known a few Scenic Artists while living in Portland, much of this was familiar to me – which was kind of nice, honestly, since it let me see a bit further into the small details than I think I could have otherwise.

I wandered, I learned, and I had an amazing second-to-none high tea lunch in the cafe. They called the “Dragon eggs” a “fudge brownie”… which was completely underselling the fact that it was basically just a sphere of dense fudge. Every bite was amazing, and the coffee… Ohh man, I wasn’t aware that Westeros had coffee that good.



In short – it was a lovely wee day out.

Oct10

A tour of the Liberties

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Saturday, 17-Aug-2024


I’ve moved into my new apartment in Dublin.

I am now a resident of Dublin 8, specifically an area known as The Liberties.

It’s a beautiful section of the city – close to the central city, an 8min bike ride from Trinity, and a short walk from pretty much everything I could ask for. The view out my window is unequivocally Dublin – The Guinness Brewery rises to one side, St Patrick’s Cathedral to the other, and the John’s Lane Church (Church of St Augustine and St John) soars right in the middle.

It’s beautiful, and I was ecstatic to hear that the community manager for my apartment would be organizing a walking tour of the neighborhood. I signed up immediately.


I knew I was a gentrifier, since towering steel and glass monstrosity, but I didn’t quite realize the scope of the situation until our guide started explaining it all to us. The Liberties is an old part of Dublin, and had historically been a fairly low income area… It’s not a bad, or dangerous, neighborhood by any means, but it’s also not a thriving or wealthy neighborhood.

Our guide walked us through the town – showing us some amazing landmarks, some challenging parts of history, and some very interesting little tidbits about the town.

It all crystallized into a clear picture to me – this was a community, nothing like what I’d left behind in Oregon. As we walked, our guide’s family members popped out their doors or windows to say hi. His Grandma waved from a balcony, and his niece and nephew swept by on their bikes. Friends came out to welcome us, and schoolkids that he’d taught shouted greetings from the other side of the street.

It was vibrant, and lived in, and growing.

I can’t wait to get to know it better.

A few standout things to mention:
– We saw the oldest fruit tree in Ireland! A pear tree, over 200 years old.
– We walked through a community park, brand new, that the people of the Liberties had been lobbying for for years, and had finally gotten approved.
– We had the opportunity to see a small community test garden, used to help bring schoolkids out of the city and into a small oasis of growing things
– Our guide is a beekeeper, who runs a series of 50+ hives throughout Dublin, ensuring the pollinator population remains strong

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liberties,_Dublin

Oct8

Filling my new apartment

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Late August, 2024


Now that I have a new apartment… what helps turn it into a home?

Well.

A few things happened to help me settle in. I mean, obviously bedsheets and such were the first order of business – this place did come fully furnished, but that didn’t include things like cookware, linens, books or a computer desk… or even a dresser, as interesting as that is.

I started with plants, though. They’re simple, easy, and make an immediate impact on how “homey” a place feels to me – I went to a spot I’d found on my explorations through the city, a store called “Howbert and Mays”, and picked up a few friends to keep me company:



From there, IKEA.

I rented a van for an afternoon, steeled myself to drive on the wrong side of the road, and made the journey North to the nearest IKEA. I picked up what I could, limiting how overwhelmed I got, and was thankfully able to fill in almost all the cracks that had been missing in the furniture department… and, for something like 20% the price of similar furniture when I’d originally moved to Hood River in Oregon.

Now, granted these pieces are IKEA, and not “fancy bespoke Oregon tomfoolery”, but… you know. Still. Pretty proud of that one.



After IKEA… All that was left was to wait for my shipment of things from the States.

I’d already received all the various packages from the Grand Adventure (Seen below), and those had been arranged as a starting point for the decoration of the apartment… but there was quite a bit still incoming. Things like my computer, my bike, and all the photos that I’d had up on the walls in Wilsonville. All had been carefully packed (by a moving company), and would be carefully delivered (again, moving company) in the closing weeks of August.




Of interesting note, though… after unpacking everything, and getting ready to put up all the various interesting things from Oregon…

I stopped.

I didn’t want to put them up. Neither the rocks I’d collected on hikes, nor the photos I’d printed from my adventures, felt right to put up in a place of clear visibility here.

It was an interesting realization: I’m good. I’ve moved on from Oregon, at least for now, and those memories have settled into their well deserved, and dearly earned, rest. I repackaged them, and put them into one of the storage areas of the new apartment. I thanked them for their help, through the years in Wilsonville, and wished them well on their continued slumber… at least until the time when I’m ready to revisit that portion of my life again.

For now, though, I’m happy in my new world. I’m strong in Dublin, and empowered with the memories of my adventure through Europe. I’ll never forget, nor lose, the memories of Oregon… but it’s time to make some new memories on a new continent.