I recently encountered again after many years, a little Japanese man named Matteo (or "Matt the Jap" as he is more commonly known to the students, staff and visitors of Trinity College Dublin), one of Trinity College Dublin's' resident characters. Matt, for lack of a better name and description for him is a well known but very mysterious little Japanese man (usually seen with walking stick and his bag of sandwiches and newspapers walking around the Arts block or Front Square) whom you will eventually bump into if you ever idle long enough in Trinity College Dublin. Every student who has passed through Trinity since the early 80's (to late 70s even, I think) would have at one stage heard of and quite possible have seen Matt walking slowly past them.
Not a lot is known about him but there are plenty of rumours. These range from Matt being an eccentric genius who studied in Trinity a long time ago but the pressure of his thesis was too much for him so he snapped to him being thrown out of college for fouling an ancient manuscript (by writing footnotes on it) in the library. Some say that he is deaf and dumb while others say he is perfectly fine but just doesn't like to talk to people. Some say that he is actually French and not indeed Japanese. There are people who say that he is harmless while there are others that tell a different story saying that Matt is indeed a violent male chauvinist pig with a grudge against all women.
My recent sighting of Matt got me thinking again about what actually is his real story. These days, sadly to say, he is looking very old and frail and I'm sure that he hasn't many years left on this earth. I'm sure he must have had led a very interesting life at one stage. One that many students and staff of Trinity would like to know about (even if it is just to reaffirm some of the rumours about him). Luckily for me I got some of my answers via this little interview I found today done by the Record with Matt. It's not a great interview and needs to be taken with a pinch of salt (partly because another rumour about Matt is that he is a notorious liar) but non the less it has shed some light on this mysterious little man whom I associate to be part of my overall college experience. From my initial reading of the interview it does seem that some of the rumours do run true. He does indeed appear to be deaf and he does seem to bare a somewhat a grudge against women as this shows from some of the answers he gives in the interview.
On a completely different topic. I went to see "Eastern Promises" last night. Damn good film. I highly recommend going to see it when you get the chance. It's David Cronenberg at his best... and for the ladies, you get to see Viggo Mortensen's, erhem, sword, erhem, at some stage in the film.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Take that Tooth Fairy
The last time I visited the dentist I got knocked out via a good gassing and woke up spitting blood into a bucket with 9 of my baby teeth missing. So, you can't really blame me for not wanting to go back to the dentist any time soon after that. However, after 25 years of shameful neglect I finally decided to pay the dentist a visit once more. OK, truth be told, this was out of necessity rather than shame. My bottom left molar had started to hurt me within the last few weeks and someone scared me into it by suggesting that I may need a root canal.
So at lunch time today I decided to pop into the dentist around the corner from where I work to make an appointment. As luck would have it he had a cancellation just as I walked in so the dentist could see me straight away. Considering that this was my first dental visit in a quarter of a century and that I rarely brush my teeth at the best of times (never mind the fact that I hadn't yet brushed my teeth that morning) I was expecting the worse.
As it turned out it was a rather pleasant experience. After a quick x-ray and finding nothing wrong with my teeth, it seems that the culprit for my recent tooth discomfort was the area over my wisdom tooth, which hadn't come up properly, thus leaving a gummy bit which in turn was being bitten down upon by the top tooth. The result of this was a slight infection in that general gum region causing my tooth pains. So I was given the choice of either having the top tooth pulled or else rinse my mouth out with disinfectant mouth wash 3 times a day (and then perhaps getting the top tooth pulled in the future if I felt like it). I happily chose the latter.
I was then told by the dentist that I had very good teeth and that I didn't need any fillings. At first I thought I had misheard him. Surely after 25 years of neglect and very little brushing I was expecting the dentist to take one look into my mouth and then either jump back or run away in utter disgust. I had never expected to hear this little bit of good news. My surprise at the news was such that I was very briefly tempted to protest. In fact, the state of my teeth were so good it was suggested to me that I would only ever need to visit the dentist every 18 months to 2 years considering I'm such a "low risk case"!
So it would seem that this time around its Hanging Hat : 1, Tooth Fairy : 0. Go me!
So at lunch time today I decided to pop into the dentist around the corner from where I work to make an appointment. As luck would have it he had a cancellation just as I walked in so the dentist could see me straight away. Considering that this was my first dental visit in a quarter of a century and that I rarely brush my teeth at the best of times (never mind the fact that I hadn't yet brushed my teeth that morning) I was expecting the worse.
As it turned out it was a rather pleasant experience. After a quick x-ray and finding nothing wrong with my teeth, it seems that the culprit for my recent tooth discomfort was the area over my wisdom tooth, which hadn't come up properly, thus leaving a gummy bit which in turn was being bitten down upon by the top tooth. The result of this was a slight infection in that general gum region causing my tooth pains. So I was given the choice of either having the top tooth pulled or else rinse my mouth out with disinfectant mouth wash 3 times a day (and then perhaps getting the top tooth pulled in the future if I felt like it). I happily chose the latter.
I was then told by the dentist that I had very good teeth and that I didn't need any fillings. At first I thought I had misheard him. Surely after 25 years of neglect and very little brushing I was expecting the dentist to take one look into my mouth and then either jump back or run away in utter disgust. I had never expected to hear this little bit of good news. My surprise at the news was such that I was very briefly tempted to protest. In fact, the state of my teeth were so good it was suggested to me that I would only ever need to visit the dentist every 18 months to 2 years considering I'm such a "low risk case"!
So it would seem that this time around its Hanging Hat : 1, Tooth Fairy : 0. Go me!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Wonderful wet weekend
It has been the most miserable rain sodden weekend I can remember in a long long time. Luckily for me I spent most of the weekend indoors at a Boogie Woogie and Balboa workshop so I was kept occupied for the most part.
The only good thing I can say about the cold and rain is that it kept most if not all the scumbags and drunk people indoors as well. I normally hate walking home through Dublin city centre late at night during Fridays and the weekends specifically for the aformentioned reason. As if to remind me of this, today I came across this video (see below) taken from a taxi going through Harcourt street at around 5am in the morning after all the night clubs had finished up and things have more or less really wound down.
Now, imagine it being ten times as bad and you can see why I hate walking through the city centre in the evenings. I cannot tell you how many times I've had some drunk idiot jump in front of me acting the spa as I've walked down the road minding my own business. The odd time, if the guy (and it always seems to be guys for some reason) is significantly bigger than me he will just stand there in front of me blocking my path thinking that it was really funny because he had probably just itimidated some poor little asian looking guy who probably can't speak the language and is scared and confused at this big crazy Oirish guy. Normally, I would just stop in my path and start to stare the guy down until he got bored and got out of my way or I would give him a hug (only cause he has begun to do the same). It has only ever happened the one time where this breed of drunken idiot has caught me in a really foul mood whereby I have uncharacteristically sped up towards said idiot pushing him backwards with fist clenched ready to start a fight. Fortunately at the time, the drunken idiot in question wasn't quite that drunk yet and realised that the little asian looking guy he was about to piss off or itimidate was already in a really bad mood and decided very quickly to grin, hug me and get out of the way before a fight started.
This is why, despite the cold and rain, this weekend, it was actually a very pleasant walk back home in the evenings as the streets were almost deserted. A sad but small price to pay for a peaceful walk home in the evenings.
The only good thing I can say about the cold and rain is that it kept most if not all the scumbags and drunk people indoors as well. I normally hate walking home through Dublin city centre late at night during Fridays and the weekends specifically for the aformentioned reason. As if to remind me of this, today I came across this video (see below) taken from a taxi going through Harcourt street at around 5am in the morning after all the night clubs had finished up and things have more or less really wound down.
Now, imagine it being ten times as bad and you can see why I hate walking through the city centre in the evenings. I cannot tell you how many times I've had some drunk idiot jump in front of me acting the spa as I've walked down the road minding my own business. The odd time, if the guy (and it always seems to be guys for some reason) is significantly bigger than me he will just stand there in front of me blocking my path thinking that it was really funny because he had probably just itimidated some poor little asian looking guy who probably can't speak the language and is scared and confused at this big crazy Oirish guy. Normally, I would just stop in my path and start to stare the guy down until he got bored and got out of my way or I would give him a hug (only cause he has begun to do the same). It has only ever happened the one time where this breed of drunken idiot has caught me in a really foul mood whereby I have uncharacteristically sped up towards said idiot pushing him backwards with fist clenched ready to start a fight. Fortunately at the time, the drunken idiot in question wasn't quite that drunk yet and realised that the little asian looking guy he was about to piss off or itimidate was already in a really bad mood and decided very quickly to grin, hug me and get out of the way before a fight started.
This is why, despite the cold and rain, this weekend, it was actually a very pleasant walk back home in the evenings as the streets were almost deserted. A sad but small price to pay for a peaceful walk home in the evenings.
Friday, November 16, 2007
The good, the bad and the ugly
First the good; I came across this interesting little article today about an Australian team of physicists who have managed to measure the phase of a pulse of light so precisely that the only error in the measurement is that of what is dictated by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Now the internal science nerd in me tells me that is one of the coolest thing I've read in a long time. Of course, I haven't had the pleasure of reading a lot of scientific articles in a long time (not since I stopped buying American Scientist anyways) so I may be more easily impressed by stuff like this than I used to be.
Now the bad; If you recall a couple of weeks ago I was rejoicing over the fact that the Smithfield on ice... erhem... 'extravaganza' was unduly cancelled this year. Well it looks like my celebrations were a little premature. It seems that Dublin City Council have managed to sweet talk some gullible corporate souls into keeping this 'fine event' alive this year. You can read their press release here. As the Russians would say... "Toughski Shitski" to the Smithfield residents who's apartments and houses face out towards the ice-rink. Looks like you'se just have to put up with a month of excessive shit pop music blairing from very loud speakers and the increased scumbag presence in your area (not to say there isn't already enough of them when the ice-rink isn't there) again this year.
And lastly, the ugly; Well, not so much ugly but more towards the "What The Fuck??" region. Lately I've found myself reading articles from "The Register" more and more. Maybe its because its sort of light reading and the brain doesn't have to do too much work. In any case, I came across this little article that made go WTF??? This guy brings a whole new meaning to "riding your bike". Not my cup of tea but still, everyone to themselves I suppose.
Now the bad; If you recall a couple of weeks ago I was rejoicing over the fact that the Smithfield on ice... erhem... 'extravaganza' was unduly cancelled this year. Well it looks like my celebrations were a little premature. It seems that Dublin City Council have managed to sweet talk some gullible corporate souls into keeping this 'fine event' alive this year. You can read their press release here. As the Russians would say... "Toughski Shitski" to the Smithfield residents who's apartments and houses face out towards the ice-rink. Looks like you'se just have to put up with a month of excessive shit pop music blairing from very loud speakers and the increased scumbag presence in your area (not to say there isn't already enough of them when the ice-rink isn't there) again this year.
And lastly, the ugly; Well, not so much ugly but more towards the "What The Fuck??" region. Lately I've found myself reading articles from "The Register" more and more. Maybe its because its sort of light reading and the brain doesn't have to do too much work. In any case, I came across this little article that made go WTF??? This guy brings a whole new meaning to "riding your bike". Not my cup of tea but still, everyone to themselves I suppose.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Why did I even bother?
So after years of putting it off I finally decided back in June to try and sit my driving test and get a full license. Knowing the horrendous wait times for getting a driving test date in Ireland I figured that if I applied for my driving test at around the same time my provisional arrived I would be happily doing my test by December at the latest.
Roll on December and over a hundred euros down and still not a word from The Road Safety Authority (RSA) who manage all the test applications. No problems I say as I was expecting a really long wait time anyways despite the government's assurance that driving test wait times around the country were to be reduced to an average of 10 weeks. While browsing through a local discussion forum today I noticed a little thread about rumours over the fact that the Tallaght test centre has been closed. Then it struck me. That's the friggin test centre that I applied for!!!
So, I ring up RSA to enquire whether this rumour was true or not. I was told that it was indeed true (nice of them to let the applicants know!). Was told that they referred all the tallaght applicants to a third party testing company called SGS out in Fonthill instead (I have no idea where that is, I think it may be out near Lucan which is miles away). So, being the cautionary lad that I am I ring up SGS and ask them whether they received my file from RSA only to be told that they got nothing on me and to ring RSA!!!! So, reluctantly I ring back RSA only to be told once again to ring SGS!!! Told the RSA person at the end of the phone that that wasn't going to happen as I was just on the phone to SGS. On hearing this the "nice" RSA person transfers me to a friggin answering machine!!! What the hell am I to do with an answering machine??? Only thing I could think of doing was leaving a really long winded message explaining my predicament all over again and leaving my number in hopes that someone somewhere would actually give a shit about the message that I had just left for them (which is very doubtful).
After speaking to the "very helpful" answering machine I decided that it would be easier to just reapply to another test centre. So onto RSA again and this time talking to a real person. Told the new person that I just wanted to change the test centre to the Rathgar test centre instead. No problems, they just have to get my file back from SGS (which apparently don't have it) and I just have to be put at the back of the waiting list again which means I'll be apparently waiting for another "few months" (which when translated means I'll have my test date sometime in June 2008 if I'm really really lucky and if the Rathgar test centre doesn't decide to close). I left it at that and now all I can do is sit back and cross my fingers.
It seems that the gods are doing everything in their power to prevent me from driving. The driving test situation in this country, like most things, is such an unbelievable joke. How the hell can the government promise to improve wait times for driving tests by opening more centres and then on the other hand closing down other centres?! And the annoying thing is, when (notice that i say "when" and not "if") I fail my diving test, if (notice that i say "if" now and not "when") it ever comes around, I will have to go through the whole application process again. It could potentially be 2 years before I can even come close to finally applying for a full drivers licence. No wonder there are so many people in this country just driving around illegally on their 8th,9th,10th etc. provisional licences. It's not their fault. It's the system that is to blame here. I do not know of any other country in the world which has as ridiculous a situation as Ireland does when it comes to getting a full driving license.
Roll on December and over a hundred euros down and still not a word from The Road Safety Authority (RSA) who manage all the test applications. No problems I say as I was expecting a really long wait time anyways despite the government's assurance that driving test wait times around the country were to be reduced to an average of 10 weeks. While browsing through a local discussion forum today I noticed a little thread about rumours over the fact that the Tallaght test centre has been closed. Then it struck me. That's the friggin test centre that I applied for!!!
So, I ring up RSA to enquire whether this rumour was true or not. I was told that it was indeed true (nice of them to let the applicants know!). Was told that they referred all the tallaght applicants to a third party testing company called SGS out in Fonthill instead (I have no idea where that is, I think it may be out near Lucan which is miles away). So, being the cautionary lad that I am I ring up SGS and ask them whether they received my file from RSA only to be told that they got nothing on me and to ring RSA!!!! So, reluctantly I ring back RSA only to be told once again to ring SGS!!! Told the RSA person at the end of the phone that that wasn't going to happen as I was just on the phone to SGS. On hearing this the "nice" RSA person transfers me to a friggin answering machine!!! What the hell am I to do with an answering machine??? Only thing I could think of doing was leaving a really long winded message explaining my predicament all over again and leaving my number in hopes that someone somewhere would actually give a shit about the message that I had just left for them (which is very doubtful).
After speaking to the "very helpful" answering machine I decided that it would be easier to just reapply to another test centre. So onto RSA again and this time talking to a real person. Told the new person that I just wanted to change the test centre to the Rathgar test centre instead. No problems, they just have to get my file back from SGS (which apparently don't have it) and I just have to be put at the back of the waiting list again which means I'll be apparently waiting for another "few months" (which when translated means I'll have my test date sometime in June 2008 if I'm really really lucky and if the Rathgar test centre doesn't decide to close). I left it at that and now all I can do is sit back and cross my fingers.
It seems that the gods are doing everything in their power to prevent me from driving. The driving test situation in this country, like most things, is such an unbelievable joke. How the hell can the government promise to improve wait times for driving tests by opening more centres and then on the other hand closing down other centres?! And the annoying thing is, when (notice that i say "when" and not "if") I fail my diving test, if (notice that i say "if" now and not "when") it ever comes around, I will have to go through the whole application process again. It could potentially be 2 years before I can even come close to finally applying for a full drivers licence. No wonder there are so many people in this country just driving around illegally on their 8th,9th,10th etc. provisional licences. It's not their fault. It's the system that is to blame here. I do not know of any other country in the world which has as ridiculous a situation as Ireland does when it comes to getting a full driving license.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
No news is good news
OK, I got nothing. I felt like posting something but alas my day to day life is not anywhere near interesting enough to generate stimulating conversation or news on a regular basis. So instead I think I'll share some news articles that I've read on the interweb during my "downtime" while waiting for my programs to compile.
First off, Christmas has come early. It looks like that Smithfield on Ice has been cancelled this year. For those who don't know what this momentous event is, basically for the last 5 odd years Dublin city council erects one of the most miserable ice rink possible outside the Smithfield market area for the month leading up to Christmas. While it's a nice idea and could potentially be a very nice day out for the kids/family/girlfriend/boyfriend/miscellaneous etc. it invariably is just extremely overcrowded, always full of little scumbags and the ice rink always ends up being mainly sludge due to the hot lights shining down on them. All in all making for a very miserable experience. I'm sure this news will come as a welcome relief to the poor residence of Smithfield market area who have to endure the noise generated by the very loud ice rink speakers and the crowds just outside their living room windows every year. I now believe that Dun Laoghaire will have the pleasure of hosting it due to the change of management.
Does anyone remember that totally blown out of proportion kiss that Richard Gere gave Shilpa Shetty a few months back? You know, the one where people were calling for his head because of... gasp... immoral public displays of affection! I'd hate to think what would have happened if they had started going at it like rabbits in public. Anyway, I digress. Why I bring this topic up is because of this little news item I recently came across. It would now seem that you can't even give an innocent goodbye hug to your friends in public anymore. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to see the authority figures in question burning effigies of the poor little girl in protest of their disgust. If this kind of crap keeps up soon people will be making it a habit to quickly glance over their shoulders for the immorality secret police before even considering the simple act of shaking hands with anyone. I seriously think that the people who are disgusted by public hugging just need a good hug themselves.
Talking about indecency, now, this is taking the piss. It brings a whole new meaning to using a "wii-mote" :P I wonder how you complete a race and if there is a multiplayer option. Would you be able to take advantage of the slip stream of larger vehicles ahead of you I wonder. OK, enough urine puns. As you may have guessed this is a slow day for me.
While we're on the subject of excrement of sorts, let me introduce you to this little article on "Butthash". Apparently getting high on fermented fecal matter and urine is the new craze these days for kids. First of all, how did someone discover that this was possible. Did some kid decide to bottle up his fart one day, forgot about it only to go back to a seemingly empty jar a year later, opened it and got a little buzz out of the expelled methane? Thus began the brainwave and the craze that is Butthash. This reminds me of a guy i knew in secondary school who tried to get high on the fumes from Tipp-ex one day. All he succeeded in doing was giving himself a white tipped nose for most of that day.
And to end my little non-news on a lighter note (very American news broadcasting of me I know) I leave you with this little gem...
I generally don't go much for fan made movies of video game character cross overs but the one linked above is one of the coolest video game cross over vids I've seen in a long time. It's basically a big fight between a few of the female characters from the final fantasy franchise and the dead or alive franchise. Very well done. Some people just have way too much time on their hands.
First off, Christmas has come early. It looks like that Smithfield on Ice has been cancelled this year. For those who don't know what this momentous event is, basically for the last 5 odd years Dublin city council erects one of the most miserable ice rink possible outside the Smithfield market area for the month leading up to Christmas. While it's a nice idea and could potentially be a very nice day out for the kids/family/girlfriend/boyfriend/miscellaneous etc. it invariably is just extremely overcrowded, always full of little scumbags and the ice rink always ends up being mainly sludge due to the hot lights shining down on them. All in all making for a very miserable experience. I'm sure this news will come as a welcome relief to the poor residence of Smithfield market area who have to endure the noise generated by the very loud ice rink speakers and the crowds just outside their living room windows every year. I now believe that Dun Laoghaire will have the pleasure of hosting it due to the change of management.
Does anyone remember that totally blown out of proportion kiss that Richard Gere gave Shilpa Shetty a few months back? You know, the one where people were calling for his head because of... gasp... immoral public displays of affection! I'd hate to think what would have happened if they had started going at it like rabbits in public. Anyway, I digress. Why I bring this topic up is because of this little news item I recently came across. It would now seem that you can't even give an innocent goodbye hug to your friends in public anymore. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to see the authority figures in question burning effigies of the poor little girl in protest of their disgust. If this kind of crap keeps up soon people will be making it a habit to quickly glance over their shoulders for the immorality secret police before even considering the simple act of shaking hands with anyone. I seriously think that the people who are disgusted by public hugging just need a good hug themselves.
Talking about indecency, now, this is taking the piss. It brings a whole new meaning to using a "wii-mote" :P I wonder how you complete a race and if there is a multiplayer option. Would you be able to take advantage of the slip stream of larger vehicles ahead of you I wonder. OK, enough urine puns. As you may have guessed this is a slow day for me.
While we're on the subject of excrement of sorts, let me introduce you to this little article on "Butthash". Apparently getting high on fermented fecal matter and urine is the new craze these days for kids. First of all, how did someone discover that this was possible. Did some kid decide to bottle up his fart one day, forgot about it only to go back to a seemingly empty jar a year later, opened it and got a little buzz out of the expelled methane? Thus began the brainwave and the craze that is Butthash. This reminds me of a guy i knew in secondary school who tried to get high on the fumes from Tipp-ex one day. All he succeeded in doing was giving himself a white tipped nose for most of that day.
And to end my little non-news on a lighter note (very American news broadcasting of me I know) I leave you with this little gem...
I generally don't go much for fan made movies of video game character cross overs but the one linked above is one of the coolest video game cross over vids I've seen in a long time. It's basically a big fight between a few of the female characters from the final fantasy franchise and the dead or alive franchise. Very well done. Some people just have way too much time on their hands.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
...and we're back
It's been a while but we're back again. Was going to try to keep the blog updated while I was away but to be bluntly honest I just got lazy and couldn't be arsed about it.
So, how was Palermo I hear you ask. I'll sum it up in one word... meh. Don't get me wrong, it was all in all a nice trip and a good tango festival for the most part. It's just Palermo the city itself didn't really appeal to me. Being a person who likes a bit of peace and quiet I just found Palermo as a city to be dirty and very very noisy, unbearably so in fact. It says something when the first thing you notice about Dublin upon landing back home again is how wonderfully quiet and clean the city seems. I suppose having a miserable start to the trip didn't help my overall experience or mood either. Let me recount my adventures from the beginning. Be warned, this may turn into a very long rant post.
First our plane from Dublin to London Standsted was late (almost an hour) and then Ryanair lost my baggage in between Dublin and London. Since the plane was late it meant that we had little to no time to sort out the lost luggage as we had to go immediately to check in for our connection flight to Palermo. When I asked a girl behind one of the Ryanair desks for a customer support number so that I could ring Ryanair about the status of my lost luggage I was shushed away with the knowledge that Ryanair does not have a customer support number! Luckily for me, knowing Ryanair, I had prepared myself for the fact that the airline was going to lose my luggage somewhere along the way from Dublin to Palermo so overall I wasn't overly upset about not having my luggage. However I was a little pissed off that they were so dismissive about not having any sort of customer support number people could call for occasions like this.
On the plane from London over to Palermo I was flicking through the Ryanair magazine and as if the gods we're trying to be funny I noticed the following full page ad for Ryanair:
At that stage I just closed the magazine (after taking a quick photo of the ad for irony purposes) and went to sleep. To top off my misery, it pissed down for the first 2 days in Palermo and I was stuck with soggy clothes with no dry clean clothes to change into. In any case, they found my bag 3 days later and sent it onto the hotel I was staying in just as it stopped raining and the sun came out... friggin typical!
To top all this off, we discovered, after having to pay for our stay in full first, that the hotel we had booked ourselves into had a 12 o'clock curfew. We told them that we were tango dancers here for the tango festival and that milongas starting at the earliest at 10:30pm and having to come back before 12 each night just wouldn't work for us (plus things only really start to kick off in Palermo after 11pm). We wanted our money back and only to stay for 2 nights instead of 2 weeks. On hearing this the hotel person suddenly didn't speak english and told us that it was OK and we'll sort the little problem out in the morning. So in the morning it was a different person we spoke to and they assured us that despite the curfew for us they would make an exception and have someone at reception to let us in around 2am each evening which made it very difficult for us to use the 12 o'clock curfew excuse to check out early so we ended up letting them keep the money and staying the whole 2 weeks there. We're such push overs.
Palermo as I subsequently found out is a very very noisy city. There is constantly the sound of engines (very loud engines) flying down the road accompanied by the beeping of the car horn every few seconds for no apparent reason at all. I firmly believe that if you were to take a driving test in Palermo you'd fail the test for not beeping your horn enough times during the course of your exam. Despite there being car lanes and traffic lights there might as well not have been any. Every driver was just weaving in and out of each other and trying to squeeze into the smallest of open spaces on the road. I'd go so far as to say that over 95% of the cars i saw in Palermo either had a couple of dents on the side and/or a wing mirror missing from trying to squeeze through impossibly tight spaces between cars on the road. To make matters worse, we had to walk on the road a lot of the times as well because a lot of the cars would park right up onto the footpath leaving you no choice but to use the road to walk on. Palermo is definitely not a city to have a big fancy car in. Interestingly enough I didn't see one bike on the roads the entire time I was there.
If we weren't being kept awake from all the noise outside our windows during the evening (our fault really for choosing a hotel in the center of the city) we were being woken up really early in the morning by the lady who runs the hotel shouting at the top of her voice at all her staff. Either that or else she had been asked to give someone a wake up call in the mornings and had forgotten which room had made the request so decided it was best just to stand outside every door and shout at the top of her voice. After a few days we got used to all this and learnt to block out all the shouting in the mornings.
I always thought the Italians that visited Dublin were really loud because they were tourists and tourists usually have an innate ability, regardless of nationality, to talk as if they were shouting all the time when in a country that doesn't speak their native language and they think no one around understands them. I now believe that Italians are naturally really loud when talking so as to be heard over all the street noise and then each other. Due to the fact that they need to constantly have their voices raised it eventually becomes the norm even when abroad.
We got 3 days off during the two weeks where there was nothing on for the tango festival so I took the opportunity during one of those days to escape the hustle and bustle of Palermo city and went to visit the nearby sea-side town of Cefalu. After a week in a dusty noisy city I cannot describe how nice it was to hear nothing but the quiet calming sound of the tide on the beach and be able to breath the fresh sea air. It was a struggle to get back onto the train again to return to Palermo.
OK, it seems that so far all I've got to say about my trip has been bad things. That's not entirely true. The people I found to be generally quite friendly and helpful. For example, I got a really bad tooth ache accompanied by a headache one day. My house mate/tango partner, the thoughtful person that she is, decided to go find a pharmacy to get me some stuff to relieve the pain (she later told me that she just wanted to make sure that her only tango partner there was well enough so that she wouldn't have to miss class later... I suppose it's the thought that counts). Unfortunately it so happened to be a national holiday that day so very few places were open. However she met a very nice Sicilian guy outside one of the pharmacies she went to who subsequently offered to drive her to an open pharmacy and then waited for her and brought her back to the hotel again. Of course, me the cynical type of person that I am still think that if she wasn't (1) female (2) blond and petite and (3) somewhat attractive the helpful guy would have just told her where to go for an open pharmacy rather than going that extra mile of bringing her there and back again himself. Yes, I know, I am a very cynical person.
The other good thing I can report about Palermo is that you can generally get some very nice clothes there at very reasonable prices. Even I, a person who hates clothes shopping picked up a few things while I was there. One day I decided I could do with a new belt because the leather you can buy in Palermo is quite cheap. Instead of going into a high street store where I would be paying about 20 to 25 yo yos I decided to buy a belt from one of the many stalls in the markets. I found a stall with some nice looking belts, picked one out asked the guy how much it was. He told me it was 7 euros. I figured 7 euros is pretty good, I'll try it on. Tried it on and found it was way too big for me so I handed it back to the guy, told him it was too big and I wasn't interested and was about to walk away. Before I could blink, he went "no problem sir", took out a big pair of scissors, cut a chunk off the belt and told me "now fit, 6 euros!". All I could do was smile and point to the now lack of belt buckle on the belt. He then took another belt, took out a butter knife and preceded to unscrew the buckle from the other belt in order to use it to replace the now missing buckle from the belt that he just cut up. I figured, hell if he's gone to all this effort to try and sell me the belt I might as well buy it so I ended up taking it (of course first trying to get it for 5 euros since it was now technically speaking a Frankenstein belt).
As for the tango festival itself. In general it was very good. The classes were very good and the teachers full of energy and entertaining which is always a nice thing. The festival organisers on the other hand just seemed not to care for anything or anybody for the most part which was very disappointing. I had the feeling that they just wanted the international presence to help fund bringing over the good teachers for themselves. Also, during the first week the classes were all on at ridiculously inconvenient times, for example starting at 8 pm and ending at 12pm. This meant that we generally had no time to grab dinner before or after class because people, it would seem, eat late in Italy and it was too late when the classes had ended. This however gave the little cafe place at the venue a chance to sell some finger food at whatever prices they wanted to us. I couldn't tell you how much food cost at the venue mainly because it kept changing every day. A small bowl of fruit could cost you 2 yo yos one day and then 4 yo yos the next day.
The people attending the festival seemed like a nice bunch. We met a couple (in the sense of dancing partners) from Hamburg whom we hung around with a bit. The guy was a cigar smoking author and translator of German romance novels who used several nom de plumes since women (and I say women here as I can't imagine many guys reading romance novels) were not really enticed to buy romance novels written by a guy and especially from someone called "Wolfgang". Instead his publishers had made up several other names in which he published under accompanied with background story to the name. One of them being a 40 something Scottish mother of two called "Scarlett O'Doherty"! :o) They even went as far as finding a profile picture to accompany the background story.
So, how was Palermo I hear you ask. I'll sum it up in one word... meh. Don't get me wrong, it was all in all a nice trip and a good tango festival for the most part. It's just Palermo the city itself didn't really appeal to me. Being a person who likes a bit of peace and quiet I just found Palermo as a city to be dirty and very very noisy, unbearably so in fact. It says something when the first thing you notice about Dublin upon landing back home again is how wonderfully quiet and clean the city seems. I suppose having a miserable start to the trip didn't help my overall experience or mood either. Let me recount my adventures from the beginning. Be warned, this may turn into a very long rant post.
First our plane from Dublin to London Standsted was late (almost an hour) and then Ryanair lost my baggage in between Dublin and London. Since the plane was late it meant that we had little to no time to sort out the lost luggage as we had to go immediately to check in for our connection flight to Palermo. When I asked a girl behind one of the Ryanair desks for a customer support number so that I could ring Ryanair about the status of my lost luggage I was shushed away with the knowledge that Ryanair does not have a customer support number! Luckily for me, knowing Ryanair, I had prepared myself for the fact that the airline was going to lose my luggage somewhere along the way from Dublin to Palermo so overall I wasn't overly upset about not having my luggage. However I was a little pissed off that they were so dismissive about not having any sort of customer support number people could call for occasions like this.
On the plane from London over to Palermo I was flicking through the Ryanair magazine and as if the gods we're trying to be funny I noticed the following full page ad for Ryanair:
At that stage I just closed the magazine (after taking a quick photo of the ad for irony purposes) and went to sleep. To top off my misery, it pissed down for the first 2 days in Palermo and I was stuck with soggy clothes with no dry clean clothes to change into. In any case, they found my bag 3 days later and sent it onto the hotel I was staying in just as it stopped raining and the sun came out... friggin typical!
To top all this off, we discovered, after having to pay for our stay in full first, that the hotel we had booked ourselves into had a 12 o'clock curfew. We told them that we were tango dancers here for the tango festival and that milongas starting at the earliest at 10:30pm and having to come back before 12 each night just wouldn't work for us (plus things only really start to kick off in Palermo after 11pm). We wanted our money back and only to stay for 2 nights instead of 2 weeks. On hearing this the hotel person suddenly didn't speak english and told us that it was OK and we'll sort the little problem out in the morning. So in the morning it was a different person we spoke to and they assured us that despite the curfew for us they would make an exception and have someone at reception to let us in around 2am each evening which made it very difficult for us to use the 12 o'clock curfew excuse to check out early so we ended up letting them keep the money and staying the whole 2 weeks there. We're such push overs.
Palermo as I subsequently found out is a very very noisy city. There is constantly the sound of engines (very loud engines) flying down the road accompanied by the beeping of the car horn every few seconds for no apparent reason at all. I firmly believe that if you were to take a driving test in Palermo you'd fail the test for not beeping your horn enough times during the course of your exam. Despite there being car lanes and traffic lights there might as well not have been any. Every driver was just weaving in and out of each other and trying to squeeze into the smallest of open spaces on the road. I'd go so far as to say that over 95% of the cars i saw in Palermo either had a couple of dents on the side and/or a wing mirror missing from trying to squeeze through impossibly tight spaces between cars on the road. To make matters worse, we had to walk on the road a lot of the times as well because a lot of the cars would park right up onto the footpath leaving you no choice but to use the road to walk on. Palermo is definitely not a city to have a big fancy car in. Interestingly enough I didn't see one bike on the roads the entire time I was there.
If we weren't being kept awake from all the noise outside our windows during the evening (our fault really for choosing a hotel in the center of the city) we were being woken up really early in the morning by the lady who runs the hotel shouting at the top of her voice at all her staff. Either that or else she had been asked to give someone a wake up call in the mornings and had forgotten which room had made the request so decided it was best just to stand outside every door and shout at the top of her voice. After a few days we got used to all this and learnt to block out all the shouting in the mornings.
I always thought the Italians that visited Dublin were really loud because they were tourists and tourists usually have an innate ability, regardless of nationality, to talk as if they were shouting all the time when in a country that doesn't speak their native language and they think no one around understands them. I now believe that Italians are naturally really loud when talking so as to be heard over all the street noise and then each other. Due to the fact that they need to constantly have their voices raised it eventually becomes the norm even when abroad.
We got 3 days off during the two weeks where there was nothing on for the tango festival so I took the opportunity during one of those days to escape the hustle and bustle of Palermo city and went to visit the nearby sea-side town of Cefalu. After a week in a dusty noisy city I cannot describe how nice it was to hear nothing but the quiet calming sound of the tide on the beach and be able to breath the fresh sea air. It was a struggle to get back onto the train again to return to Palermo.
OK, it seems that so far all I've got to say about my trip has been bad things. That's not entirely true. The people I found to be generally quite friendly and helpful. For example, I got a really bad tooth ache accompanied by a headache one day. My house mate/tango partner, the thoughtful person that she is, decided to go find a pharmacy to get me some stuff to relieve the pain (she later told me that she just wanted to make sure that her only tango partner there was well enough so that she wouldn't have to miss class later... I suppose it's the thought that counts). Unfortunately it so happened to be a national holiday that day so very few places were open. However she met a very nice Sicilian guy outside one of the pharmacies she went to who subsequently offered to drive her to an open pharmacy and then waited for her and brought her back to the hotel again. Of course, me the cynical type of person that I am still think that if she wasn't (1) female (2) blond and petite and (3) somewhat attractive the helpful guy would have just told her where to go for an open pharmacy rather than going that extra mile of bringing her there and back again himself. Yes, I know, I am a very cynical person.
The other good thing I can report about Palermo is that you can generally get some very nice clothes there at very reasonable prices. Even I, a person who hates clothes shopping picked up a few things while I was there. One day I decided I could do with a new belt because the leather you can buy in Palermo is quite cheap. Instead of going into a high street store where I would be paying about 20 to 25 yo yos I decided to buy a belt from one of the many stalls in the markets. I found a stall with some nice looking belts, picked one out asked the guy how much it was. He told me it was 7 euros. I figured 7 euros is pretty good, I'll try it on. Tried it on and found it was way too big for me so I handed it back to the guy, told him it was too big and I wasn't interested and was about to walk away. Before I could blink, he went "no problem sir", took out a big pair of scissors, cut a chunk off the belt and told me "now fit, 6 euros!". All I could do was smile and point to the now lack of belt buckle on the belt. He then took another belt, took out a butter knife and preceded to unscrew the buckle from the other belt in order to use it to replace the now missing buckle from the belt that he just cut up. I figured, hell if he's gone to all this effort to try and sell me the belt I might as well buy it so I ended up taking it (of course first trying to get it for 5 euros since it was now technically speaking a Frankenstein belt).
As for the tango festival itself. In general it was very good. The classes were very good and the teachers full of energy and entertaining which is always a nice thing. The festival organisers on the other hand just seemed not to care for anything or anybody for the most part which was very disappointing. I had the feeling that they just wanted the international presence to help fund bringing over the good teachers for themselves. Also, during the first week the classes were all on at ridiculously inconvenient times, for example starting at 8 pm and ending at 12pm. This meant that we generally had no time to grab dinner before or after class because people, it would seem, eat late in Italy and it was too late when the classes had ended. This however gave the little cafe place at the venue a chance to sell some finger food at whatever prices they wanted to us. I couldn't tell you how much food cost at the venue mainly because it kept changing every day. A small bowl of fruit could cost you 2 yo yos one day and then 4 yo yos the next day.
The people attending the festival seemed like a nice bunch. We met a couple (in the sense of dancing partners) from Hamburg whom we hung around with a bit. The guy was a cigar smoking author and translator of German romance novels who used several nom de plumes since women (and I say women here as I can't imagine many guys reading romance novels) were not really enticed to buy romance novels written by a guy and especially from someone called "Wolfgang". Instead his publishers had made up several other names in which he published under accompanied with background story to the name. One of them being a 40 something Scottish mother of two called "Scarlett O'Doherty"! :o) They even went as far as finding a profile picture to accompany the background story.
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