Blur

I'm trying to figure out what day today is because I'm genuinely not sure. We've been living "if it's Tuesday, it must be Rome" for a week now. I think it's Monday night because I'm back in Göteborg and the calendar says I'm supposed to be in Gborg on Monday night. In the past 7 days, we've been to Moscow and back and Ireland and back. Things are a bit of a blur.

Let’s summarize Moscow. Neat place to see. I need to learn more about its history. Our relocation agent, Yulia, preferred the Soviet era to current times. She liked that everyone was equal, that you couldn’t tell who was richer or who was poorer. The traffic is insane. It’s like trying to get out of Toronto on the 400 on a holiday weekend, but it’s like that all day long. They close main roads whenever the politicians want to go somewhere. There’s no advance notice, the traffic just stops dead and you sit and hope somebody had the good sense to create a detour. We experienced this Wednesday late afternoon when we were trying to take a quick trip up to Moscow State University to see the view over the city. I think the view was worth the hassle, but I think I’m the only one. Everyone smokes. There are very few places where you go and don’t end up smelling like an ashtray. That hasn’t happened to me since going to clubs 20 yrs ago. Russians are friendly and the women are well turned out, lots of tall shoes, but you also have the feeling that everyone is out for himself. They live for the ‘now’ and don’t plan for the future. The corruption is still there. We were walking to see the statue of Peter the Great and the cathedrale that was torn down by Stalin so he could build a swimming pool that was then rebuilt a few years ago. At an intersection, a police officer has stopped slightly out of the way of the traffic. Peter told us that he was waiting to pull somebody over to try and get money out of them on some bogus charge. Money for himself, not money for the gov’t. Sure enough, on our walk back past, he’s pulled over a car and is trying to tell the driver he has a problem with his headlights. I wonder how much money he got. One of the good things about Moscow, other than that it was really neat to see, was that the hotel pool and gym was open 24 hrs, which with our crazy schedule was a bonus because E wanted to work out and Sprout wanted to swim and time didn’t allow it until close to 11pm. We’ve decided we’re not sorry we’re not moving to Moscow, but we needed to experience it to know we’d made the better of the 2 choices.

The plan to spend this past weekend in Ireland was in place months before the visit to Russia was squeezed into the schedule. Peter thought we should go to a concert while in Europe and he picked Kings Of Leon because he knew I liked a few of their songs, they were playing near Dublin, and we like Dublin. Then he discovered that they were headlining a concert festival on the grounds of Slane Castle where the likes of U2 and the Rolling Stones among others big names had played over the past 30 years. We arrived in Ireland Friday late morning and picked up the rental car. Kudos to Peter for managing a stick shift while driving narrow country roads on the wrong side. Kudos to me for not having heart failure every time we came a leettle too close to the walls, bushes, and ditches on my side of the road. First stop New Grange. New Grange is a Neolithic burial site older than the pyramids of Giza. It’s about 5200 yrs old. One of 3 buriel mounds in the vicinity, New Grange was constructed to capture the light at the winter solstice. It’s light box is designed such that light only enters the chamber between Dec 19 and 23. The peoples believed that the old year ended on the 20^th and the new on the 21^st when the light began to return to the land. It’s an engineering marvel. The entire place is extremely well organized. Someone meets you when you enter the visitor’s centre, and talks you through what you’d like to see. Then you’re labeled with a sticker for the time of your tour and they tell you where to meet the bus that will take you out to the site. Then you pay. Usually they make you pay first and ask questions after. The guide at the site was excellent. Their museum was outstanding. We had lunch in the café afterward and it was wonderful – very good food with a lot of variety. From there, we drove to the site of the Battle of the Boyne and wandered the fields where the battles took place. The concert at Slane was larger than we had expected – about 80, 000 people in the crowd. The concert takes place on the castle grounds. It is situated beside a river (where apparently people drowned 30 yrs ago trying to get in to hear Thin Lizzy – this story told to us by a very friendly very drunk Irish lass who’s mum had been at the first concert) and the ground creates a natural amphitheatre with a hill sloping down to a large flat space by the river. We arrived and staked out a spot on the hill. 6 bands played: The Whigs, Mona, White Lies, Elbow, Thin Lizzy, and Kings of Leon. For the first 3 acts, things were pretty much calm with people sitting and listening and chatting. Most of the crowd had a lot to drink. People looking for a place to sit unknowingly dribbled their 4 packs of beer over the belongings of unsuspecting people sitting on the ground. Most of the drunks were happy. We only saw one fight. Everyone wanted to chat. Many of them were very entertaining. By the 4^th musical group, we had to stand up to avoid being dribbled on and together with the young ladies in front of us, we tried to stake a claim on our space, preventing those wandering around from pushing through the middle of us. The young ladies gave up early into the Kings Of Leon set when the crush of the crowd worsened. We toughed it out until after ‘Sex on Fire’. That was amazing. 80 000 people all singing along and jumping up and down. After that song, I led our parade up off the hill to where there was more room in front of a big screen. A very cute blonde girl with flowers in her hair thought A was pretty special and convinced him to dance with her. Then her friends got E in on it too, and the group of them danced along to the music. We left after ‘Use Somebody’ which was also really impressive, and they ended the event with fireworks. It was quite the experience. Thank you to: Dancing Hatman – we were sure you were going to bounce right into us, but somehow your radar always kept you just far enough away; the flower girls who danced with A&E – they had a great time; to the young blondes for chatting with us; to the brunette with the running commentary, where’re ya from? Canada Wow Canada Really? You came all this way just for Kings of Leon – aren’t they great ya? oh me mum was at the first concert ya 30 years ago ya etc etc etc; to white shirt and daisy girl and everyone else – you all provided my children with the best infomercial possible of what happens when one drinks too much. The next day, we drove to Dublin. The girls shopped (shoes!) and the boys toured Dublinia and the Guiness storehouse. For dinner, we found the restaurant we’d liked so much when we were here 6 years ago (Chatham brasserie on Chatham street). It was still terrific. This morning before going to the airport, we wandered over to the park at St Stephen’s green. All the flower merchants were out on Grafton Street and it smelled wonderful.

So many stories to tell. Thanx for hanging in to the end. Next stop: Norway.