The green elf - D2

Well, because of the long walk, wearing not the proper shoes and climbing over the fences I became a crappy and limited moving robot, this post will be shorter.

I'm staying on this area - as usually when I am abroad, I chose a silent suburban district:

Glasnevin, Dublin

City center
The center is full of tourists, cars and buses (I should stick to the hidden places). Unfortunately Dublin hasn't got a metro system, but they are building it (the worldwide 21 Project - the same as in Stuttgart). On the buses you can pay only with coins, and if you don't have the exact amount, you will receive a bill about your overpayment, and you can get it back in their office in the city. Pretty underdeveloped traffic system :(

  

  

On the glass you can see the Bank of Ireland (former Parliament building)

Trinity College
Ancient university of Ireland, established more than 400 years ago. It has a huge library and the Book of Kells can be seen here, which is written in Latin and illustrated with drawings, contains the 4 gospels from the New Testament. Of course you can see only a replica ;) The queue was too long and the weather too cold to wait for a copy, so I missed it :p But there was a graduation ceremony, so I could watch the happy youths while taking pictures, throwing their hats and tried to figure out what fur they have on their shoulders.

Street side

  

Inside

Hooligans :D

 

The new and old library

Sphere within sphere (nickname Death Star and designer Mr Tomato - A. Pomodoro)

National Gallery
From a tiny walk from the university, but far enough to soak through from a sudden rain. Unfortunately the Gallery has a small collection, I swear I read all of the descriptions next to the paintings, but finished in 1.5 hours. :( The Irish paintings are suprisingly good! It reminds me, that others wonder how good the Hungarian painters are, well, fame and talent is not always best friends.
It was possible to take pictures inside, but without flash it is rather a nice memory for myself, which one I liked. These ones:

A View of Dublin from Chapelizod

Barret:  View of Powerscourt Waterfall

Davis: A view of the Rye Water near Leixlip

Lavery: Return from market

Van Honthorst: A music party :D

And for the end a little bit of quay:

  

  

The green elf - D1

After a 4-hour sleep and an alcohol smelly flight I arrived to Ireland.
It is cold, f*cking windy, but at least it is not raining.
Got the first shock in Spar (at the airport I had to buy the busticket here): hey, they speak English! Finally I have no language difficulties, not counting the fact, that every sentence pops up in German in my head :)
The second shock on the bus: the bus stops are either not indicated or not announced. Luckily I wrote down by what number I have to get on and off, but it is quite stressfull (so far 100% success). See, precize planning is important!

I managed to get to 3 sightseeing spots today (planned previously 4), 2 of these are from the list "Hidden places in Dublin" written by a German guy... after today... never trust a solo male traveller, mostly when he is German :D These guys are too fearless!

National Botanical Garden
Khm, remembering the German forests I thought the autumn has been just arrived to Ireland too, but no, here it is nearly winter. The garden was bald, empty, with overblown flowers or bushes cut to the roots. Absolutely dejected. That's why - and following the "only realize positive things, to avoid being moody" strategy the pictures were taken about nice stuffs. You can find realism by the next 2 spots :D

Halloween on the streets and in the botanical garden (pumpkins made by children):

  

  

  

The garden:  

      

Blessington basin 

I was walking calmly towards my next destination, and nearly turned right to a street when an old lady caught my arms and asked why do I go that direction, will I visit someone? Ohm, no, I am looking for the Blessington basin. Softly she pushed me away and said it would be better to avoid that street, I should rather go along this one... no worries, she is coming this way too, and hooked on me. When I told her I am a solo traveller, got and endless advice lavina "sweetheart, take care of yourself, do not talk to strangers, I am old, this is an exception, but take care which street you chose, rather go into the city center, you should see this and that, and take care with whom to talk". When she left me, all of my energy was gone (have to admit that I had to kick my ass 3times to get on that flight... opposite to the April Rome, when it did not succeded). I looked around, but could not see any suspicious guy... however in Budapest... but I read the above mentioned German gentleman's article about safety for solo women travellers, which already scared me (summary: you should be kind to an Irish guy, when you really wanna continue, otherwise it can be an aggressive end... oh, and bring condoms with you, they don't have it, but sexual diseases they do).

This is the basin:

  

South Great Wall, the bay and the Poolbeg lighthouse
Khm, so it was recommended by our friend... out in the end of nowhere, I had to cross a park, a very long industrial road where only trucks could be seen, a beach and the mole. Now checking it on the  map while trying to give a massage to my aching legs, it was a 12 km trip in all.
I was swearing through the industrial road, but became speechless when reached the beach. I collected some shelles and stones, as usually (mind the pink shell!). And smiling continously to the lighthouse. Backward... not that much. It started raining, I soaked through, I was locked in the park. So I had to climb through the tapering fences, thanks god by one of the exits it was lower. Whoopsie daisy :D
Still it was worth to do it!

  

 

The first day's advantage list:

• finally can speak English freely
• tea, tea, tea (in small shops, in big ones, in the hotel, everywhere)
• everybody is willing to help when I ask them and they are really friendly and talkative
• fish&chips
• beach
• got a free Halloween lollipop 

And my pussy :D

I felt in love with pumpkin craving! Indeed simple to do, as an acquaintance told me and really addictive. It keeps me busy perfectly for hours. The best against stress and feels like I am in another place :)
This pumpkin however was really hard, can't really move my fingers. It's time to order a Dremel set, I was always very excited about wood-carving.

The pattern is a bit more difficult than the one yesterday (ok, not only a bit). I wanted to make something interesting, but none of them got my attention. I am not a big fan of cat, but Pussy in Boots from Shrek was always one of my favorites. He was my today task. My pussy :D

It looks nearly perfect from a distance, from a nearer view not that much :D

If somebody is interested, I've got the pattern from this site:

http://www.pumpkinglow.com/images/PDFpatterns/PussInBoots.pdf

My first pumpkin

Alright, alright, I lied, the next post is still from home :)
I am looking at the Halloween pumpkin for years, but the patterns were so uglily scary, that I had no mood to work with them. But nowadays some really cute and beautiful ones popped up, however mostly as fruit-sculpture. No worries, who said that I can make only daunting blokes for Halloween? Let's remember my last year very traditional "Easter ham", which ended up as putting Parma ham into maki sushi :D
Because next week I am going to escape to colder climate - here it started to be too warm :D, I made my first pumpkin today.

I watched some videos, this was the most useful. Had a bit difficulties with finding the right pattern: I wanted to have a rose, but it looked too advanced for first try. :( I still insisted to the flower form, the winner was discovered on a Hungarian website. Made some extra leaves around the flower. Manually drawing the patterns took most of my time!

"Drawing" the pattern with a meat needle on the pumpkin:

After sprinkling flours the pattern is visible:

Voilá:

Schwarzwald

I am really ashamed, that me, who adores hiking, was not able to move out during the last year, however there were so many beautiful places around my area. Unfortunately my project rush into danger in October, so I panicked, ohmygoshihavenotbeenanywhere and using up the free day for Deutsche Einheit kicked myself up to the Schwarzwald (with a little bit help of Pocak :))

Well, the weather has proved the name of the location, utterly black everywhere. And shivery cooold. :o

Thank goodness this lasted only for a half an hour, until I walked to the end of the dam, thinking whether I should enter the woods or not. But the sun came out of the clouds for word of commands or rather as fulfilling my wish and the dark forest road invitingly winked.

 

One of my favourite activities and the most relaxing pursuit is sitting on the top of something and gazing as far as the eye can reach. Preferably without many people around me, the optimal number is zero. Found an ideal sitting place: these rocks. Pure zen.

 

Let's see the forest:

   

Aooaoaoaoaoaoooaaaaa... I imagine Ireland like this, and of course Yakushima with its wild forests. Good news: next post will come from the first location ;)

From here the road unmercifully started to rise. Recently it rained, everything was wet, me was pitching and tossing on rocks and stones, trying to breathe normally. According to the last pneumonograph result I am ok. Lot of small and big Germans came downstairs, smiling and greeting me. All what I could do is smiling not too honestly back and waving. Oh, my favourite scene: German family trying to take a picture of themselves. Mutti set the kids and shouts: "Käse" :o This means cheese in German, but we don't say cheese because oh how funny it is, but because the face's mimicry wrinkles forms a smile. However I'm sure cooldavee thinks about "sajt" (cheese in Hungarian), at least watching his picture I have that impression :D

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

And here we are, near to the top. Flat field with pine trees. That biiig phalloid form is the Friedrichsturm, the finish. name of the place is Badener Höhe. It reminds me to Orthanc, mostly after climbing the steps with my iron-lung and looked down. Speaking of location... when I hear/read the question "asl?" (age, sex, location), the little devil inside me always wanna answer like "24, yes!, anywhere ;)".

   

The panorama and at the same time the reward is that beautiful. I could not enjoy it for too long, already pulled 2 hoods on my head just to be sure I won't arrive baldly to the start place, there was very strong wind up there.

For the statistics this was the road back and forth:

The ChiliMan

Az internet csodálatos dolog. Engem mindig meghat, hogy néha napján milyen kedves emberekkel hoz össze a sors :)

A japán utazás előtt olvasgattam és nézegettem blogokat, videokat. Egy teaszertartás kapcsán jutottam el egy amerikai úriember youtube oldalára, aki összevissza járkál Japánban, és mindent megörökít, ami neki tetszik. Köztük sok hasznos video is található. Innen jött az ötlet a kiotói fűszerbolthoz, aminek ugye viccesen bonyodalmas volt a megtalálása:

Ma felfedeztem, hogy facebook oldala is van, és igen kellemesen elbeszélgettünk :) Ez valami hihetetlen nekem még mindig, hogy valaki, akinek a videoját megnéztem és a világ másik végén él, inspirált valamiben és megoszthatom vele :) It made my day!