Severe Jam Damage

So yes, a few things to clear up. I’m still here, just not here if ya get me.

Besides the normal things like breathing, sleeping, eating and working I’ve been busy with other stuff, some of it net-based, some of it not.

In the ‘real-world’ category I went to London about a month ago for a few days, where I met up with Mr. Birdbath and Miss Rabbit. I’ve also been getting to grips with my new camera (a Nikon D80) and I’ve just bought myself a gorillapod. The weather here has been shite so there have only been a few evenings in beer gardens, but they’ve been bad enough to knock me out for a couple of days afterward.

Online stuff…
I’m still doing the 365 thing on flickr although I’m missing out days here and there more and more often. The Friday flickr fiction which some of you may remember ignoring here on SJD, has now been moved to a dedicated site on ning.com - We are now all over here if you want to continue to read my attempts at flash fiction. I’ve also gotten myself an account at Warren Ellis’ Club of Mars, but I really really don’t know what to put there, so its a bit dead at the moment.

I’m going to post here when I can and when I actually have something to say. Right now I’m up to my uxters completing this project and can’t wait to see the back of it. Only a couple more weeks… hopefully.

Four full days in Barcelona should have been enough to see all of the sights. Of course that kind of thing is dependant on the fact that you get up early in the morning to beat the crowds and aren’t out carousing until the early hours of the night before. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which way we holidayed.

Saturday was our first full day in the city and we decided to use it getting orientated. The fourth member of our group wasn’t going to arrive until Sunday morning so we thought it best just to go for a wander and acquaint ourselves with the local hotspots. A wander south down to Port Vell and then we got lost in Barceloneta. One quick turnaround and we were back to the Port and up Via Laietana. At that point we entered the Barri Gotic and damn if we couldn’t escape the Placa del Pi. Not because it was so nice, but because everytime we turned around there we were - back in the square. Eventually we decided to follow the tourists on the Segway C6’s just to get onto a road that didn’t lead back to the Placa del Pi. This took us up past the Orfeo Catala and eventually to the Arc de Triumf where the sun finally broke through.

We did get to see the Sagradia Familia, although as it was Easter Sunday afternoon the place was jammed. They had also closed the stairs, so the only way up was in the lift and there was a two hour wait for that. We decided our time could be better spent so we didn’t go up.

We didn’t get into any museum’s unless you count the Museu de l’Erotic where there were a number of photos taken - although only a few are publishable. And we did pass by the door of the Palau Nacional up on MontJuic. The magic fountain display was due to start at 7 o’clock in the evening, but since the sun was still splitting the sky we thought it would be hard to see the lighting, so we just walked up to the top of the steps, taking pictures along the way.

On Monday - our final day - we were in pretty bad shape (although not as bad as we would be on Tuesday morning in the airport.) so we decided that a trip in cable car was in order. We had not counted on the incredibly bad service though. At the ticket office there were five people ahead of us in the line. The ticket seller sold two tickets, then went on a smoke break. When he came back to his booth he fumbled around again and went for another smoke break - having sold NO tickets. After about 25 mintues we got fed up and walked back for a wander round the Barri Gotic again. As it was a late start that day we found the cloister of the Catedral de Seu a lovely quiet space for our aching heads, well except for the honking of the guard geese.

There was a bunch of stuff we didn’t get to see. The Picasso museum, Parc Guell, La Boqueria, Casa Batlo and Casa Mila (although we did drive past this we didn’t go in.) All of which sort of gives me a reason to go back.

Oh dear god, 10 o’clock at night and the taxi driver had brought us to Beirut. We were staying in an area called ‘La Raval’ aka ‘Barri Xino’ aka ‘Chinatown.’
The taxi driver didn’t know where our street was, he kept driving around and around and around the Rambla del Raval making sure we were a target for any of the locals on the hunt for clueless tourists. Eventually he just dropped us on the side of the road while we waited for the lady who had the keys to our apartment to come hobbling out of some side street.
We followed her back down the dingy road and she took us in a doorway to our home for the weekend.

The apartment was grand, all we needed it for was a bed and a shower. It had two bedrooms, one on the ground floor, the second upstairs in a sort of loft.

That night we went out for drinks - sans coats of course sure and aren’t we on holliers in Spain?
The locals were all wearing winter coats and boots, no wonder they were staring. At Las Ramblas we stopped at a restaurant and got screwed by the waiters for the price of a bottle of wine. (20 euros for a bottle of Faustino VII!!) That, for those who are wondering was the LAST TIME we ate or drank anywhere near Las Ramblas.

La Raval wasn’t as bad as we had first thought - it never is really. I’d put it on a par with Smithfield to be honest, one of those places that anyone who hasn’t lived there doesn’t feel comfortable after dark, but perfectly ok for the locals. There were a bunch of half decent restaurants and some groovy laid-back bars on the Rambla del Raval, we were a 10 minute walk from Port Vell to the south (and Las Ramblas and the Barri Gotic if we were heading east) and there was a good selection of restaurants for breakfast and kebab shops still open at the end of the night. Although the only one we managed to stagger into was the Taj Mahal where we met Orlando Bloom - a Scottish guy named Thomas I think - and one of the shop (owners? managers? kebab makers?) was famous for some ad campaign about kebabs. (True story, Clarice took a photo with the poster on the wall behind him.)

We later realised that all those horror stories our ‘friends’ had been telling us about muggings and robberies were happening to the tourists who stayed on Las Ramblas or in L’Eixample. Our neighbourhood may have been where the thieves came back to at night, but we liked to think of it as a ‘Don’t shit on your own doorstep’ scenario.

Anyway by the last night we were comfortable enough in the area to agree that if we came back to Barcelona we’d probably stay around there again. This train of thought may have been helped along by the lovely bar girls in Ambar who were serving us what could almost be classed as triple measures. Ambar by the way was mentioned in my ‘Le Cool’ guide book and was 3 minutes away from our apartment. We didn’t try it until the final night - possibly just as well for, as Lelly said later, “If we’d found that place on the first night I’d be coming home in a body bag.”

More to Follow…

I’m getting worse at this blogging thing aren’t I? Leaving it for days and weeks without anything to say. Sorry about that, I’ll try and do better this week. So, where was I? Ahh, yes, tales from Barcelona.
Well first I should tell you about GETTING there, which was an adventure in itself. Lelly and Clarice were due to pick me up at 2.30, but a rethink had them picking me up at 2 instead.

Good plan.

The clutch on Lelly’s car \ SUV \ monster truck went at the lego-houses in Ringsend. On Good Friday.

Luckily it was in 2nd gear so she managed to drive it up onto the curb. Unluckily we sat there for an hour waiting for the AA man. Clarice rang her boyfriend who drove up from Wicklow to drive us the rest of the way (there was no chance of getting a taxi where we were.)

Actually this story was much more exciting in real life than it is written down, so I’ll just finish it off by saying, we made it to the airport in time to have a drink in the bar and then proceeded to order gins and vodkas on the plane until we forgot all about the car and the clutch and the AA man who wouldn’t be there until 4.30.

More to Follow…

Just back from the weekend in Barcelona. I’m in the process of catching up, sorting through photos and trying to decide which bits to blog about. Rather than put everything into one long entry I’ll probably break it up into bits. I have about another 300 photos to go through from the digital and 7 rolls that I’m dropping into Gunns at lunchtime for processing.
Short version of the weekend is:
1. I need a new liver
2. El Raval is cooler than it appears.
3. I need a new liver
4. Las Ramblas is an expensive hole.
5. You will never escape the Placa del Pi.

More to follow…

Call myself a blogger huh?
I know, I know, it’s been desperately quiet around here lately. Problem is I haven’t been able to come up with a single decent topic to write about.

I’m off to Barcelona later today, flying out this evening for the Easter weekend. Of course it was only AFTER I’d booked that I realised is was Easter. doh!

Anyway I should have a good few stories on my return, bringing the camera and my new lens, here’s hoping the weather holds up. Although I know that won’t stop us having a good time. In the meantime, Happy Easter everyone!

Well obviously I was busy with other things but here is a quick list of the books, music and other stuff that absorbed me on holiday.

Books:
War Reporting for Cowards - Chris Ayres: I picked this one up at the airport and pretty much finished it by the time I landed in Toronto. It’s pretty standard travel writing stuff. Chris Ayres was an embed in Afghanistan in 2003 and writes about his ‘Nine Day War.’ Witty in parts he doesn’t dwell on the reasons for the war, but rather how he got there and how soon he can get out.

Sideways - Rex Pickett: One muggy evening when we were too exhausted to even speak to each other we sat on the porch drinking cold beer. Mrs H was reading ‘The Quiet American’ and I picked up Sideways. I haven’t seen the movie but I knew the general gist, the basic American Road Trip story. To me the book seemed oddly uneven. The first part seemed manic, almost ‘Fear and Loathing’ with Cab Sauv. Driving, swigging wine and lots of shouting. I didn’t like either of the characters, Miles was an alcoholic and in denial about it and Jack was - not to put to fine a point on it - a prick. I couldn’t understand why either of these men were friends and it was not explained in the book. All they did was fight about wine, women and everything in between. There didn’t seem to be any reason for either of these men to hang out together and that quite frankly grated on me.

Someone comes to town, someone Leaves Town - Cory Doctorow: Yep, that bloke from Boingboing. Okay I also bought it cos the cover art is by Dave McKean. (Holy crapola I’ve definitely become a geek. I’m buying books for the cover artist now!) I read this one on the way home and it read like a Nano novel. The plots were thrown around like dirty clothes on the spin cycle. All it was missing was a few Ninja Pirates (Nanowrimo joke.) But it did have monsters, angels and murders. The one driving (and pointless) plotline was about getting Wifi into Toronto’s Kensington Market, and pretty much the whole book hung around that. Considering that Doctorow is an uber-geek and the King of Boingboing the technical shit was pretty poor, and rather outdated. (Think Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon - okay you can stop now before your head explodes.) It really should have been tighter. The ending tied up absolutely nothing, or at least there were still a few strands left hanging.

Music:
The Sadies: Saw these guys in the afternoon at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and they were really cool. On stage one brother looks like Nick Cave and the other has a sort of scruffy Bob Dylan thing going on. You can listen to some of their stuff here

Food:
A&W: Okay, forget McPuke’s and Bluergher King. If you are gonna go fast food A&W is the only way to go. I had a couple of TeenBurgers (or three) while I was there. SO MUCH BETTER than the rest. Question: They have a Teen, Momma, Poppa and Grandpa burger but what happened to Grandma eh?

Mrs H’s Grilled Salmon: She bought a half a wild salmon for under a tenner. (We’re on an island famous for salmon and it’s not that cheap!) Stuffed with dill, lemon and garlic butter then grilled on the barbecue for an hour. Absolutely delicious. Also, her homemade guacomole kicks ass.

Bison Burgers: Tastes like beef. Apparently they are now farming Bison for meat. The burgers were DAMN good.

Dammit what is the point of coming home all brown and leathery from your summer holidays when the general populace is enjoying a heatwave.

Not one comment on my scaly red arms and bright red nose this morning. Not ONE!

So for those of you who haven’t heard the company I work for has been sold and I may or may not have a job when I land back on T’Eire Firma.

It sucks hearing about it on holiday but at least I have a heads up this time so can arrive in prepared on Monday morning, as opposed to the last time this happened and I turned on my phone in the Dublin arrivals hall to a flurry of increasingly panicked messages.

According to my source everything is going to be done and dusted in 2 weeks time. Our office will shut down and those who are the ‘chosen’ ones will be moving out to the new owners premises.

I feel surprisingly calm. Although I am utterly fed up with this industry. At the age of thirty mumble I would expect to have a career that didn’t involve bouncing from company to company and wondering how long it’s going to last. Saying that I know a girl who was made redundant from SEVEN jobs in a row. Miranda, where are you now?

IT is a pipe dream, in Dublin anyway. They told us we’d be millionaires, that stock options would actually be WORTH something. Do you know how many companies I’ve worked for where my options have lapsed into negative numbers? Don’t answer, it’s rhetorical. But apparently this decade’s big thing is the Pharmaceutical industry. All the kids are studying in that field and coming out making a fortune in the companies that have invested in Dublin. They’ll get about 7 or 8 years out of it before the companies pull out and move to India or somewhere similar.

Sorry this entry is a bit muddled. I meant to write something a bit more legible but my head isn’t really in it. Must go, gotta fly!

What is the point of this? I’ve just spent an hour on the phone waiting for a ‘customer service representative to become free’ so that she can take all of 30 seconds to say ‘yes, you are confirmed on the flight’

Does ANYONE know the point of ringing up two days in advance to say ‘Yes, I’m going home’ ?