Renaissance Girl

1. I saw Molly's play last night! Or more correctly I should say Theater Machine's play, & I knew half the people involved, but Molly was the one bugging me to come. They produced Caryl Churchill's Vinegar Tom which is a weirdass play but quite good, & they did it very well I thought. A lot of SU people won't be able to see it because it's right over MP rehearsal & performance, but if you're in Seattle, you should go see their show & support new companies!

2. Just when I think I could not be more gleeful about our President-Elect Obama, this website comes along: Change.gov. I mean. I just. I. This is me internally flailing with joy.


3. Speaking of joy? This is another reason the internet is awesome: a Flickr set of the Obama family on election night. These are--oh, god, I hate using the word historical right now, but they are, all right, & they're just awesome. Plus as a rule they are generally just really good photographs--lovely composition & light on a lot of them. (Particularly this!, this, this which I want to frame for my wall,* this, & this... all of them, really. I should just quit linking & tell you to go, click, see them all!

*Can I just say how happy I am that I have a president whose photo I want to have on my wall? I am invested in government now for reasons of hope & hard work--not anger. This is good. This is very, very good. :)

Last weekend was our last to go tripping, so we went out with style: weekend madness in Northern Ireland (or the north of Ireland, depending on who you talk to). On Friday afternoon, Cozy, Lee, Nora, Kate, Charlotte and I took the train up to Belfast. As you can imagine I was thrilled, since I adore trains. We bought cava & orange juice and brown bread to have a picnic on the train but ended up not sitting together, so instead I read some to prepare for my paper, & mostly slept.
We arrived at the hostel, checked in, & found our room, all the while exclaiming over how much better than the Generator this place was! (It was rather nice: a hostel, sure, but clean! And cute, and quirky, & friendly.)

So we had the party in the hostel room, later joined by Katie Manteca! All the way from London.



I'm warning you: this post is going to be full of photos, & probably of historical rambling. (For the real historical stuff, you really should go look it all up--it's fascinating, & I certainly don't remember exact dates or everything they told me. But it's good to know.)

( Day 1 )


And I'm quite tired, & making more typos than it's worth correcting at this point. I'll just let Day 1 be for now, & put up Day 2 (in Belfast itself) tomorrow.
Peace.

This weekend was cold, wet, blustery and very much turning toward winter. That didn't exactly stop us from doing anything, however...I & some others managed to get out of Dublin on both days. Saturday Cozy, Lee & I woke up early (again) and met a tour bus at the hotel near our apartments. The tour was led by Mary, a chatty & friendly guide, & took us & a bunch of others up to Newgrange, telling us all the while about the history of Ireland, from the Stone Age until now. We wandered the visitor centre for a few minutes, then took the shuttle bus up to the actual site of Newgrange Passage Tomb:



( Bones. )( Saturday night )
( Bray! )

I love London. I don't know exactly why; I can't give you particular reasons. It's just that something about that city--upon which I can put no claims except those of a repeat visitor--something about the Tube & the old stone buildings & the insane amount of Indian food & the museums which are all free & the constant construction & the plethora of old theaters playing a grand variety of plays, about the way they play up those emblems that make the whole world recognize England (the red buses; the taxi cabs; the telephone booths); it all just makes me terrifically excited, like a little kid.



I do have one exception to the amazingness that is London, which is also a warning: should you ever go to London (& go, I say, go), NEVER, EVER stay at the Generator Hostel. Just don't. We were all in disbelief about how awful it was, although given that we were all at the hysterical point of tiredness, everything was just hilarious in it's terribleness. Oh, Generator.

But I digress. We caught a flight to London early early Thursday morning, catching the 5am bus to the airport. There were thirteen theater kids, Ashley our program director, & Siobhan, who works at IES. For all the things that could have gone wrong with this many people, it managed to work out fairly well (even though one of us left her passport at home & just barely got it in time. & no, that wasn't me. But it all worked out). We landed, all fairly delirious, at about 9am, and rode blearily on the Tube to Russell Square, where the British Museum is. Ashley led us down a few streets to our hostel. We all stood around the lobby (as it was) while he checked in. The hostel was all metal & neon & florescent lights. They sold a thong at the front desk instead of (in addition to perhaps) a t-shirt. Also it has a nightclub attached to it (or maybe I should say that the nightclub has a hostel attached to it), and a skeezy one to boot. We put our luggage in the storage room, which had a leak. When I say it had a leak, I mean that it was raining inside there. Still, we found dry places, stowed our luggage away, & followed Ashley back out.

We walked to Leicester Square, with Ashley showing us around, & he let us free for a few minutes before our first show. Some of us walked up the next block to Piccadilly Circus, where we stood in the rain & took photos. I got some of one of my favorite statues:



(I wrote these horses into a story once. And by "story" I mean two or three scenes that look a lot like a couple of other books I really loved at that point in time.)

( more blabbling! and photos. those are good. really. )

Well, I'm back. From Venice. One of the most glorious cities in the world. This is why I adore Venice: I pretty much love everything having to do with boats, old cities, things made of stone that are over five hundred years old, masks, hand-made artisan crafts, and fresh Italian food. Fortunately for me, Venice is built on islands and public transportation is by boat, it is extremely old and gorgeous in every way, and masks and pretty things are in grand abundance. I will attempt to do justice to the whirlwind three days that Lee & I spent there. I will fail, but I will attempt...and at least there will be pictures!

Saturday

We left on Saturday afternoon, planning to catch the Aircoach & instead being taken by cab, after a cabbie pulled up to the stop & said, "You want to go to the airport for the same price as the coach? Hop in." Turns out he was going to the airport anyway, so he drives along the aircoach route & steals passengers, which I think is hilarious. Also, he reminded me very strongly of Sanjay from Slings and Arrows, which was even funnier. We did the whole airport rigamarole, but we got to board our aircraft by walking across & climbing stairs!



I know, it's silly for me to get excited about that but it feels so fabulously old-fashioned, like I ought to be wearing a hat and gloves to get on board the aircraft. There were some beautiful views out the airplane window as well: ( +2 )

We landed in Venice, and took bus to Piazzale Roma (a transportation depot, the last place cars can go in Venice) & then a vaporetto (water taxi) to our hostel. The vaporettos are wonderful, old clunky flat boats with a covered seating area. They stutter along the canals making noises that sound like they will just give up at any moment, and they pull up to the docks with a huge listing clunk. I love them.

Sunday

We woke up early on Sunday to avoid the tourist rush across to the main islands. I stumbled blearily out of bed, spent a long time in the bathroom arranging my towel so I could reach it but it wouldn't get showered on, and then spotted a window in the corner. I stumbled over to it, looked outside, and woke up instantly:



Yeah, so, we're in Venice. No doubts! We got breakfast at the hostel, and took the boat across to Piazza San Marco, where we spent a little time just taking photos and being touristy: ( +2 )

Then we went to the Doge's Palace (Palazzo de Doge). Sadly no photos were allowed inside; I would have loved to show you some of those rooms. They were gorgeous, all blue and gold ceilings, and Renaissance paintings everywhere, carved marble fireplaces. Hidden behind a doorway to a staircase that went nowhere we were allowed, we found a fresco by Titian of St Christopher carrying Christ across the Venetian Lagoon. My favorite room by far was the Shield Room, in which there are no shields but the current Doge's coat of arms. But the walls are all painted in maps of the 16th century, and there are two enormous globes--I mean enormous, maybe three feet in diameter--one of the earth, one of heaven. All old, and brown, and beautiful.

I did, however, take plenty pictures of the courtyard....( +3 )

After the Palazzo, we headed for el Teatro Fenice (the Phoenix Theater), via a church where we caught the second half of mass, a cafe where we grabbed some lunch, a gelateria, and various other mazes and amazing places of Venice: ( +3 )

And el Teatro! It was beautiful...and ironic. This theater, and the company that built it, has survived and rebuilt from several fires, each time renovating the theater to look as close to the orginal designs as possible. Except for when Venice surrendered to Napoleon, & they took out several small boxes in the middle to make a royal box (which is riduclously sumptuous, all red velvet and mirrors and gold).

So, we weren't actually allowed to take pictures inside El Teatro, & in the auditorium and seats there were very attentive guards; but in the other rooms no one was around, so I stole a couple photos just to show you how amazing the entire place was: ( +2 )

Just past the Fenice is a beautiful little courtyard. That small building in the back is a hotel, & is, I've decided, where I'll stay the next time I go to Venice. (When I am rich, apparently, and can afford it...)



I could spend so long here...

And the rest of this I'm doing as one great lj-cut lump, because there's no set pattern to any of this... Here are pictures of masks, of bridges, of buildings, of why Venice is strikingly and disgustingly picturesque: ( see? everything is pretty )

So that was Day One of Venice. But I got back to Dublin today, have spent a lot of the day doing laundry & uploading pictures, & I am tired. A lot of my clothes are still wet, I have to pack again because we're going to London tomorrow...& we have to catch a bus at five am. It's 10:25pm right now. So y'all are going to have to wait for more Venice. I will probably do a ridiculous round of Venice & London posts when I get back, after I see my parents!

& now I really do have to pack. And sleep. Love all. Ciao.

I MET HELEN MIRREN. HELEN MIRREN!

Cozy, Lee, Meghan and I got up early this morning and went to the Hughes & Hughes bookstore in St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre to get in line--in the queue, I should say--to meet Helen Mirren. (HELEN MIRREN.) We held each other's places in line while we all went to buy the book (none of us but Cozy had really planned on buying it before this morning, but--it's Helen Mirren. And a good book). We were among the first in line and we were only getting more excited as the bookstore started to open and people were setting things up.... The line had stretched far back behind us by this point.

And then with no warning, there she was. Just calmly walking out along the line of adoring fans, saying, "I just wanted to come out and say hello to you all."

Did I mention that I love her voice?

She disappeared into the bookstore after a little while. By this point there were a bunch of gawpers standing about the entrance, probably intrigued by the many large news cameras and the enormous queue. Then she came out again, though you could hardly tell with all the newspeople and their cameras surrounding the little signing table, you couldn't actually see her. The few people in front of us went through, and then Cozy (of whom I never got a good picture because some random person was in the way the whole time. Bah).

And then I went up to the table, and she took my book and looked at the postit, and said, "Are you Kenna?" in that beautiful voice. And I said I was, and as she was signing she said, "you must have got up very early," and I burbled "oh, no no, it was worth it!" (Or probably something closer to "nunun...worthit," really.)

I did manage to get some better pictures afterward, though none of them are particularly good. But what do I care? I MET HELEN MIRREN!

( some pictures anyway... )

...and that's pretty much all I have to say.

Hello my dears. Time for a proper post, with photos, though hopefully not taking too long as it's midnight-forty over here.

DAY ONE...
So. First, I'll start with our flat, which is plain and older, but in a super-classy area of Dublin (a nearby house went for over 2 million euro!), and very nice...



This is our room, with my roomate Kate on her bed. She's a lovely girl--everyone I've met from the program seems really nice and friendly, although a little awkward; we all are, these first few days, & the jetlag probably doesn't help. I except the theater girls (there is one boy and twelve girls....dear lord) will probably get on like a house on fire once we start class.

( go on, you know you want to know more )
Also, there was a spider adventure. Yesterday night after we'd all walked home Cozy rang our doorbell to say there was an enourmous spider in their flat, and could one of us deal with it? I generally don't mind spiders too much, so I came over to see if I could catch the thing. Yet when we returned, the spider was nowhere to be seen. Lee and Meghan, Cozy's flatmates, said they had seen it drop from the wall and disappear. We hunted for a few minutes, but no luck.

Tonight I walked back with the three of them, and since my flatmates weren't home, I came to hang out in their apartment. Cozy was sitting on the floor of her room, on her computer, with me on the extra bed reading Andrew's guidebook, when all of the sudden she shrieks like a madwoman and takes a flying leap onto her bed--the spider is there, cornered at the wall and her dresser. And it is huge: about two and a half inches long and standing up off the ground (so two and a half isn't much, but hold your fingers out that wide and imagine a spider). I told her to go get a pot, which she did; the other two crowded around the doorway and we took pictures of the things before I nabbed it. I feinted at it with a pen and it ran out (and I'm not terribly afraid of spiders, but even I get the willies when they're big and they run at me) and I slammed the pot down and caught it. Then there was an argument over what to do with it, which culminated in Lee helping me get a piece of cardboard and then a fat wedding magazine under the pot, and me carrying the thing out to the street and flinging it onto the road. There is photographic evidence of me being brave, thanks to Meghan.

And then of course I come back to my flat and Kate says that Micah saw a huge spider in our living room. Great. We have an infestation. If it tries to crawl into my bed I'm murdering it on the spot. Grrr.

Tomorrow is more orientation (academic! Oh yay class schedules!) and then this weekend Cozy and I, & whoever will join us, are going to be touristy around Dublin, and get it all out of our system. Also Saturday is Lee's birthday, so we're planning outings for that. I'm settling in; it's going well. I'm still a little discombobulated, and I miss home (and there is a fecking spider in our flat), but I think it's all going to be good. Except maybe for the spider. That sucker's going down.

The construction next door has become more bearable--perhaps it really is quieter, or maybe I'm just used to it--or, more probably, it's gotten all interesting to watch. They're ripping down the building, & now it's to the point where we can see into the demolished building through all the holes. It's too late now for what I really wanted to do--go exploring in there & take pictures--but I can take photos from our balconies.

.....


A broad view from our living room balcony.

( +10 )

Also, I really enjoy days off. I slept till noon, I cleaned my room a little, I did some homework that I'll be getting back to soon, I taught Nikki how to make curry. It was good.

...in case you didn't already know. Charlotte and I spent the day wandering and taking notes re: the Department of Transcendental Ascendancy (which, if I'm going to work there, I really ought to learn how to spell). Also I wielded a digital camera (which I stole borrowed from Danica), so...pictures!

( lead on, my lusty hearts! )

...and now I'm off to see Jet City Improv! Hurrah!

Coo, my hair is way cooler now, and much more, um, "me" than before...Looksee.
[I still think this is my favorite photo of me ever, though. Maybe cause I took it...*grin*]

Room is nearly done! More things moved in. Cannot find proper space for altar, though; am seriously put out.

Cooooeee! Tomorrow Emily and I are going to Portland! *is so very excited* Yay!

I went over to Sprong's today, got to see Birdwatch people (Rebecca! Yay!) and meet the baby, who is heniously cute. I held her some. I'm always afraid I'm going to drop babies. Maybe that changes if it's yours, but hmm...I still think I'm going to make my friends have kids and forgo the birth process. :D

...i really need to work on my monologues. And I really ought to read my homework for history. Hmm. School or break? School...or break? ...break. Ehehe....