A Girl in the World

March 2009

Dublin Top 10

March 17, 2009

Miss. M. This is the first time that I’ve been able to spend an extended amount of time with Miss. M.  Our home life has been so nice this past week.  Sometimes we make dinner in, sometimes we go out, but everyday, we hug and kiss each other goodnight and laugh about how crazy the day has been.  With all the work, boy and mid-life-crisis dramas that we go through, we are never with a lack of content to talk about.  Life is a real comedy when you’re around people who can laugh just as easily as you do.  

The doors.  Dublin homes have beautiful doors.  Not like the doors in Marrackech.  These doors are bright yellow, green, red or blue and often-times ornately decorated in stained glass.  Legend has it that this was done on purpose so that men, when stumbling home drunk in the middle of the night, could find their way to the right house!  Ha.  Go figure!  Considering the Irish drink like fish, I am apt to believe this tale.  

Irish Food.  I’ve been coming to Dublin every quarter for the past 1.5 years and each time I’ve been here, the food has never disappointed me.  Yesterday, we went to Avoca Cafe for brunch and it was exquisite.  I had coconut crusted sea bream with sweet chilli sauce and a mango passion fruit smoothie for dessert.  The Irish know how to make good food.  I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the Fall and Winter months are so dark and dreary that much of the social culture centres around pubs and restaurants.  I like to think this is true.  It gives me a cozy feeling inside.

Gaelic TV shows.  I have never heard such gibberish in my life.  Sometimes a word will be recognizable to me and then I’ll plunge back into complete ignorance.  Languages are fascinating.  You would think that over time, for efficiency’s sake, we would all end up speaking the same language.  I wonder how many hundreds of years it will take for that to happen.  They actually say that Spanish will soon be the #1 spoken language in the US.  This is why I am on a mission to learn it!

St. Patrick’s Day.  It’s a total fluke that I’m here for St. Patty’s Day.  I hadn’t planned on it but what a cool experience to be here during a national holiday!  Isn’t that funny?!  St. Patty’s Day is a holiday here.  Lots of green, lots of alcohol.  What more is there to be said?

Cobblestone streets.  They’re everywhere and walking these dark streets on quiet warm nights feels like travelling back in time.  Old cobblestones, the shiny, rounded kinds, make me feel so far away from North America. 

The Sea.  There is something very melancholy about the Irish Sea.  It’s a different colour:  a muted green/grey but this weekend, the tide was in and it wasn’t cold along the shore.  We went for a long walk after brunch, watching dogs and babies and little kids playing near the water.  I can understand why people who’ve grown up by the sea long to be near it all the time.  There’s a freedom in the ocean, the promise of a different land just beyond the horizon.

International friends.  Being in the G office here in Dublin is like being in an international college.  This is where our European Operations headquarters is, which means that all of our country support teams are here.  I’ve been hanging around the Greeks, the Turks, the Arabs, the Dutch etc etc etc.  I’m constantly swimming in a sea of different languages and when I do speak with people in English, I am amused by all the different accents!  If you have an accent fetish, move to Europe.

Sundays on Grafton Street.  This weekend, everyone was out and about in the city centre.  There were bands playing in the streets, face painting for little kids, flower merchants and dancers.  So festive!

An early Spring.  Cherry blossoms are everywhere this month.  I think they’re early!  The weather this past week has been amazing and because of it, I’ve seen Dublin in a completely different light.  Every other time that I’ve been here it has been pouring rain.  When dry, the city is very charming: red brick mansions, stone fences, old tall trees.  Even London is getting gorgeous weather.  I think we’re in for a great summer!

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Fires, films and more of the metaphysical

March 15, 2009

Tonight, I stayed in by the fire and watched a TV movie:  About a Boy.  What a fabulous film!  I <3 Hugh Grant.  He is so charming and good looking and witty in this film!  The grumpy, single Englishman who, against his will, ends up opening his heart to the human beings in his life.  So great.  I remember this one line: “My days are full.  But my life has no meaning.”  And it really made me think about what it is that really matters in the world.  

My friend J has always said to me that the cure for chronic wanderlust is love.  A good, stable love is the force that will ground an addicted traveller.  And I think he’s right in many ways.  Unless you have someone to answer to or to think about or want to be with, there really is no reason for people to settle down in one place.  And I know this.  And this is likely the reason why I’m so reluctant to get into a serious relationship again.  The opportunity to live this life, that is so free and independent, nearly escaped me and once I got a taste for it, it’s not something that I’m willing to give up very easily. But then again, wise women have told me multiple times that we don’t really have much control over who we fall in love with.  Scarily, I agree.  

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Irony in Dublin

March 14, 2009

We walked by this restaurant last night and I had to take a picture.  

Irony in dublin

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Lisbon Top 10

March 14, 2009

032009Lisbon_014

The hills. It feels like an older, prettier, friendlier, more colourful San Francisco. Lisbon is a super hilly city, which makes for some dramatic views. I loved coming down cobblestone streets and looking up from the main squares towards castle-topped hills and terra cotta roofed houses. Very Mediterranean (even though it’s on the Atlantic Coast).

Brazilian influences. I just love how Latin the city is. I don’t know if we were lucky or if it really is teeming with Latin Americans, but seriously, our nights out in Bairro Alto were more Latin than my last vacation in Argentina. We danced to live samba music in old, cozy dives. Portas Largas bar was the perfect hole-in-the-wall place: family-style wooden benches, cheap cheap drinks, old posters on the walls, locals singing and dancing to the Portuguese music. Just so much fun.

Pasteis de Belem. By far, the BEST custard cakes I’ve had. EVER.

Agra salsa bar. We went there after hours, when everything else closed down. I can remember clearly how amazing it was to dance to this song in the heat, the sweat, the loud music.

25th of April Bridge. It connects the city of Lisbon to Almada, across the Tagus river and it looks exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge. Maybe because it’s made by the same company!

Taxis! They are everywhere and super super cheap! We were zipping around the city at 5 euros a pop. Such a bargain compared with London!

The drive to Cascais. It’s a 20 minute drive from Lisbon and is right along the sea. We rushed there on Sunday to catch a glimpse of the beach and to get some ice cream. We barely made our train back to the city to catch our plane home! The drive through the hills was beautiful and reminded me so much of California! It made me think about whether I could seriously settle in Europe. The world is small and I lose track of places because they can start to look so similar to one another.

My girls. The trip would not have been the same without M and C. Seriously, we had such a laugh. I pray that everyone gets to experience the kind of friendship that we share. It is the medicine of life.

Mmmm chocolate mousse!

Seafood, seafood. Lisbon is known for having great seafood and we took full advantage of this. Octopus carpaccio, cod, fish cakes, prawns, scallops. Exquisite stuff. And so so cheap!

Sunset at the Castle of Saint George. I love cities that make you feel like you’re in a completely different era. Marrackech was like this and being at the Castle of Saint George during sunset elicited the same experience. It was magical – glowing orange and pink light, a quiet peacefulness that comes over everyone during the few minutes before the sun dips beyond the horizon, a soft breeze. Mmmmmm. Just magic.

from the Castle of Saint George

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Gaelic

March 12, 2009

Seriously – how can a country that is a half hour plane ride from London have such a gibberish sounding language compared to English???

In dublin

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It ain’t always a perfect daily dream

March 12, 2009

I’m not sure how much of this is reflected in my last few posts but my life is really insane at the moment. The pace with which I’m going through my days and the amount of stuff that I have to do within each 24-hour pocket boggles my mind. It’s no wonder that, on top of the weekend vacations that I’ve been taking, the weekday work schedule, gym schedule and friend dates have really done a number on me physically and mentally. I’m exhausted! And though most nights I plop into bed thankful for having had such a full, fun, crazy day, lately this exhaustion has become borderline unhealthy.

Work has been really busy these last few weeks. I’m juggling many new responsibilities and have been mentally stretched in many different directions. The days fly by much too quickly and I’m moving too fast to have time to feel stressed or to complain. Some days, however, I hit to-do-list paralysis. It usually comes to me when I’m sitting at my desk, thinking through my mental list of urgent action items, when all of a sudden the screen turns blurry, everything moves in slow motion and a strange calm enters me. I like to think of it as “the calm before the storm”. “The storm” in this case is the risk of mental breakdown.

Last week, I had one of these moments. It was 5.30pm, everyone was pinging me at work, I hadn’t had any time at my desk all day, I had been running in and out of meetings for nearly 7 hours straight and I was physically exhausted from lack of sleep. All it took was one final trigger of stress/bad news and I nearly lost it. I sat there, staring at my screen, IM boxes popping up one after the other. All I could do was take a deep breath, close my laptop, put on my coat and walk out the door. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t even pack up my bag. I just up and left – with my Tube pass, my wallet and my cell phone. That was it for the night. No more work.

And what did I do to bring myself back into the world? I called my Mom, I cried, I took a deep breath, I laughed with C, I went to the gym, I took a long hot shower. Another day done. Finally.

Life isn’t always a perfect daily dream. And that’s ok.

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Nursing a travel hangover

March 11, 2009

I’m in Dublin for a week, staying with Miss. M.  We’re still completely wiped from the weekend and I can’t seem to catch up on the sleep debt that I’ve accumulated over the past few weeks.  Last night we made dinner in, turned on the fireplace and watched three straight episodes of Sex and the City.  A girly night in.  As fun as all of this travel is, it can also be really exhausting!  

A few tips on how to nurse a travel hangover:

  • get plenty of sleep
  • eat healthy meals
  • stay hydrated
  • schedule a weekend of sleeping in
  • wear comfy shoes all week long
  • clear your schedule for the next week (it will give you peace of mind about the mind space that you have to rest up)
  • do not have coffee or sugar
  • settle into your daily routine:  do laundry, clean your house, go for a walk in the neighbourhood (half the exhaustion is mental, so trick your mind into feeling it’s definitely home)
  • exercise (in my experience, this is the best cure for any mental or physical ailment, and it’s so good for you!)
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Lisboa – Europe’s best kept secret

March 9, 2009

I’m back from a wicked weekend holiday in Lisbon with the girls.  It’s Monday and the damage is done – we’re back at work, totally exhausted, sore and sleep-deprived.  But damn, it was worth it!  This weekend topped all other girly weekend trips thus far and now Lisbon is my new favourite city in Europe.  It’s cheap, colourful, warm, friendly and beautifully historic.  It’s a hilly city, with cobblestone streets, medieval castles and old monasteries.  The food was exquisite – fantastic fresh fish and to-die for pastries (pasteis de Belem).  We had the most amazing chocolate mouse I’ve ever tasted in my life.  

If you’ve ever seen the movie Vicky Cristina Barcelona, you’ll recall that the threesome in there happened because there was a special chemistry that could only exist between the three characters – they all fed off each other.  And M, C and I were just that amazing combination of personalities that made this trip so special.  It was madness and silliness and the most painful laughter I’ve experienced.  It was the ultimate joy for me to be with my two best girl friends – no limits, no holds-barred, no secrets or rules.  

We met people who couldn’t speak a lick of English, danced to live Brazilian samba music in hole-in-the-wall pubs in Bairro Alto.  We salsa’d till 4am and tiptoed in our high heels through cobblestone streets packed with locals and tourists. It was music and laughter and sunshine and amazing food.  We climbed ancient castle walls, rode trams in the evening wind and hopped in and out of taxis so cheap it didn’t feel like Europe!   

I’ve always loved Latin everything – the dances, the culture, the music.  And Lisbon surprised me because it is the most latin city I’ve experienced outside of South America.  We met some new Brazilian friends and managed to communicate with non-English speaking people with an English-Portuguese dictionary.  It is in these moments, where you are pushed linguistically and culturally,when travel really stretches you.  It forces you to communicate outside of your own tongue, it forces you to see through another cultural paradigm and it makes you forget about all the material comforts of your own life and home and pulls you into a completely new world.  This is the reason I am addicted to it: the newness, the stretching, the moments of pure disbelief that you are actually there, doing what it is you’re doing, meeting with the people that you’re meeting.  It’s the kind of shake up that makes me feel so so alive.

I’m exhausted and completely sleep deprived.  But memories from this weekend are the happy thoughts that would give me the power to fly if I were Peter Pan.  =)

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A blast from the past

March 5, 2009

A few months ago, I was going through some old boxes at my parent’s house and found notebooks that I kept from high school.  In there was a time capsule booklet that I was meant to open five years later.  It listed goals I wanted to have accomplished, my favourite things, my passions, my best friends.  It was the most amusing experience to read over all of that and compare it to the present time.  Mostly, I realized that I am still the dorky positive dreamer that I was way back in high school.

Tonight, I had a similar “blast from the past” experience with an old friend that I haven’t seen or heard from in about a year!  We had a falling out over something really stupid but she contacted me to meet up because she’s leaving London in a few weeks.  It was great to see her.

What struck me most about seeing her tonight is how different my life is now compared to one year ago.  She asked me about the plans I had to move to Paris, about my plans to move back home, about all the boy drama that was happening back then.  And I suddenly remembered that a year ago, I was learning French, planning to move to Paris and very much missing home.  I was a work-a-holic, travelling almost every week to another G office.  I hardly spent any time in London and hardly knew anyone in the city.  I could never have predicted that I would be here now, still in London, and so very settled.  It felt good to compare and to realize just how much I’ve grown and changed over the past year. 

I was also very proud that she decided to pursue her own dream!  For the longest time, she had been talking about moving to Bermuda to start a new life.  And she’s actually going to do it.  She has no idea where she’s going to live or where she’s going to work but she has faith that something great awaits.  She has always been a romantic – so positive about the world and the opportunities in store.  It’s inspiring.  She reminded me that dreams can easily be made into reality if you really commit to pursuing them.  

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The tease of The Travel Bookshop

March 1, 2009

One of the best things about living in Notting Hill is the fact that on any given Sunday morning, I can walk ten minutes down the road and enter the treasure trove called The Travel Bookshop.  This is the same Travel Bookshop that is featured in Notting Hill, the movie.  It’s the type of place that I have to approach with caution.  It creates a strange pain in my heart because every time I enter, a sick feeling of wanderlust enters me and for a few days afterwards, I am dizzy with longing.  It’s a form of self inflicted masochism.

I woke up today knowing that I would make the trek to this little shop. And I knew that it would do my head in – to read the “Best places to go before you die” type of picture books, to soak up all the amazing photography books, to wander the shelves as if wandering the world.  It all made me want to drop everything and wander the globe.  The store is sectioned off into continents and countries.  For an hour and a half I wandered Asia and Africa and South America.  I read bits of Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair in both Spanish and English.  I browsed Lonely Planet’s Festivals guide and vowed to myself that this year, we are going to attend La Tomatina in Valencia Spain.  I touched African hiking maps and Japanese phrase books and War Photography compilations.  And it took every bit of self control to not purchase 100 pounds worth of these things to take home with me.  

As always, I left feeling breathless – antsy for more travel, inspired to plan another great adventure, caged for being here and not there (somewhere, everywhere).  Psychologists have said that sometimes, success can be limiting.  It provides us with a sense of stability and accomplishment but prevents us from taking big risks.  It makes us afraid to fail. And many times, I’ve wondered how true this is for my own life.  As thankful and blessed as I am in the wonderful amazing journey that I am living, I have always known that there is something bigger, different, more life changing than this.  I just know within myself that I am meant to be doing something different.  And lately, I haven’t been able to shake the very strong feeling of wanting to discover what that calling really is.  My best friends say that I’m the type of person who sees the possibilities, always the possibilities.  These days, a giant cliff of the black unknown has been staring me straight in the face, teasing me with the possibilities, egging me to take that leap of faith where reason and passion collide to bring about real change.

It takes a leap of faith to become great.

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