I wake up to the screams of seagulls circling over my house. Even though I live in a grey, old area of the city with no body of water anywhere to be seen, the voices of the seagulls remind me that Dublin is a city by the sea. I check the alarm, and as usual I’m awake before it’s supposed to go off. I drag my body out of the bed and into the shower, where the mixture of cold water and Rodrigo y Gabriela on the stereo finally wakes me up. The first tea of the day then makes me feel ready for another day at the office, in a place where you can only see the mountains but not the sea. I leave my house on St. Peter’s Road, where a badge on a neighbours house reminds me that James Joyce lived here for two years of his live. He and his family moved to Blackrock from here as far as I know, near the beach. A yellow double-decker bus gets me to the office, and after switching on my PC I try to write in some kind of modern marketing speech for a couple of hours.
A colleague of mine has sent a postcard from Thailand. She’s staying in a small hut on the beach, she writes. The last time I stood on a beach I saw the Milky Way, something I’ve never seen before. I had drunk more Amstel than I had planned to in the small bar near the camping ground, and before returning to my tent I wanted to take a walk along the beach to clear my head a bit. But my walk did not take me far. I stopped on the crest of the dike behind the beach, baffled by the image of millions of stars forming a clearly visible band of light in the night sky. And so, for the next 3 hours, I just sat there on the dike, my bare feet dug into the soft sand, gazing at the incredible spectacle that the light of so many stars were performing just for me, while listening to the comforting sound of the waves breaking on the beach below me. And tried to store all those images I saw somewhere deep inside of me.
I switch off my PC, leave the office, and a similar yellow double-decker bus takes me home, driving along Dublin’s biggest graveyard on the way. After coming home, I run along the banks of the canal, from my house to the Brendan Behan-statue and back, passing clusters of beer-drinking men in tracksuits on benches and elderly ladies walking their dogs. After a shower and dinner, consisting of a sandwich and coleslaw, I try to write a bit (I still need to get my head around the second assignment of my travel-writing course) and drink an Amstel from the fridge. Before heading to bed I read a couple of pages from “The Beach”, and in the last conscious moment before falling asleep I hope that I’ll dream of stars and the sound of the sea.
Another MatadorU-post, this time about publications on-and offline that I’d like to write for, and how they handle submissions.
Cara Magazine (Aer Lingus magazine)http://www.maxmedia.ie/cara-magazine/
The Aer Lingus in-flight-magazine enables you to have articles read by every passenger the airline transports over the world – but it is (obviously) not a independent magazine.
Submissions to mkershaw@maxmedia.ie please. Response time may vary, especially as they only publish 8-12 volumes per year.
Sherman’s Travel http://www.shermanstravel.com/
The online branch of Sherman’s Travel Magazine is currently looking for an Ireland-based or Ireland-versed writer to update their Ireland guide.
Email erichard@shermanstravelmedia.com with your experiences and qualifications. No information about response time.
Culch.iehttp://www.culch.ie
Not really a travel related blog, but one of the best lifestyle-blogs in Ireland, and therefore emitting a quite acute picture of what’s hot and what’s not in the Republic of I.
Mail contact@culch.ie to get in touch. No information about response time.
Iceland wants to be your friendhttp://www.ablogabouticeland.com/
This is the blog of a great campaign by the Icelandic Tourist Board, open for people who have to say nice things about Iceland – fitting for me as I’m traveling there in June.
If you have a story to tell, please send a mail to icelandwantstobeyourfriend@takktakk.com – response time is normally within 72 hours.
For my last source, I have to confess that I’m cheating a bit, because I started writing for these nice people a two weeks ago while enrolling here. So I’m happy to announce that the Dublin Cityblog will go live soon:
Spotted by Localshttp://www.spottedbylocals.com
Editors and initiators of this collections of city-blog are Bart and Sanne van Poll, and this is one of the best websites on the market if you are looking for local travel tips from European cities.
Visit http://www.spottedbylocals.com/become-a-spotter for details on how to become a “Spotter” or city expert.
Thanks to a certain ashcloud from Iceland, I was forced to spend the last 1,5 weeks in Berlin. A hard and cruel fate, some of you might say. And it is like that – so between working from the Berlin office of my company with limited web access over days and finding great places to eat & drink at night, all my other jobs got a bit neglected. So here’s a little video to make up for my lack of posting and to cheer you up.
It is called “We Are Here: The Pale Blue Dot”, was made by Pale Blue Films and features a speech by Carl Sagan, a track by Mogwai and great scenes from loads of movies. And it reminded me of the fact that I’m nothing more than an animated skin-bag full of innards, a mere fleck of dirt on the rearview-mirror of the universe. And it made me enjoy being this fleck of dirt even more.
Dear reader: thanks to the generous people over at Pocketcultures, I have enrolled in the MatadorU travel writing course, and will publish writing assignments as a part of this course – and will obviously do so here on my almighty blog. So, if you’re not interested in my progress please ignore all posts tagged with “MatadorU” going forward (=sarcasm). But if you’re interested, here’s my first assignment:
In my opinion, there are two things a traveller cannot travel without. And I’m not talking knickers and towels here, I’m talking about something even more basic: a pen and a notebook. Take away all my electronic gadgets like GPS and smartphone, and even my dog-eared guide books, but leave me pen and notebook. Why?
It stores all information in one place:
Even when I’ve printed out my boarding pass or train ticket, I always note down reservation numbers and booking codes to be on the safe side. Plus, all key data of my travel planning goes here as well, hotel addresses, embassies, emergency phone numbers. All this information can by now be managed online with the most user-friendly software and online tools possible, but still these tools need internet access and even more important, electricity. And my notebook always works, however reliable the local power supply is. Oh, and it’s bio-degredable.
It provides entertainment:
I often find myself waiting on bus stations, and most times I’ve finished the book I was reading five minutes before and no newspaper agent in sight. And the same might happen to you. So why not doodle something, try your poetic skills at a limerick cursing the local bus operator, or prepare the email you’re going to send from the next hostel. When it does one thing, it passes the time. And you may even discover your vocation as a writer.
It can become your very own guidebook:
If you’re going to a location a second time or visit it regularly, your notebook can become your very own guidebook. It lets you organize things you want to keep for future reference or for your records, such as the names and addresses of restaurants, shops and other important places. You can even note down interesting information at a museum for further investigation, or websites you may want to look up later and recommend via Facebook.
I am not trying to stir up a debate on principles here (and I am not promoting certain products – a nibbled-on pencil plus an old receipt book will do just fine), but the pen/notebook-combination that works best for me is my trustworthy 12-month-Moleskine-diary and an Enzo Varini ball-pen. And these two items must have saved my travel planning and sanity more than once.
Wir alle kennen das: auf dem Nachttisch stehen noch die leeren Bierflaschen und der volle Aschenbecher vom Wochenende, draußen peitschen Regenböen mit Beaufort 8 gegen das Fenster, und mittlerweile hat man zum 4. Mal die Snooze-Taste am Radiowecker gedrückt. Jetzt gibt es nur noch wenige Möglichkeiten: entweder unter Vortäuschung einer tödlichen Krankheit liegen bleiben, unter der kalten Dusche Liegestütze machen oder aber laute Musik spielen. Einige der besten Songs um die Woche dennoch zu starten:
Kylie Minogue – „Spinning Around“. Schon nach den ersten 16 Takten sieht man vor dem geistigen Auge Kylies goldene Hotpants und weiß: das Leben geht weiter.
Monster Magnet – „Powertrip“. Vor allem wenn ein langer Tag im Büro bevor steht, gibt es nichts besseres als mit der Kaffeetasse in der einen und dem Satanszeichen in der anderen Hand diese Arbeitslosen-Hymne mitzubrüllen. „I’ll never gonna work another day in my life!“.
Jamiroquai – „You give me something“. Selbst wenn man als Single alleine aus dem Bett muss ein schöner Song. Vielleicht wartet die große Liebe ja an der Bushaltestelle.
Rodrigo y Gabriela – „Tamacun“. Wer beim Flamenco-beeinflussten Akustik-Metal dieser Herrschaften nicht aufstehen kann ist Tod. Und täuscht nichts mehr vor.
Slash’s Snakepit – „Beggars and hangers on“. Hier weiss man schon warum man sich den ganzen Tag dem schnöden Mammon hingibt. Wegen dem Feierabend-Bier. Oder dem Feierabend-Bourbon. Oder dem Feierabend allgemein.
The one other blog that I’m writing for for over 2 years now is the Dublin Community Blog. We are a diverse community of writers (loads of Irish veteran bloggers like Red Mum and Roseanne, plus expats from the US, Germany = me, Romania and Holland), all with different interests and topics that we write about – so you’ll get a pretty diverse picture of the Irish capital when reading our posts. And our birthday was last week! So our main man Daragh took advantage of the opportunity and announced a nice little viral campaign that I really would like to spread the word about: Make Dublin Smile.
“We want to start a campaign to make Dublin smile. We hope that this campaign goes a little viral and gets some support from fellow blogs and also some more business around town.
The concept is relatively simple, we want people to do something good, at random and document this for us. Ideally if we can get photos or videos of you doing this, then all the better, but we want to hear your story of how you made someone smile first and foremost.
The main focus of this campaign is to look out for people in need. For example, if you see a homeless person on the street, stop, say hello and buy them a sandwich or a coffee. Get their name, tell us a bit of their story and your time with them, get a photo of you together and we send you a prize. Another example could be if you see someone unable to find change for a parking meter, put your hand in your pocket, give them the change if you have it and again, send us the story. It’s quite simple really. If we can get corporate Dublin involved in sending us some more gifts to assist this process, this thing could become a big success.”
So here’s my little contribution. Please feel free to spread the word – ah yes: you can win 2 Vodaphone broadband modems plus pre-paid card. Here’s some information: “Our prepay mobile broadband modems are now half price when you buy online. Get surfing from just E19.99 with our great value prepay modem and enjoy internet access without any ties or monthly bills. Simply top up and pick a broadband add on that suits you.” So by all means tell us over at the Dublinblog how you helped to make Dublin smile – because you can never smile and laugh too much.
Back in the days when King of Pain still was a booking/promotion agency, I worked with an incredible incredible French band, composed of some of the nicest human beings I ever had the honour to meet: Munshy from Paris. These 4 guys and the 1 lady created an unique and distinctive sound, somewhere between Korn, Aphex Twin and Tori Amos – and their liveshow blew everything away, but in a positive way. Where other bands will leave you powered and burned out, Munshy actually managed to conserve all the energy within you, and you left their show with a smile. Every time.
Unfortunately everything ends, and the same happened to Munshy. After 2 of the founding members left the band in 2007 due to that age-old musical differences, the remaining band members played on as an acoustic three-piece and finally declared their split (after trying out a couple of new members) at the beginning of this March.
And even though I’m very sad about the fact that this emotion- (I witnessed people crying at their shows, and not because they played so bad) and movement-inducing juggernaut has stopped playing completely, I’m glad that all members keep on creating art: some offsprings are Sweyd, Orchester and Fata Morgana. But I’d like to draw your attention especially to the project of guitar wielder Robby Kielt. He keeps on playing under the moniker Robby W@n, and performs acoustic songs in the vein of John Butler and Damien Dempsey. And as this soundtrack fits my current desk-bound existence very well I can really recommend his sound. Please follow him on MySpace and Facebook, and by all means visit one of his shows should you happen to be in the Paris area.
So, here’s to old friends, endings and beginnings. Cheers.
