Grey Cup Festival Day Two (November 21)

Quick highlights:

- There are some activities downtown, including the Calgary Pancake Breakfast (a GC Fest must because, well, free pancakes!) and the 'Mosaic Underground' tent. Surprisingly, the tent is not underground; the name is meant to allude to the mining that Mosaic does underground. In any event, it was raining in the tent yesterday. As the heat from the heaters rose, it generated condensation on the aluminium supports, which was dripping throughout the enclosure. Indoor rain is a first for me.

- The bulk of the team parties are being held at Evraz Place, a combination conference/sports complex (I think ...). Three of those started up today: the Atlantic Schooners Kitchen Party, Tiger Town and the Double Blue Bash. They were basically spill-over for Green people who could not get into Riderville, which is being held in the Riders' cavernous indoor practice facility. Despite this, there was still a line-up to get in and the three other parties were taken over by Green-clad Rider fans. There was green everywhere.

- It really is a dry cold.
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We're Famous! (Part II)

@FanPhotoTeam: #101festphotos,#novascotia http://pic.twitter.com/UgOoWvpIey


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We're Famous! (Part I)

@FanPhotoTeam: #101festphotos,#novascotia http://pic.twitter.com/6hBjWSQndj


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Grey Cup Fest Day One (November 20th)

A quick recap:

- We hit Riderville for a few Pil and lo and behold, we managed to completely avoid 'Green is the Colour'. An auspicious beginning.

- We then ended up at a great downtown Regina pub called Beer Bros. It features twenty-five or so craft beer taps from across Canada (I had a pale ale from Shawinigan's Trou du Diable) and an extensive list of bottled beers, as well as very tasty food. We also had our first celebrity sighting, as a number of sportswriters were doing what I am led to believe newspaper writers do in their spare time (quaff ales). I spotted Steve Simmons, Bruce Arthur, Terry Jones (I think) and a couple others I could not quite place.

- I am writing this on Thursday morning: it is minus fucken 26, minus fucken 37 with the windchill.

- Woodrow's unofficial Oska-wi-wi count: 6.


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Regina! Experience Regina!

Try to imagine how annoying I will be this week drunkenly singing this...

Still, it is better than 'Green is the Colour' ...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=74B5kMLNd5Q&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D74B5kMLNd5Q

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And We're Off: Grey Cup 101!

And, of course, by 'we', I mean 'me'.

This will be the 10th consecutive Grey Cup I attend, going back to 2004 in Ottawa, and the first for me in Regina. In fact, it will be my first time visiting Regina, the last remaining provincial capital to which I have not been. Taylor Field (or Mosaic or whatever it is called) is also the last remaining CFL stadium I have not sat in (discounting Guelph; I was hoping to go, but the summer and fall turned out to be busy).

I will, of course, be meeting Woodrow; I cannot begin to imagine how Oska-wee-wee annoying he will be. Guess I will may to get his back given the Green Tide that will surround us.

In any event, I will try to blog the shareable highlights. And if the planets align, I am still hoping that the buffoon Rob Ford shows up, even though that might be unseemly at best.

The trip is off to a smashing start as one of the albums in Air Canada's playlist is 'Meat is Murder' by The Smiths.


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Day 35 (November 13), Last Night of the Trip: London UK

I am pseudo live-blogging my last night of the trip. Comments will however appear first to last, because, well, pseudo...

17:42: At this time tomorrow (Podunk time), I should be in an Podunk bar having a pint, rather than a London pub. It is a move down.

18:42: I'm eating octopus. With capers!
I also suspect my waiter hails from Barcelona; it is taking all my strength not to channel my inner Basil Fawlty.

19:24: I just ordered olorosso sherry. I'm all in now!

19:52: I still have not clued in that they do not identify Underground lines by colour (despite the colour-coded map) which sends me, yet again, scurrying for my tourist guide as I walk into the tube station (Tottenham Court) and realise I do not really know which one is the dark blue line.

20:09: I made it to the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Woo hoo!

20:29: I just caught the end of Lost Alone's opening gig. They are a trio, two guitars and drums: not punk or metal, but loud rock. They were not bad. If they ever make it, I can say I saw them in London.

20:42: Yeah, it just hit me (again): I'm at a (large) club gig in London. This is fuucken cool.

21:02: The Darkness are on stage!

21:08: I'm sorry. 'The Fucking Darkness' are on stage, according to the lead singer, who can still hit the high notes.

21:24: The tight spandex body suit. It's gotta be the tight spandex body suit that's making him hit the high notes.

21:38. Ok, there's an over-voice now introducing the album 'Permission to Land'. Hee hee. (1,4K sales in the UK is impressive though.). And introducing the band.

21:40. It's a red spandex suit now.

21:43: Sorry. Pink. It's a pink spandex suit.

22:24. Lead singer just called the guitar roadie (roadey?) back on stage to get a kiss on the mouth, just like they practised during sound check.

22:35: I love how saying someone's a cunt over here is like saying's someone's a dick back home.

23:19. A Whopper's 4 pounds?!?

23:34+. Ok. I may have figured it out, now that I have seen them live. I bought The Darkness's first CD 'Permission to Land' when it came out ten years ago. It was a fun disc, with some classic sounding harder rock tunes tinged with pop, but I could not quite work out whether it was meant to be a parody of hair bands, an homage or a straight disc. Seeing them live, performing Permission to Land on its tenth anniversary and other songs (evidently, they either have had hits in the UK in the subsequent decade or have a decent enough following that know their songs, as the crowd recognised and sang along to most of their numbers), it occurred to me that while it is nearly impossible to take their songs seriously (lyrics like 'I want to kiss you every moment of every day' kind of ensure that), The Darkness is not parodying metal rock, it recognises and incorporates by design the theatrical elements of hair rock (such as falsetto high notes, spandex body suits open to the navel and, well, hair) as part of their act. While it makes them sometimes appear like a West End musical version of a band, it is well in line with a particular UK comprehension of rock as theatre, going back to Queen and Bowie.

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Day 31 (November 9): Dublin, Ireland

Here is how I spent my last full day in the motherland:

- I took a train from Galway to Dublin. I know I have mentioned this before, but to cross a country from coast to coast in three and a half hours or so, well, that is still just weird.

- I picked up some cod 'n chips from Leo Burdock's. One of my most pleasant memories from my previous trip to Ireland 12 years ago was Leo Burdock's fish 'n chips. It was the best meal I had over a four-week period in Ireland and redefined for me what fish 'n chips should be. Present-day reality lived up to the standards of memory. The fish was perfectly and uniformly battered, crispy, not soggy. The chips were also quite good: perfectly golden-fried.

- I attended an international rugby match between Ireland and Samoa, won by the Irish side 40-9. I was not entirely sure what I was watching at times, but it was great fun. Of note, the Dropkick Murphy's Shipping Up to Boston is on heavy rotation at Aviva Stadium.

- Aviva Stadium is maybe a 45-minute walk or so from where I was staying, the Harding Hotel, to the West of Temple Bar. Now I suppose I could have tried to stop for a pint at every pub on the way back but that, I fear, might have led to a drunken stupor. So I only stopped at four, until making it back to the hotel bar, Darkey Kelley's, in part because they advertised live music. Well, the live music was a couple singing hits of the 60's and 70's (there was a lot of Abba) to pre-recorded music to a very full and hopping, rather large bar where I was one of the youngest people.

Yup, that is the way my Ireland sojourn ended...


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Where Was I: Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Ireland

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Days 26-29 (November 4-7): Inis Mor, Co. Galway, Ireland

Inis Mor is the largest of the three Aran Islands, located west of Galway, bordering Galway Bay and the Atlantic Ocean proper. It is calm, peaceful (especially at this time of year, way past peak tourist season), quiet, windy and wet.

Many more pictures than I usually post:

Rocky NW shore of Inis Mor. (November 4).

Example of the rock walls that delineate fields where livestock feed.  These walls extensively criss-cross the island. (November 4)

To illustrate the above point: cows! (November 4).

As opposed to the north side, the south coast of the Island juts above the sea, which pounds gorgeous cliff sides. (November 5)

A small bay on the south side of the Island. where the cliffs were eroded by the sea.  Note Dun Ducathair on top of the cliff to the left. (November 5).

The ground leading to those cliffs... (November 5)

Yet, cows still graze there... (November 5)

The 'Black Fort' (Dun Ducathair), a rock fort that dates back at least 1500 years.  (November 5)

Kilronan, the largest village in Inis Mor. (November 7)

The north-east end of the island offers yet another terrain: a wide grassy field. (November 7)

Waves crashing on the eastern coast of the island., Part I. (November 7)

Waves crashing on the eastern coast of the island, Part II. (November 7)

The surf crashing on the cliff sides of Inis Man, the smaller island to the east of Inis Mor. (November 7).

And, because I haven't posted a bird picture in a while, what I am guessing is a pheasant of some sort. (November 4).

I Missed This by a Day!

At The Scholars' Rest pub in Galway...

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Day 29 (November 7): Eastern End of Inis Mór

Just me and the sea...

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Days 17-24 (October 26-November 2): County Kerry, Ireland.

I spent roughly a week in County Kerry on the West Coast of Ireland, first in Tralee then in Dingle, accomplishing what I set out to do, which was next to nothing. I read (I am on my sixth book; the luggage is getting heavier), hung out in cafés, took some walks in the countryside, (of course) went to a number of pubs, listened to traditional music sessions, and, oh yeah, watched the Red Sox win the World Series.

Some quick comments:

- (I hate the expression but...) Dingle Peninsula is god's country.  (Or gods' country, depending on your views.  Or logic's country.  All right, now you know why I hate the expression.)  It is gorgeous: pastoral, very green farmlands jutting out into a very blue sea, which hammers some rocky coasts below, usually with some rocky islands in the background.

- I had my best non-World Series Championship night of the trip so far on the Friday night (November 1), hanging out until all hours in the hotel bar with some locals, some Americans (including a group of four guys from New England with whom I repeatedly celebrated the Red Sox WS win), an Irish group of lads who were commemorating the second anniversary of a buddy's passing and others.  Many songs were sang (not by me, of course), beers were quaffed, rounds were bought well into the night.  Just a lovely evening.

- The pamphlets and literature on the hikes that one can take in the Dingle peninsula contain many warnings and recommendations on making sure people had the proper footwear and clothing, maps, and compass, as well as to be aware of the ever-changing weather.  Reading these, the only thing that stuck was 'No bear warnings?  Ha! How dangerous can this be...'

- And for those of you who are wondering, I was able to stream the Fox feed of the World Series on my laptop (the best $4.99 I ever spent prior to leaving), as I was considered an International viewer.  I watched the Red Sox clinch in my hotel room at Benner's Inn in Dingle.  It really helped that clocks were turned back here a week before North America; watching a game from midnight to 4 AM is a lot more easier than watching a game from 1 to 5 AM.

- I love saying 'Dingle'.

Some pictures:

Farming on the south side of Tralee Bay (October 28)

Tralee Bay in the background; ubiquitous Irish sheep in the foreground. (October 28)

Dingle.

Dingle Peninsula, south coast. (October 31)

Cliffs on the south coast of the Dingle Peninsula.  (October 31)

Dingle Peninsula, west coast.  (October 31)

Finally, Irish traffic tend to be more illustrative...