Geneva

On Friday (26/08) Esben and I flew to Geneva to visit Colm and Mick (two friends from DCU). They are up in the top  5 for the world's best hosts! We had such a good weekend: great food, great company and lovely weather (although apparently not as hot as usual - TG). They live very near Lake Geneva, which is the perfect spot for swimming, any water sports you can think of, running, walking or simply to people-watch. It is also the first city where we paid nearly 10 Euro each for Paulaner (draught) - you live and learn!! And because we were enjoying ourselves so much, Mick made me go for a run on Monday morning. Well I did enjoy it and as always, it's much easier to go running with someone else :o) Guys, thanks for a great weekend, until next time :o)

Silkeborg Ildfestregatta

After I arrived back from Dublin, Esben and I went to the Silkeborg Regatta (which takes place every three years - so we were in luck this year). The regatta spans over four days and each day different bands play and there is entertainment provided for the whole family. We saw the Copenhagen Drummers and Nabiha perform. I've included a song from Nabiha below - she's great! The Copenhagen Drummers were very entertaining, although I'm not sure if Esben is their biggest fan! There are also a lot of beer tents for the adults. We came across one with a Danish band playing traditional Irish music - I felt like I was at a ceilí in Donegal :o) The highlight of each evening is the fireworks display - for the first three nights a company sponsors the display and they compete against each other, so as you can imagine there is no expense spared to have the best display. We filmed some of the display on the Thurs evening - it was fantastic to see - thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Relaxing in Dublin

I went back to Dublin for 6 days on 10th August. I had planned to go back later in the month, but I would be meeting my colleagues at the end of the month. It worked out well as we could celebrate my dad's birthday while I was home. I stayed for the first part of the week with my sister, her husband and their two children - it was a real eye-opener on how to multitask! I thought I was good, but actually I think my sister might be better :o) It's funny how when you like doing something, you never need that much sleep. During the entire week I caught up with numerous friends and family members. Still didn't catch up with everyone, but then you can only pack so much into 6 days without being utterly exhausted afterwards. I was out late most nights and up quite early - not because I had set my alarm clock, but to the sound of my niece calling 'mammy, mammy', and hearing my sister going into her room to say that it was too early and she should go back to sleep for a bit longer. 30 mins later - 'mammy, mammy'. Ok, you can get up now. I know where my niece gets this from - my sister was always up at the crack of dawn and I would join her to watch cartoons at around 9am! It was great spending time with them doing normal, everyday things, as this is something which I won't be a part of while living abroad. The other great thing is Skype - I think I would miss a lot more if I wasn't able to see family and friends as often as I do. As I met up with different groups of people, it was so nice to catch up on what everyone is up to. I was also lucky to have met up with many who were just in Dublin for a short period of time, and would also be flying off somewhere else.

We had a Flanagan get-together on the Sunday - worked out really well and we spent the whole day outside in the garden. It was lovely catching up with everyone. Pity Dublin lost the match though :o(

I had a meeting in DCU on Monday afternoon and I didn't think anyone would be on campus during August. But I was pleasantly surprised when I met friends and colleagues, who were also having a meeting. The DCU Intergenerational Learning Project is really taking off this year, and will be working in collaboration with other universities. They are also getting their own space on campus - this is such a great achievement and I am very happy to hear of all the great developments - the hard work has really paid off!

Moving house is stressful. I was very lucky to be able to move my things into my parents house. But then I have to clear their house - I always underestimate how much time is required to do this task. I felt much better as I boarded the plane on Tuesday that their breakfast room is totally cleared, and the side entrance is once again in use. I put a lot of things in the attic - over Christmas I plan to go through the boxes of books - I plan to donate to friends or charity - and I plan to buy a Kindle - decision made :o)

Riversiderock, Silkeborg, Denmark

Esben and I headed along to the Riversiderock festival last night, taking place in a really intimate amphitheatre venue, in the middle of the forest, around the corner from where Esben works! The line-up included The Rumour  Said Fire (probably one of my new favourite bands!), Tina Dickow and Kashmir (yay!). A lot of rain was predicted for yesterday evening, but amazingly it held off until we were safely in our tent at around 2.30am. You should check out these bands on youtube - they are brilliant! Here are some videos we recorded last night (and youtube links), and some photos :o)

Kashmir

Kashmir

Tina Dickow

Open Water Swimming - Silkeborg

Yesterday (midday) I took part in my first Danish open water swim. The season is slightly different to the one in the Leinster region. There are not that many swims during the summer (about 9 in total compared with about 22 in and around Dublin). Also most swims are of a longer distance, or at least there is a choice of how long you want to swim. So I decided to go for the 2.5km swim. It was in a lake in Silkeborg, so the conditions are like a swimming pool, which is a lot different to the usual conditions of the Irish sea!! Anyhow, since I haven't been training, I needed to challenge myself a bit. We were told that if the water temperature was below 16 degrees that everyone should wear a wetsuit. I don't currently own a wetsuit so I contacted the organisers and explained this and that I usually swim in the Irish sea without a wetsuit. They said it was fine, that I could swim either way. We were very lucky with the weather yesterday, and I'm glad to say that I brought along the high-factor suncream. The water was a delightful 19 degrees, yet the wetsuits were out in droves (except for me!). Well there was one other guy with a tri-suit on, so I wasn't the only one. Although I did stand out for the wrong reasons :o) I actually couldn't believe how warm the water was when I got in. It's been a while since I didn't have that, oh my God feeling when you get in. If these swimmers had to do the Liffey swim, I'm not sure they would survive that initial shock when you jump in off the pontoon! Swim went well, was pleased that I finished it, but have a lot of training to catch up on. All swimmers were given a medal for their efforts and given the nice weather, the only option was to go for some ice-cream afterwards! Esben was an excellent supporter and took some action photos ;o)

(I think he could be on for some swims next year....)

Before the race..

Getting directions from the Americans

Action photo :o)

The home straight

Can relax now!

The medal

Lovely setting for the swim