The following are email updates that we have periodically sent home.
Hello to all and sundry,
The most significant events of the last two weeks were Julie's trip to Italy (for pleasure) and Darren's trip to Denmark (for business). Both of us had splendid times in completely different ways. Here are our reports:
**For those interested, photos of our trips to Paris and Italy are available at www.darrenbarefoot.com/person.htm.
Julie - "I left for Rome on the 23rd of June to meet up with my good friend Jenn (a friend from high school) and her friends from KPMG. Not only had the other four girls taken care of booking the villa and renting the car (a snappy little Citroen), but I didn't have to add, subtract or multiply anything for an entire week--a bonus of having accountant friends. The villa Jenn chose was a short drive from Florence in the Tuscan countryside. Though we made day trips into Florence and the charming medieval city of Siena, much of the holiday was spent at poolside reading, chatting and soaking up the 34 degree heat.
I'd braced myself for some trying travel in Italy (I'd heard horror stories about the driving and inter-city travel), but we had very few difficulties with the exception of a few wacky round-abouts. As expected, the food in Tuscany is worth the trip itself. We were fortunate to be holidaying with Jenn's friend Paula (an Italian) who did some gourmet cooking for us, which, combined with Tuscany's famous Chianti, made for some delish dinners.
My favourite part of the trip was a dinner in Florence followed by a kilomentre run back to the car in the pouring rain. We'd taken the time to dress up for a night on the town only to find ourselves soaked to the skin, mascara running down our faces, barefoot and carrying our heels. Needless to say he headed back to the villa and skipped the clubs.
Though I had high expectations for Tuscany, I was awed by its beauty. The countryside is scattered with vineyards, farms and sunflower fields that seem fitted together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The flowers and the fields - even the sky - were had an intensity of colour I couldn't have even imagined. I'd go back in a heartbeat."
Darren - "I was in Copenhagen to attend a conference on online help authoring. For those outside my profession, that's the documentation that is displayed when you click Help in a computer programme. For those in my profession, the conference was offered by the somber folks at Digitext (www.digitext.co.uk). The content was highly-technical--I learned many nifty Javascript in DHTML tricks. Strangely, all of the presenters, including the excellent keynote speaker usability-guru William Horton, were American.
When God was creating city-states he made Copenhagen for me (I think that's a Gershwin tune?). I don't know what Hamlet was talking about...it was a couch for neither luxury nor incest. Efficient, laid-back, artsy and full of svelte blonde people (think David Pelletier and 7-of-9 bicycling gaily beside a canal). Never have I seen a more litter-free and livable city.
As for the people, they can be best summed up symbolically. I ate dinner one night in a Danish restaurant. On the wall opposite me was a ten-foot map that described the wine regions of France. In a French restaurant this would have been a whimsical affair with a lot of floral script and cute pictograms of Provence and Alsace. The Danes appear to have copied their map out of my grade 10 social studies text book. The regions are exactingly labeled in all caps, sans serif letters and look more like iron deposits. That's my understanding of the Danish people. They are cool enough to have a wine map on their wall, but logical enough to make it precise.
As I only had a few hours for leisure I hit the following spots:
* Tivoli Gardens - Bouchart's Gardens meets Playland.
* The Glyptotek - Sponsored by Carlsberg this is a brilliant national gallery.
It was unbusy, varied and air conditioned. I sat alone with several Monets,
a Van Gogh and a whole bunch on Degas for 20 minutes.
* Frederiksberg Park - a lovely park that combines the best of European and
North American public spaces. It's groomed without being formal, spacious and
once again, largely without people.
* Copenhagen Zoo - The first zoo I've visited in ten years. I had mixed feelings."
By the way, Darren's job description continues to expand at Cape Clear. He recently did some voice over work on the company's Web site...they wanted a North American accent. Marketing also promoted him to Senior Software Engineer. For those who want to hear Darren speak techie, they can go to http://www.capeclear.com/news/webservices_demo.shtml.
We're back in Dublin now and preparing for our July guests: Dannielle B. (Julie's friend from UVic and skating way back when), Jenn M (who is still traveling in Italy), and Andrea W (a fellow Arts Club survivor).
Cheers,
D and J
P.s. Sky TV, the Fox Television of Ireland, is showing Buffy the Vampire Slayer on a daily basis over here. It is glorious.
Hello to friends domestic and abroad,
We hope our message finds you happy and healthy. Though Dublin gets its fair share of hot and humid days, we are envious of our Vancouver friends who are no doubt walking Kits beach in consistently sunny weather.
Work has been busy for both of us of late. Julie has taken on a second contract with another start-up called Rococo Software (www.headwaysoft.com). She enjoys working with the group of young and quirky Irish folk and successfully landed three stories about the company in the Irish national papers in her second week on the job - so I think they like working with her too. Darren is furiously documenting a "Web services development tool" that has proved surprisingly complex. On the side, he is learning to program in Java and fending off international headhunters. In an unlikely cultural convergence, Darren has organized a Cape Clear virtual hockey tournament on the company's PlayStation 2 and wide-screen TV. The result has been much hilarity as he tries to explain 'icing' and how to pronounce Hejduk.
Good news on the softball diamond. Things are looking up for the FMI Field Marketeers... we've begun losing by less than 10 runs. Due to some tendonitis in his right arm, Darren has replaced softball with jogging. He jogs three kilometres three times a week in a local park at lunch time. He gets many quizzical looks from the lunching Irish business people.
It's the August bank holiday weekend in Ireland so Julie is traveling with our recent houseguests Jenn and Paula to County Cork. Plans include sailing, pubbing, and many hijinks. The following weekend, we will be in lovely Kilkenny (central Ireland) for the esteemed Kilkenny Arts Festival. We are staying in an Italian guest house (go figure) and have booked tickets to see Michael Ondaaje read (ahhh home sweet home) and the Irish premiere of 'Kvetch' by Steven Berkoff. While in town we also plan to see Kilkenny castle.
Darren has booked his flight home in September. He arrives September 20 and flies out October 2. He plans to spend the first half of his time in Vancouver and the rest in Victoria. His day timer is filling up for those 10 days... so if you wanna socialize you'd better email him quick. While Darren is home, Julie plans to do some traveling as well - perhaps a trip to London to visit her friend Marianne.
We were recently discussing the things we miss from home. Besides friends and family, there aren't too many, but here is our list thus far:
* sushi
* 7-11 Slurpees
* ice arenas and the sports within them
* 'Mango Madness' at Jugo Juice on the corner of Davie and Pacific
* Granville Island (and the tasty lager that bares its name)
* BROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS AT HOME
* roving dogs and cats
* veggie paninis at the little Italian deli on West 1st
* roller blading on the sea wall
* 40+ movie screens within walking distance
* law abiding citizens (traffic, by and otherwise)
* post-modern architecture like the Vancouver Public Library building
* swimming laps at the 501 while smelling BBQ'd chicken from Carlos 'n' Bud's
next door
* the Seabus (who'd a thunk it?)
* the down pour that only a temperate rainforest can bring
* more sushi
Cheers. D and J.
Hello everybody,
The frequency of our messages home have taken on a sort of reverse atomic decay, wherein the duration between emails doubles with each subsequent message. As this is our first time abroad, we haven't had a chance to observe this phenomenon before. We'll try to improve.
The fall has been grand here in Dublin. The weather has been surprisingly temperate. In the interest of debunking his colleagues, Darren did a little research and discovered that Dublin only gets 60% of the rainfall that Vancouver does. So, despite the fact that Dubliners complain about the rain as if they lived in the Amazon basin, they wouldn't know a good rainstorm if it walked up and asked for change.
Darren recently returned from 12 days in the motherland (that is, Vancouver and Victoria), and offers this report:
"While I like my holidays to be active--I am not the lie-on-the-beach-with-an-novel-recommended-by-Oprah type, my time in Vancouver was frenetic. I saw many friends and family, and generally had a good old time. Highlights included a Canucks game (a pre-season draw--a snoozer under other circumstances, but I was riveted), Sunday brunch with my siblings (with enormous French toast!), walking with my Mom, a hair cut by a stylist who used tools other than the electric razor and my 10-year high school reunion. On one day I actually saw all three of my mothers (birth, step- and in-law)...a rare day indeed.
Subsequent to my reunion, I was frequently asked how it went. I eventually settled on 'mildly and surrealistically amusing'. I reconnected with sundry people who I hadn't seen in ten years. It was tremendously interesting to observe how people had turned out. Certain patterns emerged: The over-achievers were still over-achievers, the under-achievers were still under-achievers, and the class clowns all became salesmen. Nonetheless, I managed to exchange email addresses with a select subset of people...several have unwittingly this email (if you're a Sentinel graduate staring quizzically at your computer screen, this is the latest in a series of semi-regular emails Julie and I send to friends and family).
I also had a day of meetings with Black Box Games, a company for which I'm doing some contract work. My (incredibly strict) non-disclosure agreement prevents from saying much but suffice it to say I'm writing content for a sports game. I'm developing a growing interest in the field of computer game design.
I also wanted to apologize to those who I didn't get a chance to see while I was back. It was for lack of time, not interest. Forgive me, I'll see you next time. Or, better yet, come on over to the Old Sod and visit us."
Incidentally, a few people have complained that they're having difficulty accessing the photos on Darren's Web site. We suspect this is because they're using an old Internet browser or they have JavaScript disabled or are just Luddites. Regardless, if you're having difficulty, you can access the photo pages directing by entering the following URLs into your browser:
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/personphotos.htm
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/personphotos2.htm
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/personphotos3.htm
and so on, up to 7.
Incidentally, we've posted some photos from Julie's trip around Ireland with her Dad and Darren's visit to Vancouver and Victoria. They're available at www.darrenbarefoot.com/person.
Julie just returned from Saarbrucken, Germany, where she was visiting her sister for the weekend. She enjoyed spending time with Leah who, of course, she hadn't seen for seven months. Hence, a few very late nights and lots of good chats. Julie also exploited the strength of the Irish punt against the Deutchmark by procuring some funky autumnal clothing. Saarbrucken is a charming and lively town with lots of good restaurants that serve traditional German fare. Julie sampled sauerkraut (no jokes now), schnitzel, German noodles and the local German beer. Mmm...tasty, tasty beer. The Germans, unlike the Irish, worship all things orderly and only cross the road when "Der mann ist grut."
Upcoming plans include Kevin (Darren's brother) and his girlfriend coming to visit as part of their six month European odyssey as well as a menagerie of musical events: We're going to see Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer at a club this Friday, the Cowboy Junkies in a week or so and (eat your heart out, Gord) Van Morrison at a 2000-seat venue in Belfast in a couple of weeks.
Cheers. Julie and Darren.
After a beautiful October, the weather has finally turned cold and blustery. It doesn't rain more than one day a week, and for a quarter of an hour last week, it actually snowed. Dublin's halls are officially decked for Christmas. Lights are strung across Grafton, the main shopping street, and Brown Thomas, the Saks 5th Avenue of Dublin, is playing jazzy Christmas tunes to its well-heeled shoppers.
October was a parade of musical events, starting with the Sarah Harmer concert. Thirty Canadians in a 300-seat, slightly seedy venue made for an intimate, if awkward, show. Ms. Harmer, an up-and-coming Canadian singer/songwriter was in fine form, playing most of the songs off her new album. We brought, apparently, the only Dubliner to the event, Darren's snobby co-worker, Alan. He's now a big fan. A few nights later we sat in the fourth row at the turn-of-the-century Olympia Theatre to see the Cowboy Junkies. They were as always, brilliant (Darren's review of the concert is available at http://www.cowboyjunkies.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000269). We lingered after the show to get our newly-purchased CD signed. When our chance came to meet Margo Timmins, the lead singer, 15 years of boyhood crush rendered Darren speechless. Julie carried on a genial three-minute conversation about being Canadian in Dublin while Darren smiled stupidly. As we parted ways, he uttered a considered "yegh" in thanks.
The following weekend we caught the train (surprisingly clean and modern) to Belfast for an overnight to see Van Morrison. We met up with Kevin (Darren's brother) and Kevin's girlfriend Wendy for a tasty Italian dinner (thanks Gord!) followed by a sublime performance from Van the Man. The next day, Darren and Julie went to west Belfast so that Julie could skate for the first time in nine months - the longest period she's been off the ice since she was six. Despite being winded, she managed to land a double loop and impress the hell out of the local figure skaters.
Any of our friends
planning a visit to the esteemed Barefoot/Szabo B&B after April 1, 2002 will
find the space dramatically reduced and the facilities improved. To save a few
pounds and try out a new location, we'll be moving to a one-bedroom flat. In
the Briefest Apartment Hunt known to Man, we've secured a flat in the brand-new
Clarion Quay Apartments in Dublin's Docklands' area. Like Yaletown, the Docklands'
are being turned from a commercial district to a residential and business centre.
Our flat (one of 39 in a 6-story building - that's sky scraper height in Dublin)
is owned by the adjacent Clarion Grand (i.e. really expensive) Hotel. The kicker
is that the flat enjoys all the same features and services as the hotel. These
include:
* Fully furnished, down to the cocktail forks and a juicer
* Fully
decked out health spa with lap pool and jacuzzi
* Weekly cleaning and linen
laundry service
* Room service (God help us.)
* Dishwasher
* Dryer
* All utilities
included at a reasonable rate
* Security the likes of which Dublin has never
seen before
* Sushi restaurant around the corner
The trade-off for this luxury is a flat that makes our Vancouver apartment look palatial by comparison. We like each other lots, so it won't be a problem.
Hope this letter finds you in a relaxed, pre-Christmas state.
Cheers, Darren and Julie
As you may have surmised from the subject line, today is the anniversary of our departure for Ireland (we didn't actually arrive until the 21st--darned time difference). We celebrated by having the least Irish (and perhaps most Vancouverish) meal possible: sushi. We enjoyed a three-course Japanese meal at the only purveyor of decent raw fish in town. Pricey at 40 Canadian bucks a piece, but worth every Euro cent.
It's been a pretty work-intensive period after Christmas. JavaOne is the biggest conference of the year in our industry, and so both our companies have fixed, pre-conference deadlines for March. Darren's been doing a couple of other contracts on the side, making for busy evenings and weekends. Julie spent three nights last weekend in London with her good friends Marianne and Danielle. It was her first trip to London and she couldn't help feel like a country cousin coming from Dublin to the big city. Highlights included a stroll down Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus, Camden Market, an enormous plate of nachos at The Maple Leaf--a Canadian pub, a stroll through Herrod's and some much-needed catch-up time with the girls. A little off the site-seeing circuit, she enjoyed a Chai tea latte at Starbucks along with Marianne, Danielle and Danielle's friend who cooks for the Duke and Duchess of Kent. Apparently the demise of Princess Margaret was causing a foofaraw in the Kensington Palace kitchen.
Along with every lesbian in Dublin, we saw the Indigo Girls at the intimate Olympia Theatre. It was a enjoyable if estrogen-packed show of solid Georgian folk-rock meets Wiccan goodness. In May, we have secured row three seats to see Natalie Merchant in the same venue. We are very happy about this. As we reach our first Irish anniversary, we look forward to the coming year. In the immediate future we look forward to Darren's sister Imogene's visit in early March and moving in to our new digs as of April 1.
All the best. Julie and Darren
It's been a while since our last email and we've lots to catch you up on. First, we're in a new flat (about a 20 minute walk from our last flat for those of you who stayed at Chez Liffey). Although the apartment is significantly smaller than the one on Liffey Street, we've definitely improved our standard of living. That's right, no more leaky ceilings and semi-warm showers. We've moved to an apartment block owned by the Clarion Hotel, a four-star hotel a short walk from city centre. While the flat is totally seperate from the hotel, it comes with some major benefits. Julie thinks the biggest benefit is the dishwasher. Darren thinks it's the weekly cleaning service and of course the white fluffy robes baring the Clarion logo. As part of the deal we also get gym memberships, which sound really good until you realize that means you should be working out. Other luxuries include a DVD player, a juicer and a balcony you could land a DC-3 on.
We spent last weekend in Hamburg, Germany. Neot a tourist mecca, truly, but an interesting city none the less. We met up with Leah (Julie's sister) and quickly became dependent on her to order dinner, ask directions and chit chat with the hotel staff. We were both impressed with the ease in which she spoke the language. Frankly, it's a bit eerie when someone you know so well opens her mouth and a foreign language spills out. Hamburg highlights included seeing a few Warhols at the Kunstalle Art Museum, walking the Reepersbahn (Germany's infamous red light district), visiting the Erotic Art Museum the ruins of St. Nikolia's cathedral, which have been left standing since it's destruction in the war, riding the biggest ferris wheel in the world (or so they claimed) and eating a very yummy sushi dinner. Aside from visiting with Leah, the primary focus of the trip was making a daytrip to Kiel, a town an hour north of Hamburg, to visit the Commonwealth War Cemetary where Darren's great uncle who died in WWII is buried. As the photos on Darren's website attest, the graveyward was imaculately kept and provided a contemplative experience for us both. As part of our European sojourn, Darren has become increasingly interested in the history of his family (many of whom actually came from Ireland).
Darren has been very busy because, in addition to his contract work, he has taken on a lighting design for a local theatre company. It's for a modern play at a hundred-seat venue in the centre of town. Upcoming trips include a weekend in Wales in early May and Barcelona and France in the first half of June. Darren has organized a week of cycling around Britany which should prove both educational and exausting. Julie, on the other hand, has chosen a much more hedonistic French holiday with plans to meet up with Jenn, Mary, Marianne, Caroline and Leah for good food, wine and sun in Provence.
We're very pleased the Canucks have made the play-offs. An important note: as Darren's father has kindly agreed to record Canuck play-off games and send them to him, Darren may elect not to learn the results until he receives the tapes. What does this mean? DO NOT CONVEY ANY CANUCK INFORMATION TO DARREN IN ANY MEDIUM. He thanks you in advance for your descretion.
One final note... we're continuing to take advantage of Dublin's small venue theatres to see some of our favourite artists. Upcoming we'll be taking in a Natalie Merchant concert at the quaint Olympia Theatre (600 seats) followed by a Blue Rodeo concert at what amounts to a small bar with a stage. We hope our letter finds you in good form. For those of you who like to communicate the old fashioned way, our new address is:
Clarion Hotel Dublin Suite 708Cheers, Julie and Darren
It's been 74 days since our last update. Sorry about that. We're busy people, between work and travel and playtime, and the last three months have flown by. Apologies for the resulting length of this missive. Early May found us spending a long weekend in Wales (http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/personphotos12.htm). We stayed with Darren's friend Heather in a medieval town called Conwy. We hiked the Welsh hills (gasp) and biked the Welsh coastline (wheeze) and found it a delightful retreat from the busy streets of dirty, old Dublin. We stayed in Heather's parents bed and breakfast (http://www.northwalesbandb.co.uk/fishermore/), which we highly recommend.
With only two weeks' notice, Darren booked a flight to Vancouver to surprise his family at his brother's wedding. His family weren't expecting him, so his arrival was apparently quite a treat for all involved. This was followed by a hectic week of visiting friends and family in Vancouver. Darren also purchased essentials (including a metric ton of Twizzlers, a truckload of Aveda products and most of the inventory of Mountain Equipment Co-op) that were unavailable or ludicrously expensive in Ireland (a nation, which, incidentally, is the second highest cost of living in the EU after Finland).
While Darren was living large in Lotusland, Julie was down on the farm with her Irish friend Geraldine in County Carlow. She took advantage of some nice home-cooked meals and beautiful country drives. All in all, it was good craic.
Both Darren and Julie experienced some work-related changes over May and June. Julie accepted a challenging but worthwhile (ker-ching!) contract with (yet) another Internet startup called SteelTrace (http://www.steeltrace.com). It's a straight PR gig-press releases, procuring interviews and general spin-doctoring. Darren made serious investigations into leaving Cape Clear for another Dublin company (or two), but was ultimately convinced with a new position (again, ker-ching!) to stay. Job titles are pretty fast and loose in software, so Darren's is now, depending on who you ask: Technology Evangelist or Minister of CapeScience or WebGuru. He's the uber-geek behind www.capescience.com (visit often, page hits are on of his metrics!), the R & D arm of Cape Clear. Mostly he's writing and editing articles and tutorials, managing Web site content and promoting the site in the Web Services community. In a strange kind of cosmic convergence, this is the closest our jobs have ever come to overlapping. We are occasionally doing exactly the same thing for our respective companies.
May, like many of our months, was musical. Just before Darren went to Vancouver, we saw Natalie Merchant at the Olympia Theatre (from the third row!). It was pretty superb concert-she proved a warm and engaging performer. While Darren was back in the hood, Julie introduced Geraldine to Blue Rodeo, who played in Whelan's (http://www.whelanslive.com/), a miniscule pub on the South side. They played a marathon set to an appreciative and largely Canadian crowd.
Briefly, we're still happy as a sand boy about our new flat. We're using the gym (http://www.sanovitae.com/) three times a week, and between having our groceries delivered and the flat cleaned weekly, we're experiencing a bit of middle-class guilt. But just a bit.
We spent the first two weeks of June in Spain and France. We flew to Barcelona (via Belfast and London, due to a pilots' strike by Aer Lingus, Ireland's well-nigh insolvent national airline) and met Julie's Mom and sister. We rented a car and drove about an hour north to a lovely villa out in the country. The villa was a farmhouse from the turn of the century on three acres of land. It came complete with a gorgeous pool and grove of apricot trees. We alternated between relaxing at the villa and exploring Barcelona and the northern towns of the Costa Brava. Darren found Barcelona to be his least favourite European city thus far-polluted, humid and full of British tourists. Julie, on the other hand, enjoyed the city for its unique architecture, food and shopping. We both enjoyed the Picasso museum, and Julie and her sister dug the open-air bus tour.
After five days, Darren left Julie et al for Normandy. He spent three days in and around the city of Caen. On June 6, the 58th anniversary of D-Day, he walked the length of Juno Beach, where Canadian regiments landed on that fateful day. His walk coincidentally finished at a ceremony for the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. It was a poignant end to a reflective and instructive day. Darren spent another day in the superb Caen Peace Museum (http://www.memorial.fr/indexgb.htm)-one of the finest he's ever seen. He then caught the train south-west and set out on a five-night bicycle ride across the Brittany peninsula. He rode about 40 kilometers a day, through gorgeous countryside and tiny French towns. The World Cup was on, and so he managed to organize his days to watch a football (that is, soccer) game before he left on his ride and another when he arrived. For those unaware, the Boys in Green (the Irish national team) acquitted themselves very well, losing to Spain on penalties in the group of 16. He completed his trip with a surprisingly palatable 17-hour ferry ride back to Ireland. Yes, he got a cabin.
Meanwhile, Julie and her sister trained from Barcelona to Avignon where they met up with Geraldine and Canadian friends Jenn, Caroline and Mary. They spent the week at a posh villa in the small town of Tavel surrounded by vineyards and some of France's most prestigious wineries. During the week, they enjoyed afternoons by the pool, wine tasting and French cuisine and sightseeing in Avignon and Arles. Julie made a trip to Montpellier where she spent the afternoon with her good friend Danielle who has been living and working in the south of France for the last five years.
Jenn, Caroline and Mary returned with Julie to Dublin to spend a week in Ireland. They all bunked down in our small flat. For the week, our living room was one massive bed.
We spent the evening of Canada Day at Major Tom's Down Under, the generically international bar in Dublin. There was Canadian music, Moosehead beer and, if you were feeling courageous, poutine.
The rest of the summer will be mostly spent in Dublin, with a long weekend in Iceland some time in August. Julie is joining her Dad for a week-long road trip around northern Italy in early September. Darren's folks look to be coming for a visit in late September and the plan right now is to spend Christmas and New Year's in Greece. We hope this message finds you happy and in good health.
Cheers, Julie and Darren.
100 days since our last update, but what are you gonna do? We'll try to keep this relatively brief and emphasize the highlights.
In August, we decided to indulge our luxurious sides and checked ourselves in for a weekend at Powerscourt Springs Hotel (http://www.powerscourtsprings.ie/), one of Ireland's premier spas. The weekend included massages, facials, pedicures (for Julie--Darren has naturally attractive feet), long walks in the country, and tennis. In short, an all-around relaxing weekend. Darren was both troubled and delighted by being the only man among forty bathrobe-clad women.
Shortly thereafter, we headed to Edinburgh for a bit of Scottish history and theatre courtesy of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (the world's largest). The city proved enchanting, romantic, well-organized (a quality sorely lacked in Dublin) and teaming with a festive atmosphere. We saw three shows (well, we had tickets to four, but walked out of a shameful production of 'Cabaret') over two days. The best of the three was 'Bombitty of Errors' (http://www.bomb-itty.com/), a off-Broadway hip-hop retelling of Shakespeare's comedy. The performers were fantastically prolific and hilarious and the show was something of a meditation on language--how it changes and stays the same.
To diverge from chronological order for a moment, more theatre fun was had thanks to the Dublin Theatre Festival. We saw three shows--a lousy French farce, a self-indulgent French-Canadian one-woman show and a brilliant production of the new American classic 'Glengarry, Glenross' by the renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company
In early September, Julie joined her Dad for a week in northern Italy. Their road trip began in Milan following on to the spectacular Cinque Terra region, on to Tuscany and finally finishing in Venice. The highlights of the week included swimming and hiking along the Italian Riviera, wine tasting near Siena and dodging pigeons in Venice's St. Mark's Square. As expected, the weather, food, wine and scenery were awe-inspiring. Once again, Italy lived up to Julie's expectations. She also enjoyed catching up with her Dad.
Julie has once again is a job magnet. In October, she began yet another contract which brings the grand total to three. This was precipiced by a reduction in hours from Rococo Software, a company on its last legs. She now works two days a week for hardware encryption company called AEP Systems (http://www.aepsystems.com). On the plus side, the work is interesting and the pay is great, on the minus side, it's an hour-long commute to the office. When she leaves in the morning, she has to stop to remember which job she's going to.
In the past couple of weeks, Darren's dad and step-mom came for a visit. They spent a week "down the country" and a week in Dublin. They challenged Darren's sister Imo for most attractions seen, but didn't quite exceed her impressive total. Nonetheless, they got away from the metropolis of Merritt and had great weather while they were here. Once again, it was good to catch up with them.
Next weekend, Julie's going shopping with two girlfriends in Brussels. In early November, we're spending a weekend in London (more musical theatre!) and plans are coalescing for Christmas and New Years on the Greek isles.
By way of promotion:
For those with children or a childish mind, check out my friend Heather's recently-published book 'Tina and the Penguin' (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1550749471/qid=1034533398/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/103-4637625-5746253?v=glance&n=507846). It's supposedly for ages 4 - 8, but at 28 Darren was riveted.
For the geeks amongst, Darren is 'associated with' a technology satire site called www.webservile.com. Julie is considering committing him to a Nerd De-Tox program.
Darren regularly posts thoughts, links and ramblings to his Weblog at http://www.darrenbarefoot.com.
Additionally, we've posted a shwack of new photos at http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/personal.htm.
Hope all is well with everybody and wishing you the best. Julie and Darren.