Uno - Dos - Tres - U2 360 take off!

So, the U2 360 tour is well underway and has recently passed through their hometown - Dublin if who didn't know. I was lucky to get a ticket, one of the 250K tickets sold for the three gigs.

BTW, the photo is taken with the BlackBerry Javelin (Curve) - BlackBerry loves U2.

I took a trip to the U2 planet and what a ride. They really know how to perform and give a kick ass concert. Songs from 8 different albums and of course the normal political theatre...But, it was another amazing U2 experience. If you can, get a ticket to a gig near you.

Venue: Croke Park
Capacity: approx. 85K people (this number has not been confirmed, as some sources say 80 and some say 90, I took the average of the two)

This is the third time I've see U2 in Ireland, and the third time I've seen U2, and yet again they pulled off another amazing performance. How many bands can play their music non-stop for over 2 hours. Well, how many bands even have that many known songs?
Croke Park was electrified during the entire gig and Bono was being his usual leadsinger and actor. He worked the audience as a true professional entertainer, and at times a true preacher. Not too convinced, but he has one hell of an audience and can get the message out to millions. Especially when Bono informed the audience that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded Amnesty International's most prestigious honour - the 'Ambassador of Conscience' Award for 2009. People came on stage wearing masks with her face on.

Even Desmond Tutu made a guest appearance on the giant screen, surrounded by all bright colours. The crowd went banans when Tutu said that Irish people inspired people across the World with their fighting spirit, during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

So, what's with the 360 stage? To me it looked more like a wierd contraption of plastic and aluminium tubes, as if the designer had been on some psychedelic acid trip and had drawn a gigantic spider mixed with a tripod from War of the World. And, based on the stage location in Croke Park, it was not exactly 360 degrees, more like 270. However, they managed to deal with that, by having a massive extendable 360 screen hovering over the stage, so everybody could see the boys as they played all the fantastic songs.

When talking to friends who attended the Friday and Saturday concerts, you soon learn that U2 is a highly professional organisation, where timing and performances are strictly kept. The set list was alsmot identical to Friday night's performance - but this DOES NOT take ANYTHING AWAY from the superb experience and performance by U2

So, well done and thanks U2, for another unforgettable evening.

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Set List:

Breathe
No Line On The Horizon
Get On Your Boots
Magnificent
Beautiful Day
New Year's Day
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Stay
Unknown Caller
Unforgettable Fire
City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (Remix)
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Pride (In The Name of Love)
MLK
Walk On
Where The Streets Have No Name
One
Bad
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Ultraviolet
With Or Without You
Moment of Surrender

Irish Vacation 2 - Newgrange + Slane

As per my previous blog, we decided to stay in Ireland this year, seeing some of the sigths and beautiful country side, instead of cruising off to far away bounty beaches, mojitos and sun.

- Well, the bank man probably would agree with another overdraft on the MasterCard anyway.

Day: Sunday 26th of July
Temperature: shite weather, with a high probability of rain
Sun: haven't seen that fecker for a few days now

Saddle up, the first leg of the Family Vacation (Danish, Chilean/Irish edition) has been kicked off. I always loved the Griswald movies with Chevy Chase, travelling across the US.

We were heading towards the Irish version of the Great Pyramid of Gaza, to be more precise, Newgrange. In fact, Newgrange was built 500 years before the pyramids, but it's not like the Irish to brag?!

The car was packed with the bare essentials, for a one-day trip to North of Dublin, so rain gear, diapers, long-sleeved shirts, hats and comfortable working shoes/boots. The location of Newgrange was punched into the GPS and we started the journey - totally relying on an American designed device and based on somewhat accurate maps of Ireland.

It took us less than an hour to get to Newgrange, despite the GPS trying to direct down suspicious country lanes, which would fit a car and a horse passing each other. So, we followed the road signs most of the way and amused ourselves every time the GPS female voice said "recalculating route". The kids didn't even get time to give out, so all in all, it was a painless out journey.

We arrived at Newgrange just before lunch and went straight to the visitor centre. For out-of-towners, you can only visit the site by purchasing a ticket in the visitor centre, which only costs €6 per adult and our kids were free -excellent.
IT was quickly decide that, based on the time and our experience with our son, to get something to eat. IT would be too painful for our fellow explorers, to see our son eat parts of the bus and rip out my eyeballs, all because he was hungry.

My god, this is where Newgrange makes its money. We had, what we thought, a light lunch. Keep in mind; this is a tourist attraction restaurant, so not exactly Michelin stars. Sit back; take a deep breath...
...a few cents less than €70 for the food!!!! - 2 portions of lasagne, 1 baked potato, one slice of bread with Salmon, 2 juices, a tea and a coffee. So glad I didn't go wild and ordered a Latte.

Anyway, after our lavish lunch, we headed towards the bus, which takes tourists from the visitor centre to the Newgrange site. It said a few minutes, but in all reality it was more like a mile+ to the bus - but, the weather was nice, so it didn't matter, and the scenery is beautiful.

The bus driver, a retired Dublin bus driver, quickly asserted himself as the Man and drove 70-80 km/hour down the narrow country lanes (see above for details), heading towards the site. 24 seconds later, we arrived at the location, all with slight concussions and tears running down the face from the fear of dying.

We saw the Newgrange, and this was an amazing site. It sounds really boring, as it is "only" a bump on a field, but it was actually amazing. How did they build such a feature 6000 years ago? The tour guide was very good and brought out several laughs, even from the American tourists who might not fully understand the Irish humour.
He took us inside the sacred bump, which was probably a bit weird, as it was only 20 meters in and then a few alcoves with carved symbols. He turned off the light to simulate the sun hitting the front on the shortest days of the year, which was cool.
That was it, the tour over, sight seen and back to the car! But, we had to venture on the bus again, back to the visitor centre.

It was in all fairness a nice sight, and well worth seeing.

We jumped in the car and headed towards Slane Castle. Again, the GPS lady guided us to Slane village, but we could for the love of God find the bloody entrance to the Castle. It was my wife who spotted it, as we were going 80 km/hour around a bend. James Bond kicked into my veins and I flung the old SUV around and in through the gate. So far so good - but that wasn't going to last.

Slane Castle was imprinted in our brains as this fantastic castle, place in stunning surroundings. But, that was when we saw U2 at Slane in 2001 - slightly intoxicated and in a happy place back then! Anyway, this was VERY disappointing. Nothing to see or do. Well, you could attend a tour of the castle, but nothing else. Even the Castle Park was boring and run down. In fact, the entire place was poorly kept. Not recommended.

On the way back through Slane village, we stopped at the Mills Restaurant. This was located behind, its coming, the mill. You wouldn't normally go down that road, as it was something out of the horror movie the Hostel, but behind the Eastern European factory buildings, was this little restaurant. There we had scones, tea and ice cream. The staff was very friendly and service in top class. They said kids would be their customers in a few years, so they'd better treat them nicely, which they certainly did. So, thanks for a wonderful afternoon tea and scones atmosphere.

Time to head back home to the dogs. Kids were wrecked (yahoo), so they fell asleep quickly. My wife and I had a light dinner, and relaxed in front of the TV with a movie.

Irish Vacation 1 - Horseback riding

Mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find my daughter something to do while all her friends are off on their cool holidays to e.g. Disney World, Italy, Spain, Limerick, etc.

My wife and I have agreed that we are not doing something over the top this year, which we both hate to admit. Bloody hell, wouldn't you rather be somewhere where the sun is shining, jump into a nice pool and get a few mojito's while the kids are enjoying themselves?

- sorry got carried away!

My wife had this brilliant idea that our daughter could try horseback riding. Sounds like a great idea and how many of her mates can say they've been riding horses on their summer break.

So, we searched the internet, as you do nowadays, and found not only a riding school, but an equestrian centre - how posh is that?

Before we were going to put our daughter on a Black Beauty 8' tall horse, we decided to inspect the premises. Firstly, what was meant to be a 20 minutes drive, ended up being an hour adventure trying to find the bloody place. The scary bit is, the equestrian centre is located in a town called Kill!!! Not a good sign for a family friendly activity.

Anyway, we finally found the place and took an un-guided tour of the centre. Fairly impressive I must admit, so we signed her up for an hour.

€20 gets you about 40 minutes worth of riding, if you are a child. Seems fair enough and you can even borrow a helmet there. But, true to our shopping spirit, this became a bit more expensive than we signed up to.

The first lesson went really well and our daughter loved it. No, she didn't love it, she thought it was absolutely amazing, fantastic and had a high school musical happy experience. She absolutely wanted to go again.

So, my wife decided to get her some boots, which was a good idea. We found a local horse riding equipment shop in the outskirts of Kill, and this is were it went wrong.

Never let your daughter who loves horses and your wife who loves to get the right gear for the kids, loose in such a shop - bad combination. My son and I were slightly lost in the wilderness of equipment and went around to explore.

It is amazing the amount of stuff your daughter and wife can find and buy in less than 20 minutes. €150 later, we had bought all the stuff she needed - she was dressed as a pro. We even got a birthday card for our niece!

- I just hope the interest will last for a few months, to get some return of investment (ROI) on the goods we acquired.

It has now been 6 weeks and our daughter has been riding at least once a week, and she still loves it. My wife and I switch every second time, so we both can see her advance her riding skills and see our little Jessie Cow-girl giggle of happiness. Every parents dream.

My problem is unfortunately that I can't say no to my daughter and that I believe that kids need to learn from mistakes as I did - even if that means falling off the horse. Yes, you know what's coming up next.

It was my turn last weekend, and I was holding the horse (pony) as a good parent. When they had to trot, my daughter said firmly that she could do it alone and that I had to let go - so I did. 5 seconds into the trot, the fecking horse started to trot faster, and I was trying to keep up, running in the thick soil and horse pooh - not an easy task.

Then it happened, in slow motion. She started to slide off the horse and landed on the ground. Of course she got a fright and started to cry, so I picked her up. I couldn't care less about the horse, which annoyed the instructor I think.

Now, this is how tough my daughter is. She cried for 30 seconds and then she was ready to get back up on the horse. Of course I had to have a serious chat with the horse, and had to threaten it with our labrador (who doesn't hurt a fly) that he would bite the horses ass, if he didn't behave.

When we came home, my wife gave out to me for letting go of the horse. But, but, but, our daughter said she could do it!?

She is still riding the horse and loving it. Happy ending.

Dad, are we going on holidays?

The Celtic tiger has, if you haven't noticed, been stabbed, mugged, run over, shot and is therefore dead. Not trying to be morbid or anything, but it's a fact. The Irish economy is probably one of the worst economies in Europe (East and West), if not the worst in the Western world.

For years, most people in Ireland have had too much money and have spent it on traveling to exotic places, not only once a year, but perhaps multiple locations. I've been no different. Hey, why should we sit at home, when we can afford going to beautiful locations around the Globe, seeing sights you've only dreamed to see?

So, our kids have already, at the ages of 4 and 5, been on several long haul flights to Mexico, Dominican Republic, USA, Costa Rica and multiple locations in Europe.

The problem with this is not the fact the it might have cost you a lot of money, which was worth it, but the fact that you've spoiled your kids into thinking that we can go to these locations every year. I had to pay for this in full, when my 5 year old daughter asked me (with a smile on her face and a glimmer of hope in her eyes) when her summer school break started, "dad, can we go to Costa Rica again?"

There was no way of avoiding this question, so I simply told her that we couldn't afford it this year and that we would be traveling around Ireland instead. I just managed to extinguish the glimmer in her eyes and remove her smile, just with those simple words. My heart was in pain as my daughter's disappointment became more and more visible - to the point where a tear was building up in her left eye.

How do you explain to a 5 year old kid that you can't afford to go abroad this year, swimming with dolphins, sliding across the jungle on a wire, sailing on rivers, swimming in ocean + pool and have parties every night; not to mention all the fabulous food and ice-cream?

In fairness, my daughter understood our dilemma. I talked to her and explained that we need to save up money, so by going on holidays in Ireland, we could save up money to go on a nice trip next year. But, the important part is, she wanted to help us save money. She brought me her piggy bank and said we could save up together. Now, that made me so proud and emotional.

My little girl is growing up so fast.

So, during the summer of 2009, we will be traveling around Ireland to see some of the beautiful sights here and will blog about our adventures.