Totally incomplete guide to Dublin (and Ireland)

First thing You notice when You come to Ireland - that's crazy traffic. Besides that they are driving totally wrong side of the road (yeah, yeah, historical reasons) from the rest of the world, pedestrians don't recognize traffic lights. It's green - they are crossing the street, it's yellow - they are crossing the street, even on red light (surprise surprise) - that "just" about to turn green or "just" turned red - they are crossing the street. I can't imagine how patient and skillful drivers must be not to go mad and not to hit anyone who is crossing the street on the wrong traffic light.
If on first day this phenomenon makes you wonder, then on second you are one of those crossing the street not on the best time. And You start to understand them - people seem to hurry somewhere, I just couldn't imagine where. There are too many people on the street in Dublin. If they would mind traffic lights, only 1/3 of all wanting to cross the street would be able to do so. Could you imagine to stand in a queue to cross the street? From that, the second thing you notice in Dublin - that is loads of people. You could hear any language of the world here. The third thing is that it is really hard to understand Irish English. They are speaking very quickly and it seems that half they want to say, they are keeping for themselves - letters or even words. But that's only my impression. On my flight to Dublin, I could understand only a few words of what the flight attendant was saying. That was: "Thank you" and "have a nice flight". Everything else, which had more meaning than those few words, was somehow sunken in the mess of words.
Probably, it's about a time to start telling what one can see in Dublin. Depending on your trip goal (which may be sightseeing, shopping or visiting relatives or friends) there are different alternatives. If you are visiting someone - is the relatives and friends that You will see. But luckily You can combine this option with other two. If Your goal is sightseeing and cultural experience - NEVER go with people whose' goal is shopping or be ready to split into groups or even prepare for the worst - to do the cultural part alone. There are so many shops in Dublin center, that there won't be time for historical monuments, even if people who like shopping will promise You that they will go with You.
So, how a foreigner who has no friends in Ireland can explore the historical inheritance? I'd recommend to take a city tour for about 14 Eur's. For that price You get a ticket which is valid all day and a map with tour stops. Full tour is about 1h 30 minutes and includes over 20 stop points. But You can get off whenever you like, do the photo-taking, museum-church-other-stuff visiting and hop on whenever you are ready to continue. Tour buses passes the stops every 10 minutes, so this is very convenient. With this tour You get quite an interesting story about each of stop points, jokes and even singing part if You are lucky. Unfortunately I didn't had a chance to compare how those tours differs on every bus, but I hope they are somehow unique. Stops include quite different historical and cultural places of Dublin and I believe it covers the wide range of tastes - from churches, monuments, museums to jails, pubs, whiskey distillery, Guinness beer factory, parks, zoo or places where famous Irish writers lived.
Unfortunately I didn't had that much time to do the deeper research on each of places, but I hope I'll be able to do so next time. And it's worth visiting not because of cheap Ryanair flights - it's really a city that is very friendly and has many stories to tell.

A night of movies

It feels weird to wake up when the sun is about to set. Weird but normal if you are went to sleep when the sun was about to rise. But not very normal thing is to watch films all night. I wonder. Scanorama's "laughter lights": Illusive tracks, Trully human, Rock'n'Roll never dies, The bothersome man.
Some films where really that funny - made you burst into laugh, sometimes they made you laugh through the tiers. Scandinavians do have a violent sense of humor - makes you laugh while hurting others. But in those 4 films - the laugh was only a mean to address more serious topics and problems - never just a shallow laugh.
And I don't regret a single sleepless minute spent in cinema - it's way better than watching movies about man in tights who tries to save a world.

"reconstruction" at scanorama

It starts with "a bit of magic. A bit of smoke..." and a beautifully old-fashioned Cole Porter's "Night and day" melody.
Nothing is clear till the end in this film. And even after it, you keep guessing what one or another detail hides. You can interpret it as you like and you always will be right. But the film is not about that.
It is about love. And mostly all the movies are about that. "How common and banal" one may think and he will be right: it's mostly exploited and depicted theme both in movies and other medias. But don't hurry to judge the "poor" theme for being so popular. Probably there is a reason for it. It's not because that easy to speak about human relationships, probably it's because this topic is so exciting and really important.
Usually it doesn't matter that a movie is about banal things like love. It doesn't really that matter about what, it is more important how it is expressed. And probably, the combination of what&how is mostly important.
You won't get straight answers there. You won't be told when the feeling between the man and woman in movie starts and when it ends. You'll start to think, that you know how clear it is, but you will be confused.
And you will always be reminded about that it's all a film. it's all a construction. But it still hurts. Did it hurt?

Three open boxes of pellets and an air gun left for drying - a cup of tea in my hands - it was a wet shooting - splashing drops of water (no, not blood) from almost everything that became our target. Paper shooting targets, cds, floppy disks, pc mouse and monitor. I'm pretty sure there was something else more to "die" that day. Not quite a weather for shooting, but quite an occasion to try out my walter telescopic sight for my gamo cfx. Well, my hands still are shaking, but not because I'm holding a gun in my hands, but because it's a bit too heavy for my arms. And it was quite a whether to drink tea after whole action. Good old tradition.
P.S. I like rain, but I hate when my car windows become misty during it. No, my car is not sick, but why everyone is so concerned as it was so?:)