Die Hard Fitting Today

A Good Day to Die Hard - Budapest

So today I am going for a fitting for the crowd scene I will be part of for the new Die Hard movie.  They've asked me to bring a couple of outfits.  Not sure why I need to do a fitting for clothes that I own but I guess they just want to make sure we are wearing something appropriate.  Should be interesting!

My big break!!??

Our CLO (Community Liaison Officer) at the Embassy forwarded this email from someone with the new Die Hard movie:

Die Hard 5 is shooting a NYC airport scene on Monday, August 6th in Budapest and they are looking for extras.  They are looking for a diverse crowd.  They need business types, students, families, couples, airport staff etc. to create a really busy "authentic" airport scenario. There will be a fitting on this Friday and next Tuesday.  If interested, please call or email below.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!

I've been exchanging emails with the person from the movie so keep your fingers crossed, you might see me on the big screen! 

The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten

A little break from the travel portion of this blog to say if you haven't heard of the Gaslight Anthem, please check them out. Their first major label release comes out today and thanks to NPR streaming a preview of the album I can already tell you it's a good one. I first heard of them a few years ago because they were being called a Springsteen influenced punk band and have shared the stage with Bruce a few times and they have quickly risen to be one of my favorite bands of all time.

It's not just me, USA Today:

This is rock 'n' roll as we always hoped it could be: brutally honest, naked emotions and primal, cathartic singalong sounds that pour directly from one band's soul into yours. No posing. No sympathy solicited. On the quartet's fourth album, the Springsteen influence still echoes faintly — band and Boss share a Jersey background, a producer (Brendan O'Brien) and a penchant for arena-filling anthems — but here they stand on their own, barroom-tested and with plenty to say.

NPR

Each of The Gaslight Anthem's last three albums — 2008's The '59 Sound, 2010's American Slang and Handwritten, out July 24 — features one perfect song and a bunch more terrific ones. Taken as a whole, "Howl" is exactly like The Gaslight Anthem itself: You may have heard every ingredient before, but in this particular concoction, they all sound amazing — all blood and guts, life and death, youth and danger, wistful memories and thwarted lust. If there were a psychotropic drug that made users feel like James Dean, Handwritten would render it redundant

So check out the album, the clip above is the first single from the album. Not the perfect song that NPR is talking about but really catchy. Even better if they are playing in your area go see them! I've seen them once and hoping that we might be able to check them out when hit this side of the pond.

A Good Day to Die Hard

 

So things did not feel exactly like home when we got back from our Ireland and Scotland trip, because the new Die Hard movie was shooting and once again turned our neighborhood into Russia.  No Bruce Willis sightings but I did walk around where they were filming a little and got some pictures of the Russia Budapest Style.

Normally a souvenir store

Usually the Matyas hotel and restaurant

Normally just sidewalk

Even the street signs are covered

It's pretty cool to see the attention to detail, the newstand they out up had actual Russian magazines and covering all of the streets signs to make it look authentic.

Hop on Hop Off Edinburgh

 

When we go to a new place we often look for some sort of tour so that we can kind of get an idea of what there is to see and where everything is.  So when we got to Edinburgh we got tickets for the Hop on Hop off Tour which gave us 24 hours to do 5 or 6 different tours.  We ended up doing 5 of them and although there was some overlap of things we saw the tours focused on different things and gave different information so it was really interesting.  Three of the tours were recorded but the real high lights were the two where we had a guide.  The were really informative and funny.  This is where we learned the Royal Mile was neither royal nor a mile, a story of a beloved dog that visited it's owner's grave every day for 14 years until it passed away was not true, Scotch was really whiskey that the Irish invented and brought over and kilts and bagpipes and all of that are really just for tourists!  Everything we thought we knew about Scotland basically got debunked in the span of an hour bus tour.  But anyway here are some picture from the tours.

The Last Drop - Edinburg Scotland

We went to Edinburgh mostly because it had easy flights from Shannon and and direct flight to Budapest so we didn't know too much about what to expect.  There were really only two things that we knew:

1. Per Tripadvisor.com (great site if you have never used it) there were plenty of good Indian restaurants there.  This is important to use because we love Indian and we have yet to find any good Indian places in Budapest.  One of the best we've found (not saying much) also sells pizza! 
2. There is a pub called the Last Drop (pictured above and below).  I knew this because I worked at a bar in Boston with the same name.  Actually the owner had been  to Edinburgh and like the name so much he used it for one of his in Boston.

So with those two things in mind we had two great meals at Indian restaurants and one meal at the Last Drop.  We did not set off to find the Last Drop but as luck would have it one of our Hop on Hop Off tours went right by it, so we hopped off and had a lunch there. If you can't guess by the pictures the location of the pub looked out to where the gallows stood.  It was really cool to see the original after having heard about many years ago.

Edinburgh Scotland

We took a quick flight from Shannon Airport in Ireland to Edinburgh Scotland.  The picture above is the Castle at the end of the Royal Mile which one of our bus tour drivers told us later was "neither a mile nor particularly royal, 1.2 miles to be exact."  I'm not sure what it says about us be we opted to not pay the 16 pounds per person to go in but instead went into the Whiskey Experience for tour/tasting at a similar price!  The tour and tasting was actually really informative, we learned about the 4 regions of Scotland that make single malt Scotch and the taste associated with each region as well as how the blends are made. So now I can take a look at a bottle of single malt Scotch and know if I'm if the flavor is one that I should like.  My advice stay away from Scotch from Isaly, heavy smokey flavor from peat., tasted like charcoal to me.

Any way a little more of the "Royal Mile" and part of the largest private of single malt Scotch in the world.

More from the Dingle Peninsula

 Some more pictures from the Dingle Peninsula. The movie Ryan's daughter was shot on these beaches and in these hills, I don't know the movie but if the scenery is an indication it should be a god one.

Dingle Penisula Ireland

Our last full day in Ireland we spent taking a bus tour of the Dingle Peninsula. Originally we were going to do a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry but they were having a charity bike ride through the Ring so there were 9,000 bikers doing the 100 plus mile ring so we opted for the Dingle Peninsula.  It is the western most point of Ireland and had some amazing views. Here are some pictures of Kilmalkedar church along the way.  It was a monastery dating back to the 7th century.

Ross Castle Killarney

Next up on the tour was Killarney home of  Ross Castle a 15th century castle located on Lough Leane (lake of Learning in Irish).  We took a nice boat ride around the lake and had a very interesting horse and buggy ride around the state park there.

Kilkenny Ireland

After leaving Dublin we headed for Kilkenny.  Home of a castle from the 1200's.  We ate at pub that dated back to the 1300's, Kyteler's Inn.  The original owner was accused of witchcraft after her four husbands died. She fled to England but her maid was not so fortunate and burned at the stake.  We also were able to listen to some authentic Irish music from the Keltic Kats.  All in all a very interesting and fun town.

Dublin

Our trip started with a brief stop in Dublin.  We didn't have time for much there, basically just flew in had a great dinner with my parents and walked around a bit before heading out to our next destination.  In the brief walk we took we saw the Guinness brewery (as pictured above from our hotel room) and the Jameson distillery (shown below) and right then and there I knew this would be a good trip!

Flight to Ireland

We just got back from a trip to Ireland and Scotland.  We flew over on Ryanair and if you ever get a chance to fly them, don't!  We got there safe and sound but it was not a very comfortable flight, seats did not recline at all, no leg room and it was warm. They don't assign seats which is fine, except when the last group of men on the plane expect to all sit together and start swearing at the flight attendants, I've never seen anything like it and can't believe that they were not thrown off. 
But among all the chaos was the Hungarian Olympic water polo team. I could not believe that there were world class athletes on this flight, but I guess that is what happens when the state run airline goes bankrupt. These guys are the best of the best in their sport, going for their 4th straight Olympic gold medal. There will be more on Scotland and Ireland later but here is a picture of them on the ground in Ireland for now