The End

For dinner the poet's son made, from scratch, an Indian meal that included dal, the spinach and cheese dish that has the word 'paneer' in it and aloo gobi (I think). He even made his own cheese, impressive and an all-day affair. It was, with perhaps the exception of the guy I knew one time who fell in with Hare Krishnas thus had to make and then bless his own vegatarian/Indian cuisine, the best Indian food made by a white person I've had.


After the dinner the whole group of us (numbering 7) got into two cars and went to see a circus. This was no ordinary circus, if it had been I probably would have been grumpy. No this circus reminded me of a site specific theater class I took in college but done on a much, much larger scale. I took some photographs but they're all blurry and not good. If you ever happen to be somewhere where they are you might like to go...it's a bit too long but has very attractive people jumping around to good, live music. Really.

Lunch

The next morning I walked around in the field in front of the house. It was blustery and spitting rain which was very, very different from the weather in England and even very different than the weather in Dublin. The weather deteriorated later in the day to full on rain and temperatures, I'd say, in the fifties. That led to a day spent mainly in the house, reading. I read Bluesman by Andre Dubus III which I liked very much and may reread at a slightly less frenzied pace. I also read another book that was like chick lit only for men....but probably read mainly, still, by women.
For lunch we had tapas of a sort. A little salad, a little sliced meats, a little cheese, a little bit of olives, a cucumber yogurt salad/relish, sundried tomatoes etc. I couldn't stop from having just one more piece of cheese or just one more slice of salami. Satisfying, yes.

I Love Sheep

We drove from Dublin to the poet's house (or his partner/girlfriend's house or both of their house...I'm a little confused on that one) in the country near Kilkenny and Clonmel. It could have been a faster drive if not for festivals and a puttering pace through exceptional scenery. It took six hours.


Another favorite photograph of me...I'm all scowly in the pretty.
Best photo I could get of a magpie.
Things we saw.

Table we used as a picnic table for a snack.

Where We Was

Two photographs, one of the outside of our hotel room...the second balcony on the corner was ours and only ours. Temple Bar had narrow streets, like the photograph.

Food In Dublin

I got my sushi on with the parents, poet friend and his son whilst in Dublin. It was good but not Hama Matsu, Tanoshi or, well, any of my favorite Andersonville sushi spots. The ikura had a very bitter taste unlike what I am accustomed to. Though the sashimi salmon and tuna was nice and cold and melty mouthy...not to mention pretty generous in portion.
On the night after the sushi I met up with "She Only Has Words To Play With" for dinner at Rubicon Restaurant. We shared the duck tempura spring roll...which was playful and different and then had linguini in a garlic cream sauce complete with truffle oil which was so good I ate each and every strand of pasta in my bowl.
Spring roll below (duh).

Barreling Right Along

After Italy won against Germany there was an impromptu parade...these were late arrivals to the parade as seen from our hotel room's balcony.
The poet friend was teaching at Trinity for the summer so he and his son were living in one of the university dorm suites. We went there the next day for lunch, it looked like this:


It was a nice indoor picnicky lunch.

Dublin Day 1

We left England and flew to Ireland where we landed just in time for a bomb threat that led to our plane (with all of us in it) sitting on the tarmac for two hours. Once we finally got off the plane we went to the baggage claim area and, after relatively little trouble getting the bags off the carousel, had to contend with this:
That is me with my hat and Chicagoist shirt standing in a mass of non-moving people. Don't I look happy? I was really, really happy.
Once we got to the taxi stand (forty five minutes of shuffling in the above madness) everything went much, much better. We stayed in Blooms Hotel in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. We went to a Thai Restaurant and had the early bird special. I had the calamari appetizer and then the beef curry. My mother had the chicken curry. My father had the soup and corn fritters.


Afterwards we met up with an old college friend of my father's at a poetry reading. I ended up not staying for the reading...I was interested in the Germany/Italy game (I liked that no matter who I was rooting for I could call both teams fascist) and doing some blogging. That was day one...truncated as I'm feeling a bit like I'm tired of writing about my trip and yet I can't not finish what I started.