violist

It's maybe half an hour, 40 minutes to the city center via
DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) - a fairly comfy ride, and
way out there there are seats inbound at all hours. We
got off at Connolly and were going to do a walking tour of
the area, but it was starting to mist a bit aggressively,
so it was more ducking in doorways and waiting a bit than a
walking tour. The Abbey Theatre was closed. We went by
degrees toward the National Library and its photographic
exhibition, called something like life in the great manor
houses circa 1900 - a rather small but interesting
selection, including a couple photos of Powerscourt and
its waterfall. We dodged raindrops through the Temple Bar
area, where it was too early yet for lunch or even a beer,
went up to Dame Street; poked our noses in the Olympia
Theatre, which was preparing for that night's festivities,
then gave a thought, as it was by now pouring in earnest,
to paying an extortionate amount to see Dublinia, the
exhibit dealing with the original Viking settlement. But
cheapness and hunger won out, and as we had recently walked
past an interesting-looking assortment of restaurants -
Malay, French, and a lot in between, an earlyish lunch
seemed in order. For some reason we decided on Toscana:
perhaps because of its advertising a 4-course meal for
E10. Beware - in Ireland nowadays they count your tea
as a course! So appie/soup, main, sweet, and bev.

My bruschetta was a rather coarse treatment - big chunks
of greenish but decent-tasting tomatoes in a dressing of
okay oil and vinegar on chewy bread. I guess more or less
what I should have expected. I have a soft spot for even
mediocre spaghetti Bolognese, so I had this - it was better
than expected, a meaty and tasty sauce, good pasta, a few
shreds of quite decent grana on top, an odd garnish of
alfalfa sprouts a bit of a dissonance. They offered a dish
of that nasty powdered stuff to further enhance the
experience if one so cared.

lili pronounced her minestrone and pepperoni pizza (good
rainy weather fare) good.

I forget what dessert was; a respectable bottle of
Montepulciano for not too much money was a nice substitute
for the tea.

As we were pretty much right across the street from Dublin
Castle, so in we went - not to the castle proper, which one
figures is more or less like any other castle, but to a
couple of the museums inside. In tribute to gvdIAD, we
visited the Revenue Museum, which describes the history of
money, its consequence taxation and its further consequence
smuggling, in a tidy 15-minute two-room presentation. We
took a few photos as well to show him, but as it was dim,
these didn't come out.

The plan was to spend the rest of the afternoon at the
Chester Beattie Library, whose exhibits were religions of
the world and Mughal illuminated pages. Enthralling.
Amazing collection of religious manuscripts and artifacts;
and the temporary exhibition was very nicely done. I figure
we spent a couple hours there, but now it was hurry up time.
It had been brought to our attention that it was Arthur's
Day, a recently made-up holiday celebrating the birthday
of the founder of the Guinness brewing empire. Apparently
henceforth every September 23 or somesuch at one to six
(the brewery was founded in 1759, get it?), there's to be
this worldwide toast. I wonder what will happen to the
plumbing systems throughout the civilized world at 1815.
Anyway, the question was, train back to the suburbs or
wait around downtown for the event, a couple pints keeping
us company? Walking past busloads of apparently pre-drunked
young people on Dame St. gave us the answer, so we hurried
to Tara Station, where we promptly missed the train that
would take us back in time; but as we had spent our pesos
we decided to stick with Plan A and return to Finnegan's
for at least the aftermath of the event. The DART down
was much quicker than the one in the morning had been, so
w showed up, interestingly, at exactly 17:59, in time to
view the downtown moment on television, though without a
pint in our hands.

The bartender was pouring Guinnesses constantly in a multi-
stage process, with glasses in varying degrees of pour
arrayed before him. I ordered two, and we took them back to
a round corner table where I had spent many happy hours in
decades past. The guys down the way got a plate of chicken
legs (on the house) but didn't want them, saying that they'd
already eaten, so passed them on to us, who consumed them
gratefully: pretty decent bbq chicken for the wilds of
Ireland. Their game became clear when they, clearly regular
customers, asked the landlord if he had any oysters:
presently he came by with a plate for them, and lili, always
looking out for me, collared him, and soon I had four lovely
bivalves before me; they unfortunately had been butchered
badly in the opening, but that's what happens when a barkeep
tries to do his own work and that of an oyster shucker at
the same time, at top speed, on Arthur's day.

That night we tried to get in touch with a tour company that
lili had used years ago and whose name shall remain shrouded
in mystery - we were looking at an overnighter to Derry and
the Giant's Causeway and the Carrickafergus rope bridge and
stuff like that: let it suffice to say that we didn't end up
getting to any of these places.

violist

Next day we took the DART train downtown. I was looking for
the advertised E20 three-day bus and train pass, but the
machines offered the E17 rail-only version. Apparently there
are three public transit authorities all theoretically under
one umbrella but practically separate and noncommunicative:
the tram, the bus, and the train. Oh, there's also the fast
train, which I think is more or less aligned with the
commuter train, but I'm not sure. Anyhow, lili wanted the
option of hopping a bus, so we bought a couple one-ways to
Pearse, which had a full-serve ticket window that was
supposed to be open. Only it wasn't. The guy at the dry
cleaner's opposite volunteered the unwelcome information
that the ticket guy had called in sick, and we had best go
find a gate guard, who might know something. So up the
stairs to the platform, where we caused a gate guard
convention to happen, and after consultation it was decided
that we could either go to Tara, the next station, where
the ticket guy had not called in sick, or to a tobacconist's
- all the tobacconists apparently sold them, and there was
one just a block away, so there we went. And they had them
in two flavors - bus-tram and bus-train. No dice for a
triple play. When we returned triumphant, the dry cleaner
called us over for a chat - his associate had lived in
Chicago and wanted to dilate on how much better US public
transportation is than Irish, and what a load of idiots the
public servants are in Ireland. We listened and refrained
from bursting his bubble regarding our governments and their
functionaries. A hard time extricating ourselves to start
our day.

Which we did by going to Howth, the northern terminus of the
DART, which had sounded kind of interesting; apparently it's
a well-known destination for daytrippers. It's quite a long
ride through some pretty boring territory, but things began
to look up when we got onto the peninsula and saw the craggy
eccentricity of Ireland's Eye to the north: the rock
formations looked interesting enough to warrant a visit
(a ferry is available from town), but when we saw how choppy
the water was, we rethought the idea.

The train station is just a block or two from the harbor,
which is in that uncomfortable no man's land between gritty
working fishing village and yuppie heaven. We walked past
about a dozen restaurants of varying degrees of fancy and
a couple fishmongers; poked our noses up over the seawall;
looked at gulls, fishing boats, and the odd seal or two,
and then it was time for lunch, as we were getting cold
and windswept.

We chose The Deep, a fairly trendy-looking spot with lots
of fish on the menu: this was my suggestion, and as there
was a burger listed, lili went along.

I started with mussels in white wine, which were abundant
and excellent, but the sauce had been finished with cream
not in the description, necessitating a dip into my lactase
pill supply; then the fish and chips, described as cod but
my guess is plaice - very nicely done, though the batter
might have been a bit abundant.

Chicken tarragon soup was the soup of the day, only it
wasn't. What came: butternut ginger, completely different
in aroma and appearance, and the waitperson should have
caught that. Anyhow, it was warming and tasty. lili's
burger tasted like meatloaf, which she was a good sport
about. Later, when recapping the meal, she noted that she
had not been asked how she wanted it done, so that was a
tipoff that it couldn't be prepared rare and thus wasn't a
proper burger. We had the Arrogant Frog 07 Syrah, a Pays
d'Oc wine of no great distinction but rather pleasant.
My meal was more in the wheelhouse of the kitchen, and it
was quite good. lili's was not and was kind of spotty. Turns
out that The Deep is listed in Michelin - and my experience
is that one generally doesn't order burgers in places listed
in Michelin.

violist

We walked about town a bit and decided to check out Howth
Castle; but having turned up the drive and being uninspired,
we headed back to the station, where lili disappeared in the
guise of looking for the facilities. Turns out she had felt
a chill and gone in the pub beneath the train station for a
cup of tea. Okay, so I joined her for a glass of stout. The
pub is called The Bloody Stream, a name that refers back to
a Medieval battle between the locals and the Vikings, when
the little rivulet that runs under and past the building
clogged with corpses and flowed red. That was many hundreds
of years ago, and there's no ominous vibration that I could
discern. When I got there (actually, she had to come out and
fetch me, as I'd heartbrokenly imagined that she had gone
and abandoned me for some local swain) lili had made friends
with the bartender and all the patrons and been given the
town history in some detail - turns out the castle itself is
not worth the walk, but its rhododendron garden in season
(this wasn't season) is said to be wonderful.

Back to the city, where we had promised to go to to
Dublin Culture Night and have dinner with MB our hostess.

First thing. The symphony had offered 100 free tickets,
but by the time I called, not only were these gone, but the
concert was totally sold out. So that was by the boards.

We went to the City Hall open house, where there was an
exposition of the city history, the scholarship upstairs
and the artifacts downstairs: this was hugely crowded and
stuffy (apparently the building isn't open that often) but
very informative.

Science Gallery (a project of Trinity College) was our next
stop - I found it quite underwhelming and shallow: music and
biorhythms was the theme of the day, and any time music or
biorhythms can be made boring for me, that's something
special in itself. lili and I took part in an experiment
that was supposed to elucidate the effect of happy fast
music vs. sad slow music on attention span: she got the fast
music, and I got the slow, which was oddly one of the solo
tunes I had played on my retirement concert with the
orchestra. The most interesting part was the waiver we had
to sign before participating.

Then to the modern art gallery at the college, all local
stuff; nothing stood out for me except for some botanical
drawings. Some cute multimedia things, but mostly that
irritating "look how original I am" kind of futility.
Nothing particularly memorable.

MB took us to her favorite jeweller, who for some reason
was on the list of exhibitor-participants. There were some
rather nice pieces of sculpture, and on the whole the
offerings were enjoyable if a tad above my price range.
Horrid red wine accompanied.

At last, dinner, Bewley's for old times' sake. Turns out
that since I'd last eaten there, the company has changed
hands, reorganized, and so on, but the food was said still
to be decent. It too was listed as a Culture destination -
probably because of the Beaux Arts building that houses it.

MB had penne with chicken, not very Irish, said to be pretty
good. lili's pizza Margherita, also not very Irish, came coi
funghi, so she had to send it back. The replacement was
acceptable. I asked for my penne arrabbiata, least Irish of
all, to be made with spaghetti rather than penne (no extra
charge) and with the addition of bacon (E1.50 additional).
This came as a quite sneakily spicy dish, just as I'd make
it except that I'd add a bunch of garlic, with a fair amount
of diced pancetta, well worth the supplement. I think I won
this round, though we were all reasonably happy with what
we got. A funny meal, not at all reminiscent of what I
remembered. How a tea house that served pastries (the best
scones in town) and dainties came to be a largely Italian
restaurant I have no idea. Takun Merlot (Chile) was bright
cherry cough syrupy and went well.

MB ordered bananoffee pie and three forks. I had just a
taste (it was good) but as I was paying, I got myself a
glass of Ch. Le Fage Monbazillac, quite respectable, medium
sweet, good acid, but I thought a little low in Botrytis.

Owing to a Michael Buble concert letting out, getting back
to Dalkey on the DART took nearly two hours - a trip that
had taken about 28 minutes on Arthur's Day.

violist

In the morning, we received a notice from the tour company
previously mentioned that somehow my mail had been deposited
in the spam folder (odd - I'd used its form), and our
follow-up phone calls had been missed because the principal
had been "sound asleep."

lili and I were fussing about how to get to Newgrange, and
what tour service to use, when M said, okay, the bus to
Newgrange is leaving at 10:30 if anyone wants to get on.
MB later informed us that it's one of M's favorite places.

Newgrange is quite a large monument, certainly the biggest
tumulus I've ever seen; constructed about 3000 BC, it is
one of the most important Neolithic burial sites (and, as it
turns out, solstice-aligned instrument); along with its
sister sites nearby along the Boyne, it offers the majority
of all known Neolithic art; it is said to be Ireland's most
important archeological feature and the oldest roofed
structure extant in the world.

To get there, you go an hour and change north of Dublin;
back in the day (when M was a child), it was considered very
remote, a hill surrounded by muddy cowpaths, but now it's
been developed, with a big visitor center and controlled
access via time-reserved buses. We were given a time about
2 hours away and had ample time to look at the interpretive
exhibits and the gift shop.

Of course, lunch was on the agenda. I had a sausage roll,
one of the cheapest-tasting things I've ever eaten (with
negligible substance other than starch and grease),
followed by a rich and quite good chocolate torte. lili
had better luck with a rather nice pressed ham and cheese
sandwich sided by the obligatory three salads, which I was
compelled to share. MB and M ate various relatively healthy
things that I took no notice of but ruined the effect by
sharing some of my cake.

At the appointed time, you walk across the bridge over the
Boyne to the bus turnaround; then you sort out by
preferred language; then the bus trip takes ten minutes;
then you get an escort to the site, where you are allowed
maybe fifteen minutes inside the burial chamber itself. Ah,
well, there are a lot of people who want to see. Afterward,
you get the rest of the hour to walk around the tumulus,
take pictures, whatever. Then the bus back. Rather mappined
but worthwhile on the whole, and I did get a little shiver
when our escort described the sun flooding the burial
chamber every December 21st.

As M and MB had never seen the site of the Battle of the
Boyne, despite M's family had had a regiment in one of the
armies, we went there. It was a castle with a battlefield,
somewhat picturesque, but the proprietors of Oldbridge House
have desperately commercialized it, which is good and bad.
The bad is that the canteen serves horrendous wine. Actually
the nature and architecture of the development are kind of
dissonant to a historic site, in my jaundiced opinion. The
good is that I learned a bit from the cheesy displays about
William of Orange, who had been a bit of a hero to one of my
high school history teachers, and James II, about whom all I
knew was what I heard in Trial by Jury (see: burglaree).

Back home the same day. Chinese takeout (to please the
younger son, back from his first week at university).

violist

For some reason we decided to visit Bray on our multiday
pass-fueled random walk and, having seen that estimable but
small town, decided to take the Cliff Walk to Greystones,
about 3 miles down, maybe 4 with the detour.

This used to be a paved track, with houses along the way,
but fell into disuse at some point, probably owing to
landslides and the distate people now feel for living miles
from nowhere. It's now a somewhat maintained path, kind of
hazardous towards the Greystones terminus and rerouted due
to erosion and construction of a new seawall and basin at
the very end. It may in fact be officially closed (there is
a notice to that effect at Greystones, but nobody told us
at Bray) for rerouting or repair. I have added respect for
lili's legs now that we did this trek together.

The town itself isn't much to write home about. We took a
quick tour of the waterfront (everything was closed up) and
then tried to find downtown and the train station - no way
were we going to walk back. It was an amusing interaction
with some natives lounging about to get directions how to
get there. Let it suffice to say that you had to know the
town already to figure out what they were saying. We did
get there eventually and found a pleasant pub called the
Burnaby, where red wine and Stout were again to be had.

Back to Dublin on the train, and supper at Millstone, on
Dame St., where lili enjoyed an excellent filet. I had a
prettily plated smoked salmon starter that was good but
not stunning, followed by a large serving of rather nice
roast pork belly. A chocolate profiterole dessert was
enjoyable but not worth the pills. TripAdvisor periodically
rates this as the city's #1: I'm not so sure about that, but
the food was quite respectable and the service friendly.
Plus there was live "music."

A slow wander, during which we gradually honed in on the
Brazen Head, said to be the oldest pub in town, where Gold
Circle joined us for a few rounds. We had Guinness. Gold
Circle drinks Heineken! Points, miles, hilarity, followed
by the last train out of Pearse and a stagger home.

violist

MB was kind to drive us to the terminus for the Aircoach at
0600. This was way too early, but everyone - MB, the bus
driver, the other passengers, and even we - was more
cheerful than necessary or warranted. And the driver was
pretty amazing, maneuvering this enormous machine through
the tiniest of roundabouts and narrowest of streets.
All for E7 a head. It takes a little more than half an hour
to get to the airport at this time of day.

Check-in and security were negligible.

We were denied admittance to the BMI lounge despite our EI
flight being a UA codeshare. The dourish guardian pointed
out that it wasn't a Star flight and so we weren't entitled.
I was sure she was wrong. Later I looked it up, and she was
right. Pooh. At least there's free wi-fi in the terminal.

EI 156 DUB LHR 0850 1015 320 19AB

A dull flight out of an exceptionally dull corner of a dull
airport. On time departure and arrival. So even with the
time spent transiting at LHR we had a great plenitude of
time to expend at the Star lounge, where we watched the
catering offerings go from breakfast food (including bacon
butties, which weren't bad, and pastries, which were) to
lunch food, samosas and pakoras and the like, and later a
surprisingly spicy chili served with rice. Modest amounts
of alcohol fueled our jollity.

UA 931 LHR SFO 1410 1714 777 12AB Ch9 Empower^

To paraphrase Teng Hsiao-Ping, to sleep on a plane is
glorious. A nice flight, much of it spent horizontal.
The flight crew were fine, the food was fine, the seats
were okay (but I sleep better in them than in the lie-flat
new C).

to begin
Smoked salmon "ballotine" with citrus couscous

Nothing ballottinish about this - it was your usual salmon,
not very much of it, arranged in a sort of flower shape, the
couscous a pretty good accompaniment.

and

fresh seasonal greens; classic Caesar or roasted garlic red
wine vinaigrette

main course
Grilled filet mignon with roasted tomato hollandaise sauce;
garlic and chive mashed potatoes with mixed vegetables

This was a fairly decent piece of meat, done a bit over;
the potatoes were pretty good as well, especially mixed
with this pinkish somewhat curdled sauce. lili's steak was
stringier than mine.

Mozzarella stuffed chicken breast with balsamic jus; polenta
with spring onions and haricots verts

Indian curry; sweet corn and bean tikka, cashew and caraway
rice, spicy potatoes

A friendly FA offered the information that for some
reason the curry had been the hot seller on this flight,
something she couldn't figure out.

dessert
International cheese selection: Stilton, Roubilliac

Specialty dessert

As usual, ice cream. Not much special about that.

midflight snack
Turkey and Edam cheese sandwich: sandwich may be served
either hot or cold

Mini Toblerone candy
Walkers shortbread cookies

I ignored or slept through all this.

Please help yourself to sandwiches and snacks located near
the galley

afternoon tea service
Your selected entree will be served with warm scones,
clotted cream and fruit preserves

The usual: I am perversely fond of the Rodda clotted
cream - maybe I've just gotten used to it. The preserves
were Frank Cooper's strawberry.

Trio of tea sandwiches and cranberry Wensleydale cheese
salmon, prawn and crab
chicken and bacon
ploughman's

I traded my ploughman's for lili's fishy. We were both
satisfied. The sandwiches were wet but palatable; the
cheese was dry but palatable.

Cheese plate with fresh seasonal fruit; Wensleydale with
cranberries, red Leicester

Today's menu features beef from South America

violist

Toward the end of the flight, there was a weird electrical
smell. I didn't worry until the purser, up to now calm and
professional, started looking frazzled; then one of the
pilots came back ... everyone appeared a bit anxious. I
figured, what can I do? and went back to sleep. Perhaps I
squeezed lili's hand a bit too hard in anticipation of a
premature demise, perhaps not.

The smell became fainter but had not fully dissipated on
landing. We later heard that the plane had gone mechanical
for its next flight.

This time we landed amidst a block of flights, so lili won
by far on the Global Entry vs. normal race.

We regrouped at the international RCC. Hess Select Cabernet
was the free house wine. It was welcome.

I walked lili to her gate (way down at the end of the
domestic pier) and repaired to the domestic RCC for another
glass and some e-mail before catching my redeye.

UA 198 SFO IAD 2236 0649 752 9A Ch9 Empower

My upgrade had done the permanent "pending" thing, and I was
too cheap or lazy to call UA from Ireland to get it fixed:
so of course I ended up not getting it.

On the whole, the crew were fine, the pax not so.

tttt, 9A, which I essentially used to own on UA in the '90s,
isn't such a bad seat, except that this night 9B, a late
and nonstatus addition to the flight, didn't want to part
with his bag, whining to the FAs about how he needed his
stuff and to nobody in particular about how owing to slights
real or imagined he was never going to fly United again. And
he was tallish and all elbows and during naptime kept
thrashing about and hitting my arm, waking me several times.

The guy in 8F apparently tried to keep his duffel with him
for landing, which got him a gentle rebuke. What's with this
being unable to let one's bag out of one's grip for even
the shortest time?

I think we landed early.

I visited the customer service desk to get my next boarding
pass (an actual change in plans, not just tacking something
on for more miles); this was quickly accomplished. I was
next to 8F asking for his BP for San Fran: definitely a
mileage runner. FTer as well? Perhaps not. He asked about an
upgrade and was told rather nicely that he was already in F.
Probably not a FTer - too dense.

The best thing about RCCs is the free wireless.

I trotted off to the A pier to see if Fuddruckers was open
(you can order a burger rare there, and it'll come medium
or less, which is points over Five Guys). It was, and I had
a slightly less than fresh rare burger.

Red Carpet Ale at the D club. It wasn't bad, sort of
Killianish, only maybe not so red. It tasted almost
nonalcoholic, though. It was free; the next time I was at
the club, it wasn't, having graduated from the house
pour to the two-coupon premium brand.

UA 424 IAD BOS 1227 1406 752 2A Ch9^ Empower

Interesting thing heard on channel 9: "Expect ILS approach
runway 22 left, runway 27 closed due to birdstrike." They
reopened the runway as we made our approach, and we landed
on 27.

Got a corner room at the Crowne Plaza Danvers (formerly
Sheraton Ferncroft resort) - it didn't seem to have been
inhabited recently but other than a disused smell seemed
fine. I wonder about how the occupancy has been - except
for Coco Key season and the Topsfield Fair, there's no
reason to stay here, and it's mighty out of the way.

Some decent but plain places to eat nearby - went to the
Texas Roadhouse about a mile off; the early-bird 6-oz
sirloin with two sides was a deal for $8; any saving was
eaten up by extra beer.

US2145 BOS LGA 0730 0845 E90 3F

This contrived to be an hour late, thanks to late arriving
crew. People were given the opportunity to get on the 0800,
on a bigger nicer aircraft, and in the scrum someone
managed to tread on my big toe - this didn't seem like a
big deal, but it began to swell and hurt a lot a couple
days later. I was rewarded for my patience by getting an
empty seat next to me. We landed 15 minutes behind the 0800.