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.