Attemptations

I need to pay homage to this chicken curry Ruairí made from scratch last night, and to this bowl of muesli and yogurt Maretine gave me for breakfast. I love these guys. It's never just food, it's more sort of a work of art...

Today was a day of attemptations. We attempted to do lots of things, some of which we achieved to some degree.

Actually, it was more of an afternoon. Ladies of leisure that we are, Martine and I didn't see daylight until midday.

Martine had heard about an air show happening over central Dublin, however I was less enthusiastic as it was blowing 60 mph outside and raining sideways.

We eventually settled on the Museum of Modern Art, which sits in a magnificent old hospital building with a grand courtyard.

(click to enlarge)

We walked straight in, marvelled at the extremely un-modern oil paintings of European kings and queens, and gazed upon the stained glass in the chapel before the care taker explained to us that the museum was closed, except for the café and gift shop downstairs. We weren't the only ones to have missed the non-existent signs explaining this, or to be pulled in by the smell of coffee and the opportunity to buy some rainbow coloured crayons... were we, Martine?

Passing the Liffey, we attempted to cross town at exactly the moment the air show finished, resulting in standstill traffic for about an hour. However, we did catch a couple of the final planes passing overhead.

Liffey

Back of The Custom House

As we were heading out of town, Martine spotted this reflection, which I thought was rather cute.

Ruairí made a quick stop beside a dock to show us the boat he was named after! This used to be the ferry between the outer islands. When it was decommissioned it was moored in Dublin, and it's now rented out as housing.

Ruairí is Eanna Ruairí, and Eanna is the god of the Aran Islands, where his father's side of the family come from.

After town, we decided to attempt Johnny Fox's, a famous pub up in the hills (err, sorry Ruairí, 'mountains') of Dublin. It's more like a museum, with live folk music going on in the background. The problem is that it's so famous that tourists arrive by the busload, so we took a few pictures and went in search of somewhere quieter to eat.

Spitting Image Gerry Adams and Nelson Mandela!
This made news.

Toilet Door

The above reads:

This is a famine pot which was used to feed up to 800 people every day during the potato famine in Ireland between 1845-1848.

Famine pots and plague pits, the British Isles have seen some difficult times.

We attempted a couple of other pubs but they were all just as busy. Luckily, the last one we tried was right next to a superb Sichuan restaurant. The food was exceedingly scrummy: honey spare ribs, aromatic duck, duck in plumb sauce, garlic shredded pork, hot and sour soup, dumplings...

Plus a very important ingredient...

Let's not dissect the morality of talking about so much food after showing a picture of a famine pot.

It was a lovely, if somewhat random, day. We headed home to continue with the house clearance. Over the past decade or so, Ruairí has amassed an unusual collection of exotic spirits, some with names we can't even pronounce. As they're leaving, and nobody likes waste, it's important to re-home as much of this as we can - in our bellies.

Recognise that bottle of Waragi?

The one on the right was some delicious pear liquor.
The one on the left tasted of meths.

We did our best between us, finishing most of the gin, some whisky, the apricot liquor and most of the pear one. Then we proceeded to giggle our tits off until 2am.

A lovely, if slightly dangerous, way to spend my last night in Dublin.