Cathy had gotten on a plane in San Francisco and was hoping to change her flight in London so that she could fly into Shannon rather than Dublin. I woke up early in case she needed a research assistant. She ended up getting an earlier flight to Dublin so I looked up options for trains. We settled on a noon arrival to Limerick and Beth and I headed out. We stopped at the gift shop for a latte. I had the genius idea of adding chocolate syrup from the shelf below the sugar packets and cream. But! After making artful swirls on my foam, I tasted it and discovered — THIS IS NOT CHOCOLATE. It was HP Sauce! We hastily spooned as much as we could off of our drinks, sacrificing most of the foam in the process.
Then we set out to Limerick, doubling back along the same route of long country roads and the series of roundabouts around Ennis. We got to Limerick just in time but couldn’t park at the station and had to leave the car on a side street instead. I had looked up interesting places in the city. “Want to go to the Milk Market?” we asked Cathy. She readily agreed so we headed off on a ten-minute walk, carrying her bags because it didn’t make sense to go all the way back to the car. Contrary to its image, Limerick looked like a cute and interesting city, with a lot of ethnic food. When we arrived at the Milk Market all the doors were locked. “It must be closed,” said Cathy. “But I looked it up!” I protested. “It’s open on Fridays.” “Today is Wednesday,” she pointed out. And so it was.
We headed back to the car, got stuck in traffic and took a wrong turn or two, but eventually made it back out on the highway. I was getting hungry and suggested we stop at Byrne’s in Ennistymon. Cathy slept in the back most of the way.
Byrne’s was a classic wood-paneled pub with paintings all over the walls. A small room at the back had views of the falls on the Inagh River. But one of the two tables was taken so we ate in the front. Beth and Cathy had seafood pie and I had Ghorneh Sabzi, and Iranian vegetable stew, which was delicious. We passed on greetings from Fiachra Martin and took a group selfie. Then we walked down a paved path down to the waterfall, and along the river to the Falls House, then back up to the car.
By the time we got back to the hotel it was nearly 5. We took a walk down to the pier, which turned out to be farther than we thought. It had been misting a little rain off and on all day and the ocean was wild. We sat on the rocks and watched the waves leap into the air as they crashed into shore. We tried to figure out where people swim from. Also we bought ferry tickets for the next day to Inis More.
We walked back and Cathy was pretty much done being awake so Beth and I left her and went to Russell’s Seafood Bar. I had charcuterie and a Micil’s whiskey, which was quite alcohol-forward and a little peaty — more like a scotch than a typical Irish whiskey. The rather theatrical waiter objected to my request for rocks and said the proper way to drink whiskey is to dilute it one-to-one with water. That sounded pretty extreme to me but I do think I like more than a couple of drops of water—just as I like how ice melts and dilutes it. I caved and switched back to the water method for the remainder of the trip.
Kopi Susu 2 