Up late again. These late nights are rough. But oh so worth it.
Moving on: We passed through Adare, a cute town south of Limerick. I could have taken fifty photos there of the castle on the river (I am just zooming by castles at this point. Another castle? We'd never get anywhere.) and the pretty thatch roofed buildings. We just passed through Limerick, I wasn't too impressed. I don't know what I expected, perhaps a billboard saying:
THERE WAS A YOUNG LASSIE FROM CORK,
WHO ATE HER SOUP WITH A FORK.
SHE SUCKED IT DOWN FAST,
SO THEN WHEN SHE LAUGHED,
IT CAME OUT THROUGH HER NOSE WITH A SNORT!
The road dropped out to the coast, then inland between the mountains. Just before we got to Dingle we stopped at the South Pole Inn, a pub founded by South Pole explorer Tom Crean, who went to the Antarctic first with Robert Scott, then on the famous voyage with Shackleton. If you don't know the story, Google it. You'll be horrified and amazed. After that, he decided enough was enough, so he settled down and opened a pub. We split a pint of his beer, Crean's, a light golden ale brewed locally.
We made it to Dingle, sandwiched between the second tallest mountain in Ireland (it's really a hill, don't tell them) and the ocean. Dingle hugs a harbour, drips with colored buildings and cuteness, and is famous for the pub music scene. It is shorts and flip-flop weather, and our B&B hostess is sweating and red faced (It is SOOOO HOT!) but we are enjoying the no rain aspect of it. The language here is Gaelic, and English on the signs, if there is any, is merely a courtesy. There is no problem with people speaking English to you, but it is really thick with the accent, so you have go listen hard and close. Tractors rumble down main street with their load of hay, and fresh seafood is bought at the docks daily.
The live music doesn't start until 21 or half 21, so we passed the hours walking, looking at the boats, and eating another great meal at an out of the way café with eclectic music, a Czech waitress and Hungarian cook. The café is Goat Street Café, and I will recommend the chicken pasta, Gail will sell you on the roast beet, walnut and goat cheese salad. Another dessert, one so good that Gail actually asked for the recipe. Can you believe that? And this place is do good they actually gave it to her! We had such a nice time eating, then sitting, then reading and writing (I am doing this blog right here, right now. Good jazz on the stereo, gathering dusk outside, candles flickering, room hushed; only eight tables, sipping our last glass of wine) we had such a great time we decided to order one last glass of wine to split, and they split it into two glasses for us! Two full glasses. When the bill came they only charged us for the one glass.
Our Czech waitress came here for the work, life is easier here, she said. She has been here seven years off and on, it's permanent now. She grew up near the Polish border, so there is no tourist income in her small town. Plus, it is warmer! The nice thing about the European Union is how you can relocate and work so easily.
Well, we headed out promptly around 21:00 give or take a half hour, and started jumping pub to pub looking for just the right music. The pub next door, Foxy John's, is a real, honest to god old time pub. It is a hardware store during the day. Pubs, in the old days, used to be businesses during the day, a pub at night. This is a real throwback. I think we will start there, see what's playing. Well, turns out nothing was playing there, or the next pub. But then we hit a good one at the third, kind of a sing along. They started the next song by saying, "You know, da da da dahhhh da" and they were off. Simple tunes, easy choruses and we were all singing along. Next a fiddle and guitar at John Benny Moriarty's. The fiddler is effortless, the bridge of his fiddle white with rosin, the guitar player driving the song. Boy, can he push a song. So we are drinking Irish Coffee and Crean's and just enjoying the music. We hit up two more pubs on the way home, one with a band singing American songs, the other just not very good. It's interesting to me that kids are allowed in the pub with their parents, so you see even babies listening to the music, two year olds dancing and fourth graders teased by the guitar player, while everyone drinks and chats and sings along.
The moon is almost full tonight, a beautiful walk home along the harbour.
We watched a drunk slowly stumble zig-zagging up the middle of the road, into the dark between houses.