The next day we awoke early for a visit to Trinity College. I wanted to see the famous Long Room in the Old Library, Dad wanted to see the Book of Kells, and both of us wanted to put off getting into the Zippy for as long as humanly possible. Naturally, we walked there.
Officially the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth, Trinity was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. Its library is a legal deposit library, meaning that it is legally entitled to a copy of every book published in Great Britain and Ireland. As a result, the library receives over 100,000 new items a year and contains about five million books, making it the largest research library in Ireland. It's also absolutely gorgeous.
Prior to visiting the library, I'd surprised Dad with tickets to the Book of Kells, a 9th century manuscript that documents the four Gospels of the life of Jesus Christ. The illuminated manuscripts are made of calf vellum (some still with calf hair attached!), while the ink came from sources like shellfish, copper, elderberries, lead, arsenic, and soot from burned bones.
Eventually, we could no longer postpone the inevitable, and it was time to take our lives into our own hands again with another road trip, this one to the picturesque maritime village of Malahide.
I should pause here to note that parking the Zippy was the least of my problems. Far more alarming was the fact that, thanks to the "misplaced" steering wheel on the right-hand side, I could not seem to center the car within my lane to save my life (quite literally). I was either veering into oncoming traffic, or hugging the left-hand curb so tightly that by the time we set off for Malahide, I'd already dented the side mirror in Dublin, dislodged that rubber thing off the front in Howth, and lost a hubcap (incident location unknown). But off we went . . . because castles.
We decided on a tour of Malahide Castle, which dates back to 1185. That's when the lands of Malahide and its harbor were presented to Richard Talbot for his loyal service as a Knight to Henry the Second of England. (All I got for my loyal service this year was a fleece emblazoned with the name of my firm.)
Incredibly, the Talbots lived at Malahide Castle until the early 1970s, when the final Baron de Malahide, Lord Milo Talbot, died in 1973. His sister Rose inherited the estate and subsequently sold it to the Irish State in 1975, thus ending an 800-year stretch. Ugh, Rose, you ninny.
During the tour, we learned that this hideous orange paint was quite the status symbol in the 1100s, because it had to be imported from Asia. Rich folks, they never change.
I'd seen about as much flaming orange paint and frilly bedding as I could stand, and so I announced by royal decree that it was herewith time for our mid-day repast. We set off for the village for lunch at a charming pub called The Greedy Goose.
We settled in at a cozy table with a view of the harbor.
The Greedy Goose turned out to be my favorite restaurant of the trip because, for a set price, you could choose either three or four items -- appetizers, entrees, desserts, you name it -- from the entire menu. Naturally Dad and I ordered an app and two entrees each, all of which were excellent, with a special shout-out for the warm honey-and-truffle goat cheese bake topped with crushed hazelnuts, which we nearly came to blows over.
After lunch we returned to Malahide Castle, this time to explore the extensive gardens.
After another hair-raising ride back to Dublin, it was time for a drink. In fact, it was time for two.
We chose the stylish Lucky Duck in honor of making it back from Malahide in one piece.
(No, that's not a glass of white wine with an ice cube in it; it's the Lucky Duck's Milk Punch #43, made with Venezuelan Pampero rum, agricole, green tea, hemp, and clarified milk.)
One of my favorite things about Ireland were the little green exit signs, which automatically assume the worst by indicating that you won't just be exiting, but actually making a run for it.
That evening we had reservations at Tomahawk, a spur-of-the-moment decision made when we'd both spied their wood-burning grill at the exact same time.
Tomahawk serves its steaks with a selection of sauces, including Jameson peppercorn, chimichurri, and juniper and rosemary butter, all of which Dad turned his nose up at, insisting that dousing his steak in sauce would ruin it.
Mine arrived with the wrong sauce -- chimichurri instead of peppercorn -- and when I alerted the waitress, Dad took the opportunity to point out that his arrived with a sauce even though he hadn't ordered one. And so I was particularly tickled when she responded, "Oh, this is the sauce we give the people who don't like sauce" . . . and then Dad proceeded to dunk his entire steak in it.
The next day was departure day, but we had to make a very important stop first.
Knowing that the car rental company would charge me a hundred Euro or more for what is likely a $10 piece of rubber, Dad suggested that we take the lower deflector to a local garage to have it reattached. Explaining that it just needed to stay on long enough to make it to the airport car rental return, the lovely guys at First Stop took pity on me and glued? duct-taped? stapled? it back on, all for the bargain price of 20 Euro.
Soon we were on our way back home, but not without a stop in Iceland first.
Our layover was too short to leave the airport and go sightseeing, but too long to just sit at the gate, so Dad suggested that we spend it here.
Like father, like daughter indeed.
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Where to next? Roughing it in the bush in South Africa (sans ironing board!); celebrating a birthday in Brooklyn with my sissy (at a food festival -- where else!?); running down an off-the-menu cast iron butter burger in the Hudson Valley; and getting by with some help from my friends in Anguilla. Subscribe here and you'll be notified when a new post goes up!
This featured blog entry was written by TraceyG from the blog Escape From New York.
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