not to worry

Yo! Am slightly zombified since the taxi picked me up at 5 this morning from my friends' place in Dublin. After a week of more or less intensivce training I decided to stay 2 extra nights in one of my favourite cities. As you might remember, I studied a year in Dublin in 1993-94 and was very reluctant indeed to return to Vienna afterwards, as was Amica who was the second ERASMUS grantee from the University of Vienna that academic year.

I've been back since but the last time was 4 years ago. Even then, the island's rather recent economic wealth (think 12.5 % corporate tax) was noticeable everywhere. Since then, downtown Dublin has become incredibly prosperous and chic and what's more, the former epitome of an "emigrating nation" has seen an influx of workforce from the new EU member states and other countries. There are now lots of Polish shops and Irish TESCOs host shelves of Polish food to cater for the 200,000 Polish citizens allegedly living in Ireland.

At least the people I spoke to seemed to have a very positive attitude to the diversification of their society. A rather novel sensation for someone living in xenophobic Vienna. At (the European HQ of) my new place of work I met people from all over the world and the canteen was a veritable Babel. Being somewhat above the age average I felt a bit like back in that glorious year at UCD when Amica and I turned 23 and felt very mature compared to our Irish classmates, some of whom would have started university with 17.

Expect to be tortured with more Dublin pictures in the days ahead whenever my time and temperamental broadband will allow it.

Good news: our favourite chicken, she is back!