Being Back

Back a few days now, and while I wouldn't quite say its been roasting hot, I'm embarassed to say I've come all the way from Sydney and got sunburned in a usually raining and miserable Dublin. Listening to everyone these past couple of days in shock and awe at the run of sunny days just confirms how absolutely starved of sunshine people are. I did my godfatherly duties for the Christening on Sunday and got to try and figure out the controls to my new camera - yaaay new camera! It weights a tonne and makes a loud ka-chung! sound when you take a photo, but its fun to just hold your finger down on the button and take 10 photos at once, or zoom up close and take a snap of someones nostril hair. Went into Dublin city centre to see if much had changed and whether the recession has really shown itself. True some places were filthy and boarded up, but you could put that down to the bank holiday weekend as much as anything. There's a new bridge, some fancy new buildings in the docklands, a half built new football stadium and still a few other cranes on the skyline. Smithfield and the area around my old apartment was looking a little run down though, despite the fancy new arty cinema. There was certainly no feeling of getting used to the country again, or a sense of reverse-culture shock. Actually it feels like I was here just a few weeks ago. But I'll be out of here again in less than a week.