We arrived in Dublin two days ago. It is a real thrill typing on a normal keyboard (rather than the French keyboard) and being able to turn on the TV and understand what's going on. The latter doesn't seem to affect Michael so much - he can watch an entire movie in French, as long as it's a shootemup movie with lots of car chases and so on - in fact if he doesn't get a fix of this in some language he seems to become rather woebegone.
We are booked to stay in Dublin for a week, and have been pleasantly surprised by the richness of Irish cultural life - great bookshops, and lots of theatre and many galleries.
I think there must be some index of a city's focus that is based on the number of square metres of the CBD that is dedicated to particular functions. In Paris, there seems to be a coiffure in every block and a boulangerie. In Dublin, a quarter of the metreage seems to be dedicated to pubs or drinking outlets of some kind. We can testify to the after-effects, as our apartment is on the third floor over the Millennium Walk, close to the city centre. People seem to rage in our neighbourhood until about 4.00 am in the morning. This morning we (and the rest of the neighbourhood) were serenaded by some young man the worse for wear, with a song of yearning about Ouma from lovely Sligo.
We have discovered that there is a big jazz festival in Cork next weekend, so we have booked to go there. There is also some wild countryside in the county, in which we are planning to do some walking. The hills in Ireland are nothing compared to the haute alpes in southern France, so the walking shouldn't be too difficult. It will be good to walk again.
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