I've been here 90 minutes, and already I like Dublin...

...way better than london.

Don't get me wrong, London is big and busy and chaotic and every Anglo-Antipodean should come here once, to experience that and see the stuff you can't find anywhere else, like the Sutton Hoo helm, or the castles built by William the Conqueror, or the place that our political system came from, or the streets full of theatres on the West End. There's so much to see and do here. But London is a great big toilet - a dirty, stinky place where people come to do something very important, play after dark and then leave in a shambles. (Credit for this analogy must go to my cousin Sam. It's not my own invention, however apt!)

There's also apparently an unspoken rule that says it is absolutely forbidden to even make eye contact with (let alone speak to) anyone on public transport, in the street, even in pubs! I'm constantly amazed at how people in a tiny space packed full of beer, smoke and bodies STILL manage to avoid any dealings at all with anyone they've not been formally introduced to...

How refreshing then, to escape across the sea to Ireland. (A friend of mine says landing in Dublin felt like he was coming home... but his name's Liam O'Keefe... so he kinda was!) The customs chappie was downright friendly compared to every Pom behind a counter anywhere. A feller on the bus asked if I needed help sorting out where I was going, and worded up the bus driver (said bus driver then hopped out of his seat at my stop to point me down the right side street). Dublin's double decker buses, by the way, are fantastic - big blue bouncy, squeaky things that rattle over the roads at breakneck pace, I wonder is this where JK Rowling got her inspiration for the Knight Bus?

My hostel is a faded, slightly battered but generally cosy rabbit warren, with winding stair cases up and down, great big window alcoves with people sitting in them to write, and a massive underground kitchen and common room. (And at about $20 a night including brekkie, a bargain!!). It's in a long row of cheap hostels around the corner from a street full of pubs and a 24 hr internet cafe. So I've already been to my first trad gig - I got there just in time for the last 3 songs, finishing up with Whisky in the Jar... and then 'that's all from us for the night, all stand please, for the national anthem'. Truly! Then an old bloke who makes Guinness for a living and hails from Killarney shook my hand and kissed my cheek and wished me a happy stay in Ireland. I was so stoked, I had to come straight to the internet cafe and write it all down.

I SO like it here already!