A very short trip to Dublin

A short notice 8 hours in Dublin - so much for my "no more business flights" - it was really strange when the plane turned West instead of East out of BHX.  I got to see the Cadbury Factory at Chirk and my old school and house in Chester before it clouded up over Snowdonia - and all for only £400 return - economy (coach!)

For an essentially bankrupt country Ireland looks stunningly affluent indeed - and certainly still expensive.

The only detectable sign of the slowdown was the echoing empty spaces at the brand new "Identikit"* Terminal 2 at DUB - zig-zag lines for 400 at pre-security boarding pass check - 3 staff and only one punter - me.  As one of the gate assistants said "nice terminal, shame we will be paying for it for the next 50 years".  By we I think she meant "We Europeans" rather than "We Dubliners".  In the shopping & bar area it was pretty busy though - mostly the bar, where I successfully "guessed in one" the nationalities of Wojciech (Chef from Wroclaw - we agreed the broth was not a patch on Zurek) and Tibor (Hungarian barista, we discussed the pronunciation of Szeged and my favourite wine - Tokaji)

 Something tells me I will be seeing a lot of this terminal over the next few months.

*Is this Mother Teresa airport in Tirana? Warsaw Chopin Airport? Oslo Airport, Gardermoen?  I don't know they all look the same BUT Dublin is certainly the biggest!