Saturday, June 5, 2010

June Already?

May came and went nearly unnoticed in Cork. Between our interesting trip to Italy and France and the visit of Katherine's brothers there was little time to sit out in the sunshine and smell the roses. It will be more of the same in the coming weeks, of course. We head to Germany on Tuesday: we're flying into Munich and start a week of exploring around Bavaria. And there is still a slate of friends and relatives planning to visit this month and next.

Cork is fully awake for summer. Today I saw two parades, of sorts. The first was a rather large march in protest of Israel's actions this past week. In case you didn't watch the news, Israeli commandos stormed an aid ship bound for Gaza, killing nine crew members and humanitarian workers in the process. Today we learn from the news that another ship––this one Irish-owned––has been seized by Israel while on the same course.

As with any other situation involving Israel, folks are riled up about the seizure of the aid ships. So what I saw today was a rather large (by Cork standards) demonstration against Israel's aggressive actions. The second "parade" I witnessed was a raucous procession by the Cork LGBT community (Google it if you don't know what I mean). There was a massive flotilla of dancing people surrounded by rainbow balloons while the Pussycat Dolls was blasted for the whole city to hear. Again a reminder of how much Ireland has changed.

The derelict building next to ours has started to literally crumble into the street below, a spectacle that offered some entertainment last night. The fire brigade noisily arrived to assess the situation. To examine the building closely, they of course had to use a cherry-picker.


But the biggest hazard turned out to be not the unstable building, but advertising banners:


But they're professionals. They managed to get past this hiccup and focus on the task at hand:


The whole fiasco went well into the night––I think it was around midnight before the hubbub died down.

Firemen working away into the evening.

The solution? They ended up gating off the sidewalk and street around the crumbling building. We'll see what happens next...
***
I just finished my first week back at the warehouse, and it's like I never left. They want me back when we return from Germany too, so I don't know where exactly this is heading. On-and-off work throughout the summer? Who knows?

On the economic front, more of the same. I have been fascinated by the slow collapse of the European economy for the past couple of months, and it seems like talk about a break-up of the euro is more common by the day. While no country that I know of has officially endorsed a revision of the common currency, it might be a matter of time. Markets plunged again yesterday as Hungary has admitted it has a Greek-style debt problem. Things will get really interesting if Spain or Italy eventually require bailouts, a situation that would compel the stronger economies (France and Germany) to abandon the currency.

But for the time being the union is holding together. We're going to take advantage by spending some euros in Germany. I'll report upon our return, of course.

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