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Saturday the boys asked me to go to Shelbourne Park, a greyhound race stadium, with them in order to become millionaires. Sure! So I met them in the city centre and we went there together. It was a really good idea: for a fiver you can watch (and bet on) eleven live races. None of us had any clue whatsoever and we just decided based on the odds and the dogs‘ recent average times. We always betted between two and four Euro on either place or win and shared the risk. Sometimes we really identified the underdog winner, often „our“ dog failed miserably. However, Kiwi turned out to have just the right touch.

Afterwards we met the girls in Fibber Magees in order to celebrate our millions moderate losses of approximately four Euro and sixty cents per capita. Great fun and definitely worth it.

Chris had guests this weekend: Stefan, who studies with us in Bamberg, came over and brought his friend Kiwi along. They arrived Thursday afternoon and left Tuesday morning. The fun began right on the first evening when we decided to say hello to some pubs in Temple Bar.

We enjoyed really good live music in The Quays Bar, The Mezz(!!) and Farrington’s and had a really good time. Afterwards, on our way back home we had several remarkable encounters: after a lot of to and fro, Chris said „Bon Anniversaire“ (French „Happy Birthday“) to a woman in the Luas. She turned out to be Irish, not French, and was perfectly able to speak and understand German – she must have heard everything before, too! I instantly killed the conversation with some stupid busdriver quote.

In Kingswood we met a garda on a bicycle who caught my friends in the act of increasing the mineral content of the soil. At least that seemed to be what he thought as he said „Keep it in the pants“ to one of them. The last few metres on our way we speculated that he might just come back and reveal his real identity: Erasmus policeman from Bavaria, who understood every single one of our words.

Lesson learned: you never know who speaks German!

After Isa’s birthday party on last week’s Tuesday, Isma and Chris did not want to come to the Metro to meet the other InCuSo on Wednesday and instead watch a movie and chill. Well, that’s the inofficial version.

When asked what I should tell the others, they came up with the following story: „They stayed at home on the sofa, took their duvets and pillows to watch Sex and the City, have a nice hot chocolate with banana, eat tons of ice cream and browse zappos.com.“

Again, I ask myself why our society tolerates the fact that people, who are not exposed to threats, keep weapons in their homes for their own entertainment. It is bound to go wrong!

Und wieder einmal frage ich mich warum unsere Gesellschaft es hinnimmt, dass Menschen, die nicht akut bedroht sind, Tötungswerkzeuge aus Unterhaltungsgründen zuhause aufbewahren. Es geht schief!

Two British soldiers dead, another two soldiers and two civilians injured. This is the sad balance of last night’s terrorist attack in county Antrim, Northern Ireland. Some people never learn – seriously bad news for Ireland.

I hope that this attempt to undermine the peace process fails miserably. Read more on RTÉ News.