In my new job I am responsible for covering 8 countries (Poland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia Herzegovina). Little by little I am working my way around all of them introducing myself to people. As a history geek of course it hasn’t escaped me that this makes up much of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. The big exception being Poland. Right now I am in Warsaw.

It’s not my first time here. I visited back in March 2007. Poland is the one country in my new stomping ground where I will make my visits by plane. With pretty much all the others, going by car or taking the train is the most practical. And what a change that makes after about 400 flights in the last 5 years. I took the train to Budapest last week. No queueing, no pointless security checks, just walk on, loads of leg room, huge windows with a great view, high speed Internet, seat power, restaurant car and a meal cart (dinner for less than €10), moving map of our progress, and city centre to city centre for €110, return, first class. I would never fly again if I had the choice.

After dealing with the early closing shops, and the lack of a smoking ban, it’s the accessibility of so much of Europe that is one of the most significant things to adapt to here. Although, unlike the other two this one isn’t in your face. But the fact there are half a dozen European capitals no further away by car than the west of Ireland on a bank holiday weekend is, to use the cliche, going to require a paradigm shift. If you are not Irish (or British) it may take some thinking to understand how isolating it is for us living on our island, where escape is something planned far in advance with flight or ferry bookings. A bit of isolationism really is part of our national mindset. I am hoping that my few years on the continent will open my mind in this regards in ways I will hardly realise.

The danger with this accessibility is that I have been lax about taking time to look at these places. I have two years, so I feel there is no hurry. I have to make sure that when I do come to go home I don’t regret all the things I haven’t done and places I haven’t visited.

In the mean time I have been trying to get to see a bit more of Vienna. Every year for about 6 weeks they set up an ice-skating rink outside the Rathus. I can’t skate myself, but I went along to enjoy the spectacle. It’s an amazing backdrop. The glühwein went down pretty well too.

One of the things I like about the continent is they are much more relaxed about pets. You see people with their dogs on public transport, or in some shops. You would never see that back home. Food shops of course bar dogs. But they do provide parking outside for them