1,581 words
Last week, for the first time in too long a time, I found myself again in Rome. Europe is changing so rapidly that returning to once-familiar places no longer feels like a homecoming. It feels like entering an alien terrain for the first time. I perceived a similar sensation when I visited Ireland again after an absence of a few years. Shops and locales that I frequented have been closed down or replaced and renamed. Inflation — and in the case of Ireland, a sudden and record-breaking influx of migrants and “refugees” — has caused prices of the formerly cheap hostels where I used to stay to increase by 1,000%. (more…)