I am in love

Just a little note to say that I am IN LOVE with Londonderry (locally known as Derry), Ireland.
It still feels like we JUST arrived and we have been here for 5 days now. I think I will definately be sad when we leave and that it'll feel like departure time will come too quick!







The accent here is quite rhythmic in a way and it is VERY hard to not pick up the rhythm and talk with their accents... even the americans here have that Irish "rhythm" in their speech. I might come back with an accent. ;)









Today we spent the whole day walking around town handing out some of those 18,000 flyers we stapled(we will be doing that for the next 3 or 4 days.)














A local artist came over this morning and taught us how to face paint for the kids program...


Tonight we had local fish and chips (i just had the fish) for dinner... it was wonderful deep fried local fresh fish... mmm mmm!





Here is a picture from our bbq yesterday:



Well, tomorrow we will move into the local college dorms for the next 10 days as we will join 30 people from California (arriving tomorrow) to work with the kids program. The next 10 days will be VERY busy and I am not sure we will have internet access... but i am hoping for it so that I can continue to keep you posted.

I have become way to used to tea and biscuts 3 times a day! the tea is so good here and they say that america gets the least quality tea and that is why the tea is sooo good here... it is of the highest quality.
The pastor of the church here made Jeni( a girl on our team) get up infront of everyone last night at a meeting and tell her story of going to bed at 5pm the day we got here and waking up at 7:30 thinking it was morning and getting all ready for the day but it actually only being 2.5 hours after she went to bed. they think it is sooo funny.

well... i guess till next time... know that i will be enjoying much tea and many cookies!

Irish BBQ

Today we went to eat dinner at someone's house within the church and they made the most amazing bbq for us... there was chicken and hamburgers and sausages, kababs, many different kinds of potatoes, cole slaw, salad and MORE!
It was a lil' chilly out and i was wearing a sweatshirt and i thought it was a lil' funny when a little girl came up to her mom and said "mum, can i take off my trousers its a wee bit warm."
I laughed.

tea and cookies to the max!

Things are going well here. . . unfortunately i think i picked up a lil' bug or something. I am feeling not too well today with a sore throat and headache. I am trying my best too fight it off, I don't want to be sick long during our stay in Ireland. We are still doing much preparing for and leading up to kids week July 6-8. This is a HUGE event... we are still trying to tackle getting all 18,000 flyers stapled so tomorrow we can begin to spend the next 4-5 days going door to door handing them out.

I am getting used to tea and biscuts (cookies) ATLEAST 3 times a day -- I am afraid I might gain much weight on this trip (you know I don't want to be rude and refuse the many deliciouis cookies ;)

The people are SOOOOOO nice in Ireland. Our host families are spoiling us to death and their hospitality is the best I've experienced yet!

Last night we went to some ruins of an old Irish "barbarian" type castle... it was cool.

just quick

the computer battery is about to die so just a quick update...
things are good. I slept for 12 hours and felt good. i am having a sore throat though -- pray that i won't get sick. we spent all day stapling 18,000 flyers for the kids week coming up next week. more to come...

Ireland Day 1 or something...

well, we have arrived in Derry "Londonderry" Ireland. I am SOOO tired. we arrived at 10am monday morning local Londonderry time... it is now 4pm local time - we have been fighting sleep all day so that we can just go to bed tonight and be adjusted to the time change. I am now on hour 28 with no sleep. It feels like forever ago that we departed Salt Lake City.
What I first experienced in Ireland:
- cute little red head kid running around customs without his pants on.
- custom officers that were VERY KIND.
- They are the friendlies people here!
- a flight attendent from Dublin to LondonDerry that looked like Molly Shannon with an Irish accent.
- Beautiful green rolling hills and sunny and 65 degrees.
- the coolest accents EVER everywhere we turn!!!!
- my first confusion with the lingo: craic pronounced CRACK. means fun... laughter...
"that pub has good crack (craic)"
"last night we had the best crack (craic) at their house."
(I'm glad someone explained that one to me - I was very confused.)

... i need some sleep soon! :)

Departure!

Well, today is Saturday -- I leave this evening to go to Salt Lake City and then I fly out of Salt Lake tomorrow morning to head to Londonderry, North Ireland! I need to PACK!!!!

Kids

Somedays I decide that I realllllly do like kids. Monday and Tuesday I had spent some time with some kids and they were soooo cute! The seven yr. old made me laugh by telling me, "in my house, seven year olds are responsible enough to us the SHARP knives to cut their own apples." I don't know enough... do 7 year olds use sharp knives to cut things? But I wasn't going to risk it so I said, "today, I will use the sharp knife to cut your apple."
Then I learned that if kids are really cute, it doesn't take much for them to talk me into buying them a McDonalds hamburger.

11 Days

11 Days till I start my journey to Ireland! I'm excited... but it is also accompanied by that weird feeling of "this isn't real." Sometimes I feel that way when I fly out east to see my parents... it is hard to believe that I will be in another place soon.
But, I'm starting to get ready to go. I ordered a larger back pack with the hopes of everything I need for 2.5 weeks to fit in my backpack... no luggage. we'll see how I do.
Anyhow... my hopes is to have access on occassion in Ireland to my blog and blog about my trip for all to see. So, check out this page for updates....

Well, I had to buy a new jar of pickles today and I finished reading "How the Irish Saved Civilization." - good book. Its about the Irish role in the fall of Rome to the rise of Medieval Europe. I didn't know that the barabaric Irish had such a huge role in the history of Europe. But here is a tiny bit of the last part of the book that I have been thinking about lately:

"As we, the people of the First World, the Romans
of the tweentieth century, look out across our Earth,
we see some signs for hope, many more for despair.
Technology proceeds apace, delivering the marvels that
knit our world together --- the conquering of diseases
that plagued every age but ours and the consequent
lowering of mortality rates, revolutions in crop
yields that continue to feed expanding populations,
the contemplated "information highway" that will soon
enable all of us to retrieve information and
communicate with one another in ways so instant and
complete that they would dazzle those who built the
Roman roads, the first great information system.
But that road system became impassable rubble, as
the empire was overwhelmed by population explosions
beyond its borders. So will ours. Rome's demise
instructs us in what inevitably happens when
impoverished and rapidly expanding populations, whose
ways and values are only dimly understood, press up
against a rich and ordered society. More than a
billion people in our world today survive on less than
$370 a year, while Americans, who constitute five
percent of the world's population, purchase fifty
percent of its cocaine. If the world's population,
which has doubled in our lifetime, doubles again by
the middle of the next century, how could anyone hope
to escape the catastrophic consequences -- the wrath
to come? But we turn our backs on such unpleasantness
and contemplate the happier prospects of our
technological dreams.
What will be lost, and what saved, of our
civilization probably lies beyond our powers to
decide. No human group has ever figured out how to
design its future. That future may be germinating
today NOT in a boardroom in London or an office in
Washington or a bank in Tokyo, But in some antic
outpost or other --- a kindly British orphanage in the
grim foothills of Peru, a house for the dying in a
back street of Calcutta run by a fiercely
single-minded Albanian nun, an easygoing French
medical team at the starving edge of the Sahel, a
mission to Somalia by Irish social workers who
remember their own Great Hunger, a nursery program to
assist convict-mothers at a New York prison -- in some
unhearlded corner where a great hearted human being is
committed to loving outcasts in an extraordinary way.
Perhaps history is always divided into Romans and
Catholics -- or, better, catholics. The Romans are the
rich and powerful who run things their way and must
always accure more because they instinctively believe
that there will never be enough to go around; and
catholics, as their name implies, are universalists
who instinctively believe that all humanity makes one
family, that every human being is an equal child of
God, and that God will provide. If our civilization is to be saved --
forget about our civilization, which, as Patrick would
say, may pass "in a moment like a cloud or smoke that
is scattered by the wind" -- if WE are to be saved,
it will not be by Romans but by saints.

Pickles

I don't know if it is because its summer time or what but I CRAVE PICKLES!!!! I eat, well, I won't tell you how many pickle spears in a day. I love pickles!