Week 1

Long time, no post, right?

I'll spare gory details, and relatively boring stories about my first week here.  Here's an incomplete list of what's gone on here in Derry, Northern Ireland.

-the disheartening discovery that most college students here listen to American rap and hip-hop

-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn't that great of a movie

-Jaffa Cakes are a chocolatey-orangey biscuit thing, and they're delicious

-the American economy sucks, and wants me to spend my life savings on a pint

-Every inch of this city is dense with historic conflict. It's difficult to not be overcome by it, but it's also a fascinating foil to the jubilant, lighthearted, and friendly people I've met everyday.

-there is no sunshine, in the best way possible

-thousands of years of socially sanctioned alcoholism means that the Irish can drink everybody under the table.  There's also a huge segment of the population that doesn't drink at all.

-I've been invited to join a rugby team.

-Our program director Jim Skelly is cool as hell.  We had dinner at his place, where he had Nina Simone playing when we came in.  Later, he gave me a glass of Talisker Scotch.  It was fantastic.

-Everybody drinks every night during the week.  However, the dorms are a ghost town on weekends, because everyone one goes home.  It's like a reverse of the US.

-Orientation lectures have informed me that fires and chlamydia lurk around every corner, and it's only a matter of time before one or both kills me.