Robert (Ireland) - "You don't need presents. You just need good people, cookies, and lots of alcohol."

The house is full of people. On Saturday three more people arrived; Hugh (the oldest brown brother), Liz from Wisconsin (here in between a term in Rome and a term in London), and Sachi from Japan (a recurring guest at the Brown household currently studying ethnomusicology in Limerick). Finally, Sachi's younger brother Kuni arrived yesterday on his first trip outside of Japan. The place is turning into a regular old hostel for the Christmas season. Everyone is a lot of fun.

We've been putting all the manpower in the house into trying to complete a 3000 piece puzzle of an old world map. By old map I mean the California coast runs east-west and South America is connected to Antarctica. Cartographers where one confused bunch back then.

Saturday Joseph and I walked to the stone circle which is a large circle (maybe 80 feet across?) of large misshapen stones on top of a hill a few miles from their house. Saturday night we went out to the pubs in Letterkenny (a city about half an hour north of Raphoe). It was a sort of reunion night for Joseph and Jon's friends who are all coming back from University for the holidays. Most of the night was at McGinley's Pub in at a table in the corner of the second floor. They took a picture of our group so I may now grace the McGinley's wall of fame. The night ended with devouring chips (fries) in Letterkenny's Chinatown which, as far as I could determine in my drunken stupor, only consists of about three buildings. Actually the night ended with eating toast in the Brown's kitchen, which seems to be how all drinking nights end here. I'm a fan.

Christmas has been quite pleasant. It almost never snows in Ireland, but there was a heavy frost last night and we woke up to pretty much the closest thing to a white Christmas that we could get. We had a nice breakfast then went to the service at the local Presbyterian church (Joseph and Jon's father Brian is the minister). After snacks and champagne at the house of the Morrow family we returned home to open presents (I got an Earlham baseball cap from my father that, according to the tag, makes me 72% more attractive to the opposite sex.) Finally Christmas dinner, more desserts than you could shake a stick at, and then general lethargy/games/music playing.

Finally, some random goodness.
Things I am appreciating these days:

-Sachi's Japanese/Irish accent
-Wine with meals
-The dessert wine Liz brought from Italy that tastes like marzipan
-Toast and tea
-Musical people who aren't full of themselves
-Lights that are turned on by pulling cords
-The verbal jousting of the Brown family

Robert (Ireland) - Awake

Well, it’s about 4:00 a.m. and I’m wide awake. Thanks jet lag. I slept in until mid-afternoon today thanks to the time change and my body finally relaxing after finals. So here I sit looking at various camp picture on Joseph’s wall, sobering up from a few pints had down at the Diamond Bar, and waiting to be tired again. Seems like a good time for my first update.

I’m staying with the family of Joseph and Jon Brown (friends from Farm and Wilderness.) They live in a small town called Raphoe in County Donegal. Donegal is the northernmost county in Ireland. It’s a crescent of land sandwiched between the western side of Northern Ireland and the ocean. Their house is a lovely place on a hillside about half a mile west of the town’s center. The last time I stayed here was the summer before starting college and it’s great being back. For now it's just Joseph, Jon, their parents and me here, but their older brother and two other house guests will be arriving in a few days. Soon it will be a very full house.

Ireland is much as you’d expect. Rolling green hills and such. We’re far enough north that the sun isn’t much more than a hand’s width above the horizon at noon. The temperature has been hanging around a bit above freezing. The only consistently heated room in the house is the kitchen so I wear a jacket most of the time. I’ve also been drinking an ungodly amount of tea. In the first nine hours that I was here I had tea on at least six separate occasions. I remember I never liked tea until the first time I visited here, and I became a tea lover by necessity.

Tonight I went to the bar with the brothers Brown and their friend Scott who’s just back from university at Glasgow. It was a session night which means lots of people bring their instruments to play traditional tunes together. Much can been said about the tradition of pub sessions in Ireland, how tunes are learned by heart through playing at the sessions, but I’m not very knowledgeable about the details of it. Suffice to say it was a pleasant evening of good company and good music.

Well, I am going to try sleeping again. I hope everyone is enjoying being home and looking forward to the holidays.

Robert – Setting Up

Hey all! Here’s the communal study abroad blog. Everything should be pretty self-explanatory. To cut down on confusion I think that whenever you update, the first word in the title of your post be your name (as I have done above). Not much more to it that that. I look forward to hearing all about your travels.

-Robert