Safely in Paris

For the benefit of all who worry, Kristina and I are safely in Paris. Big day today.

Staying safe, being smart. This computer sucks. Write later.

:)

Video-Blog Begun!!

Kristina and I have begun a video-blog for our trip - you can find our videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/KEtoEurope

Hope you enjoy. We are complete dorks, I know. :P

Friend-filled Ireland

Ever since St. Patty's Day, I've been hanging out with Mike, Dave, and Kristina a TON. The four of us get along famously, and it's tremendously enjoyable to have guys to hang out with.

Last Thursday, the four of us hung out at Kristina's place. We watched Father Ted (have you heard of this show? It's an Irish comedy following the life of a Catholic priest. I was expecting to be offended, to be honest, but it's actually not bad at all), ate frozen pizza, and drank wine. There was a small mishap involving the mixing of red and white wine, but overall it was a lot of fun.

This week has been filled with a historical figure known as Michael Collins. If you don't know who Michael Collins is, he was basically the leader of the Irish fight for independence from Britain in the early 20th century. He helped organize the Irish militia, gathered intelligence, was present at the formation of the treaty with Britain, and was assassinated at the age of 31. The Cork Opera House is showing a musical based on his life, and the four of us, plus a guy named Nevin, went to see it last night. I thought it was great; the music is still stuck in my head. To get us ready for the musical, the guys decided to show Kristina and me the movie by the same name (Michael Collins) on Monday night. Mike and Dave, both history buffs, would not be quiet for the life of them during the entire film... but at least they didn't talk during the musical.

All my classes are finished! I know, crazy, right? I have until next Thursday to write my paper for my Human Sexuality class, and I have 3 exams when I return in May, but other than that my obligations to UCC are complete. The system strikes me as a little strange, but it works out grand for visiting students, many of whom are taking full advantage of the month off to travel.

Kristina's and my trip around Europe begins in less than a week! We're flying into Paris late next Thursday. I am so excited, but Kristina is practically bouncing off the walls thinking about it. Now that I've made these new friends, I wish they could come with us, but they both have other plans. (We're thinking of doing video-blogs each evening, but I'm going to try and write a journal entry for each day as well while we're traveling).

I have to meet Kristina and Dave shortly, so I must bid adieu for now. Sorry about my lax updating schedule - it's hard to remember to write everything down sometimes!

St. Patty's Day

Yesterday was an absolutely brilliant day. St. Patrick's Day for the win!

So Kristina, my two new friends Mike and Dave, and I decided we would meet up at noon at Mike's place before the parade began at one. Another girl, Avril, was also there; she's a redhead, very nice, and a Brit. Amazingly, all of us were on time - even Dave, who had to drive into town from his home in Blarney.

When we walked onto Grand Parade (that's the name of the street - it never occurred to me before the coincidence there), the place was absolutely packed. Half of the county must have been crowded into City Center, and due to this huge number of people, we almost immediately lost Kristina, who had stopped to buy a green hat from one of the many vendors who had set up shop along the way. She found us again, though, and we actually managed to get decent positions along the parade route, towards the beginning. The parade, unlike everything else that is Irish, started smartly at one o'clock.

What surprised me was how quiet everything was. I mean, there was plenty of normal-speaking-voice level chatter, but hardly any of the floats or groups inspired shouts or cheers or even really applause from the crowd. Maybe it's an American thing to be noisy at parades? I don't know, but I was pretty weirded out. There were cool floats though - a huge water dragon whose head moved around, occasionally swooping into the crowd; a giant robot controlled by what I was told were Star Trekkies; and some random alien-shaped balloons. Most of the people were on foot - a few weren't even dressed up - and the whole affair was decidedly low-tech in comparison to what might be put on in the United States. I'm sorry to keep thinking in terms of comparisons, but I rather expected it to be like other parades I've seen... and it just wasn't. It wasn't bad, or not fun - it was just different.

The parade lasted about an hour, and then the five of us wandered off to find some food. We ended up at Four-Star Pizza, where we got a massive amount of food for 20 euro, and ate it in a green, grassy park I'd never seen before. It overlooked the city, which made for a completely gorgeous view. I can't believe I forgot my camera yet again... argh. But I could see the cathedral, and the bell tower, and a couple miles of residential areas and small businesses from the high spot on which we sat. We all sat happily for a good two hours, trading stories, "shooting the breeze," as they say. The sun was shining, and it was lovely, warm, and comfortable; I couldn't have asked for better company, either. What was interesting to me was the huge diversity of places the five of us came from. Mike is from California and goes to school in Maryland. Dave is born and bred a Corkonian, and was the only Irishman among us. Avril came from England, about 20 miles away from London. Kristina is from Michigan, and I of course am from Mississippi and go to school in Oklahoma. It's amazing to me how we all came together, despite our different backgrounds.

We finally left the grassy slope, and unfortunately Avril had to leave at that point to get homework done. The four of us remaining walked back to the City Center, to the courthouse, where Mike was meeting a few friends of his. The courthouse steps, oddly, were full of drunken college students - and Mike's 3 friends were no exception. They had greasy pizza boxes and some kind of alcohol wrapped in a jacket sleeve to hide the label. One of the girls was Mike's particular friend, and he seemed a little anxious to find her so trashed. We followed them into a different park, this one right in the middle of the city... which was also full of drunk college kids. It wasn't as if there were fights going on, but the majority of people there were dressed gaudily and had unpleasant expressions on their faces. I wouldn't have felt safe in there by myself, and I deliberately stayed close to Mike and Dave. When we were getting ready to leave, Mike decided to stay behind with his drunken friends; I guess he was still worried about the one girl. I don't blame him.

Dave, Kristina, and I, then, the only remaining members of the group, trotted off with a scheme in mind to feed the ducks and swans at the Lough near Kristina's place. We went to Lidl, bought three loaves of bread at 60 cents each, and then went back to Kristina's place to hang out for a little while before going back to the Lough. Well, "a little while" turned into a couple of hours, complete with making toast that I suggested as a result of staring at the loaves of newly acquired bread. We sat and talked for a long time, periodically idly debating whether we should get up again and go feed the swans and ducks. By the time we finally got out the door again, it was after eight o'clock and very dark outside. The ducks were totally disinterested in our bread, and it took us quite a while to find some swans who would take it from us. It was still a lot of fun though, and Kristina and I were giggling (probably a little too much, haha) at the grunting sounds the swans made as they ate.

We finally got rid of that massive amount of bread and called up Mike again, who'd eventually left the drunks and gone back home, only to find a huge, noisy party at his apartment. When we got back there, he was sitting outside looking gloomy. Fortunately, the day was not yet over. (Yeah, I know. You're telling ME it was a long day). We walked down the street, got some Chinese food, then got in Dave's car and went to yet another grassy area. This one was peaceful, dark, on the river, and nobody disturbed the four of us at all. It was also quite cold, and I wasn't particular dressed for the occasion, but that was all right. We had Chinese food, after all, and I was with people who were (and are) some of the most awesome I have met.

After we left, we drove back to the parking lot of Lidl, where Dave and Mike were going to drop us off, but when we got there, the whole place was filled with smoke. Dense, white smoke. It turned out that a chimney was blocked and nearly on fire, right next door to Dave's grandparents' place. We called the fire brigade after talking to the man who lived in that house. We also knocked on his next-door-neighbor's door, who seemed confused and peeved that we were disturbing him to tell him that sparks were flying onto his roof. (Go figure, right?)

It was only after this, and meeting Dave's grandparents briefly, that Kristina and I went back to her place. We studied for our exam, which was the next day, and went to bed around midnight. (I didn't much fancy walking back home 30 minutes in the middle of the night).

So yes. That was my sober St. Patrick's Day. I loved every minute of it. :D

Kinsale and a concert

Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. School work is finally coming to a head, and I have two tests and an essay due this week. So unfortunately, this might not be a very long entry.

New things:
I went to Kinsale on Saturday with Kristina. Susan was supposed to come too, but that ended up not happening because she didn't feel well. Also, the original plan was to go to Kinsale the Friday before that, but the weather was bad. So we did it this time. I don't know if we're ever going to get to Killarney. We're running out of time before the month off and major traveling happens. :D

Anyway, so Kinsale was really nice. The weather was great - sunshiny and warm. Also, Kinsale is right on the water, and there were lots of sailboats and hills and a very local feel to the town in general. It's a perfect tourist locale, and they take advantage of it. There are bed and breakfasts every few feet, it seems like. We got a lot of nice pictures - those should go up on facebook soon.

I invited Mike over for a movie night one night; we watched stand-up Robin Williams, and that was fun. I've also been getting to know his friend Dave, who is an uber-nerd, but very cool to talk to. He's been helping me a bit with my Irish. :)

The concert was last Friday, and I think it went pretty well. It was held in City Hall. We performed 10 pieces in all, with interludes of string quartet, flute, and piano. One of the pieces, Dulaman, is in Irish, and Tom, our director, was slightly obsessive about making that one absolutely perfect, even though I could hardly understand what it was he wanted us to do differently. But overall, I think the concert went better than most of the rehearsals, which was highly gratifying, and it was a lot of fun as well.

I've got my Eurail pass now, which is exciting. Kristina and I are thinking we'll take the train up to Dublin the first day, when we fly out of there to Paris. We have 10 days of train travel available to us, and we're not using all of them, so we can indulge that way while we have the chance.

That's all for now - I'm sorry I don't have more time to write at the moment. Love to all!

An excellent few days

The last few days have been really cool. I've had a lot going on.

So, on Tuesday evening, I went with Susan to choir rehearsal, from which I left early. Despite the concert being next week, we still received new music at that rehearsal. It's fine, though, it's mostly pretty easy stuff. Anyway, after I left choir, I went straight to the comedy hypnotist show, where I was meeting Kristina.

The place was packed. Held in the same room where the orientation for foreign exchange kids was held back in January, there were just as many people in there this time. The show started very shortly after I arrived, and the hypnotist was a dark-haired, quick-fire man, well capable of keeping the attention of the hundreds of students in the room. About thirty students volunteered to be hypnotized - among them, Kristina. He told them to close their eyes and squeeze their hands together, all the while talking to them, telling them to keep squeezing more and more tightly, to clear their minds, etc etc. You could tell some people were taking his suggestions to heart and others weren't - for instance, Kristina's fingers were turning red and white with the pressure she was applying, while a girl in front of me had her hands so loosely intertwined that there was a gap between them. Then the hypnotist walked behind each of them and laid them down on the floor. Some people were eliminated from the line-up at this point because they were neither hypnotized nor becoming that way. Others seemed to actually fall asleep. Then the hypnotist started taking them through the show. At first everything was a group activity - it's really hot, it's really cold, something stinks, you're a class of kindergartners, etc. Then he started having them do individual feats, and it began to be obvious that these people were not just pretending to be under the influence of his suggestions. The most striking thing, to me, about hypnotized people is that, no matter what they do, they never laugh at themselves. Not once.

So there was this sequence where all of the people on stage were convinced that the people in the audience were off-duty soldiers, and they were our superiors. They were supposed to order us around, tell us to do push-ups, and so on. After a few minutes of this, Kristina walked up to me and barked at me to stand at attention. I didn't stand, but instead sat up straight in my chair and saluted her, grinning at her. Of course to me this was a big joke - nobody here was a soldier, and the whole thing was more than a tad ridiculous. But instead of grinning back at me and trying to get me to play along, Kristina's whole demeanor was instead incredibly stern, and I swear she was actually insulted by the fact that I didn't stand right away. Taken aback, I did as she asked, and she told me to drop and give her five. Which I did - or tried to. She shoved me down so hard with her foot on my back that I couldn't do the push-ups properly, and then she actually pushed my head in the ground, apparently angry that I was doing wimpy push-ups. I wasn't hurt, just surprised.

Generally I thought the whole thing was pretty entertaining. One guy danced with a broom to an Elvis Presley song, another was convinced that a mop was Angelina Jolie, and a third thought he was Rocky Balboa. Kristina was kind of angry about the whole thing after it was over, though, and doesn't want to repeat the experience.

On Wednesday, the two of us went to our usual stand-up comedy night at Club Aras in the Student Center. This time, though, when I walked in, I found Kristina sitting at a table with one of the student comedians. His name is Dave, and he is well-suited to his hobby. It's pretty much impossible for him to talk about anything without joking about it, and due to this, we had a great time. Kristina really couldn't hear him say anything without bursting into laughter, so we mainly listened to him, and the chief part of the interactions were between Dave and me - which is unusual... I'm normally the quiet one. Kristina would probably have talked more if she could have got a breath in between laughing. :P

On Thursday, there was another choir rehearsal. Not very many people showed up - maybe a quarter of the choir - but that was fine, since it meant that the altos got to go over the parts that confused them. Certainly helped me out, at any rate - I'd missed half the rehearsals by not joining until later anyway. After we were done rehearsing, Tom (the director) showed us some YouTube videos of different awesome musicians. I showed the choir the video that Katie Baker, my roommate back home, made with the track of her choir singing "Water Night" by Eric Whitacre. It was good times, and I enjoyed myself.

Yesterday was a lot of fun! Due to bad weather, Kristina and I decided not to go to Kinsale this weekend. Instead, we met at school, ate Subway for lunch, and then went to see Watchmen at a cinema in the city center. The movie was both awful and brilliant, terrible and good at the same time. Out of the whole cast, everyone's status as a protagonist or villain was ambiguous, except perhaps for the main two. And it was oh-my-gosh violent. I lost count of the number of times I had to close my eyes.

After the movie, we weren't sure what our plans were, but we decided just to head back to campus, so we went to the Student Center and found my friend Michael from my Human Sexuality class, hanging out with three other guys (Keane [sp?] and Dave [not the same one as the comedian]). Having nowhere to be, we sat and chatted with them for a good two hours before the Student Center closed. Then they took us to Lennox's, which is a "chipper" (a fish-and-chips place). We brought the food back to Michael's place, where the four of us (Keane had to leave) traded stories and got to know each other. It was SO nice to hang out with a couple of guys for once. I didn't realize how much I'd missed male company. After dinner, the guys headed off to see Watchmen themselves, and Kristina and I each went home.

So that's been my week! I'm pleased it's been such a nice one. :)

It's raining again

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately. Most of my weekend was spent finishing my philosophy essay, which, though a bit on the short side, I was pleased with.

Even though not much has been going on, time seems to move more quickly now. There are fewer than four full weeks of classes before the "review week" - from what I understand, this means no class, but possibly review sessions, and possibly available professors whose brains we can pick for our exams in May. On Thursday of the review week (April 2), Kristina and I are heading out, flying from Dublin to France for the first leg of our journey.

I can't believe our trip is coming up so soon! When we first made plans, it didn't seem quite real - more like we were playing make-believe, inventing an itinerary so that we could see all these places we've only heard of. But now it's only a month left until we leave! There are a ton of details we need to take care of in the next few weeks. One of the hostels we're staying at (the one in Rome) e-mailed me to inform me that the price of our stay had increased a good 16 euro (their excuse is that their technology screwed up and posted them as having cheaper rooms than they actually do. Hmm...). So I'm going to go back and see if there's now a better deal for those nights. If not, 16 euro isn't THAT big of a deal, but it's still annoying. They should stick to what people sign up for.

Kristina and I are planning on going to Kinsale on Friday. Also, there's a "comedy hypnotist" show tonight at 8:20. Choir is at 7, so I'll show up for that and leave early. Since the concert is coming up so soon, I don't want to skip it entirely.

I'll try and write again soon. My next update will probably be about Kinsale!

This week went quickly

So quickly, in fact, that I might have trouble remembering what I did every day. On Sunday, I went to yet another new church with Kristina. This one is the Church of the Immaculate Conception (or as Kristina calls it, "the Lough church") and it's very nice, if not so grand as some of the others. Kristina pointed something out to me that I had utterly failed to notice - most of the churches here are built in the shape of a cross. :) It's lovely symbolism, and I'm glad I can appreciate it now.

Tuesday evening was choir rehearsal again, which was great. Some of the kids are going to Budapest in early April (forgive me if I've already mentioned this), but it interferes with the timing of my big month-long trip, so I didn't audition. Nevertheless, we have a big concert coming up mid-March that I'm excited about. I've really missed choir, and participating in a concert will be just like being home again. :)

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were all caught up in studying for 4 exams that I expected to take on Wednesday afternoon. They were all for a computer course that I'm taking online; OU hosts it, and the first deadline was yesterday (Friday) so I wanted to make sure to do it ahead of time. But when I went in on Wednesday to the international office (a lady there is supervising my testing) we immediately discovered that their computers don't have Microsoft Office 2007, only 2003, which is a problem. So we went to the Boole library computer labs, and then the website for the tests wouldn't work. So, stressed and frustrated, I e-mailed the company's IT, who amazingly got back to me in less than 24 hours with a solution. So I went back to the international ed office on Friday and took the first 3 tests, but my instructor hasn't emailed me the fourth exam yet, so that's postponed to... whenever.

Yeah. Very exciting, right? The only reason I'm having to deal with this is because I was a dummy who forgot to take one of the prerequisites for my application to the Health Sciences Center, and after much hassle and to-do, landed myself in this computer class. SO much more trouble than I was expecting.

Anyway, what else went on this week? I'm currently writing a philosophy essay on the relationship between mind, body, and environment. Essays always take an excruciatingly long time for me, so I'm about 70% of the way done and am dedicating most of tomorrow to it too. I guess I shouldn't worry TOO much, since all I have to do is pass, but still.

Yesterday, after the computer tests, I spent a few hours shoving leaflets into people's letterboxes in a few neighborhoods in Cork. I was doing this with Kristina and a Pakistani man who works at Sania's restaurant, to help promote said restaurant. It was kind of cold and drizzly weather, and I got attacked by a small dog at one point, but overall it was good work. Last night, Erica, Susan, Kristina and I had a pizza party. We rented a chick flick, got some Indian food, some pizza, and watched the movie on Kristina's laptop.

So, overall, I've been doing pretty well. And if you feel the slightest urge to leave me a comment, I love comments, so please do. :D

Bending over backwards to kiss a rock

Yesterday marks the first successful trip outside of Cork I've yet been on! For any of us, actually (Kristina, Susan, or me). And, of course, we chose to visit one of Ireland's single biggest tourist attractions: the Blarney Stone.

For some reason, I had it in my head that the Blarney Stone and Blarney Castle were two distinct entities. I imagined a big rock sitting in an enclosure, blackened on all sides by hundreds of years' worth of kisses from myth-loving Irish and dubious tourists, all hoping to be endowed with the gift of eloquence by a simple piece of granite. I'm not sure why I didn't know where the Blarney Stone was, or what you have to do to kiss the dern thing. If you're in this boat, read on and be entertained.

So, my day began with meeting Kristina and Susan in front of the Student Center on campus. We walked the twenty-five minutes into the City Center, to the bus station, to learn, to our pleasure, that buses left for Blarney at least once an hour, and returned just as frequently. Nevertheless, we still had a good half-hour to wait for the next bus, and we entertained ourselves with Kristina's iPod (Susan got one earbud, I got the other, and we sang along to Matchbox 20's "How Far We've Come" in harmony, earning a few odd glances from the other Blarney-goers nearby. It was good times.) We packed ourselves onto the bus, which was crammed with people. I've never seen so many Americans in one place in Ireland. After the short ride into town, the three of us got lunch at a cute cafe, then set off for the castle.

Entering the grounds cost 8 euro, but fortunately that covered kissing the Stone, climbing the castle, and... entering dank little caves, apparently. Part of the grounds are narrow, wet, muddy caves, which of course we had to explore to our satisfaction. Kristina's satisfaction is to do a lot more exploring than either me or Susan, so we often allowed her to forge ahead and tell us whether the hole in question was worth seeing. Once, we discovered a cave full of people's names who'd visited there over the years. We left our names for posterity and took some pictures (not with my camera. I forgot it in my apartment. Argh.)

Finally, we ran out of caves and entered the castle itself. After a certain point, this was rather nerve-wracking, as we entered a tightly-wound spiral staircase where the steps only seemed to get narrower and narrower. Every so often, a room appeared off the side of the staircase - no landing, just a room cut into the stone walls. Each room had a plaque explaining what it used to be used for (Young Lady's Bedroom. Kitchen. Earl's Bedroom.) Finally we emerged at the top of the winding staircase, onto the roof of the castle.

Up until that point, I had been rather losing faith in the reputation Ireland has for being beautiful. I mean, Cork is not a pretty city. It's not even a particularly clean city. And, aside from the singular failed jaunt into Dunmanway, I hadn't seen much of Ireland at all except for the ins and outs of Cork. But, coming out to the view that Blarney Castle afforded, my faith in a beautiful Ireland was completely restored. The greenness stretched on forever. Vast tracts of farmland and woods, interrupted only by one little town in the distance, were laid out for miles around the castle. Like I said, I didn't have my camera, but Kristina and Susan were each as entranced as I was, and snapped photos every few feet along the wall.

On the opposite side of the battlements from where we emerged, two older men sat around... nothing, as far as I could see. Where on earth was the Blarney Stone? So we walked over there, and on the floor were several mats. Behind the man on the right, there were vertical metal bars protruding from the unremarkable looking wall. But that section of the wall was further out, and there was a hole in the floor behind the mats. If I haven't made this clear up until now, we were high up. We were VERY high up - about 10 stories, I'd say. And the wall, down below the floor level, was darker, smudged with years and years of kisses. But you couldn't lay on your stomach and get your mouth to the wall that way - you'd fall. And so now I understood why kissing the Blarney Stone was such a big deal. You had to lie on the mats, belly-up, your head towards the Stone. You had to grab the metal bars, scoot yourself out and out and out until you could finally kiss the low-down Stone, fighting the fear of falling through that hole, and then make it back. And... I was the first to go. The man on the right's responsibility was holding onto your legs so you didn't fall, and the man on the left's job was to take a picture.

I'd be lying if I didn't say that seeing the countryside, stretched out below my hardly-supported upper body didn't make me want to panic. But, somehow, we all three managed to kiss that piece of wall... Kristina almost didn't. I told her it wasn't scary, it was fine (liar, liar) and we all walked away from that wall victorious.

So now you know why it's a big deal to kiss the Blarney Stone. Not because you now have the gift of eloquence, but because it requires NERVES!

Anyway, the rest of the day was also enjoyable. We walked around the grounds for several hours, seeing horses, flowers, lakes, and fields. All of it was lovely, but we were glad when we returned to our rooms for a rest. The two of them actually went out again that evening, but I was really tired and opted to stay in instead. It's just as well - I heard that the people they were supposed to meet at the pub never even showed up.

And today my job is schoolwork. Talk to ye later!

Classes are halfway over!

As time goes on, I find that more and more activities get planned every night of the week. I haven't just "stayed home" at all this week. On Monday, Kristina and I made burgers at her new apartment after my classes were over. Neither of her two roommates were in yet, so we had the place to ourselves. She had spent the day canvassing a part of Cork we hadn't seen yet, as well as checking out all the details of her new place. She seems really happy and excited to have a different place to live in now.

Tuesday evening, I attended UCC's choir rehearsal for the first time. I went with Susan, and it was a lot of fun, if somewhat unlike any other choir rehearsal I'd ever attended. The laidback Irish attitude extends to their musicmaking, it seems, and between that and the fact that our director (Tom) is only a student himself, the rehearsal was a bit scattered and informal. I enjoy Tom's directing, though. He's a nerd, but very outgoing and loud; it's clear all the choir members love him. We had a big discussion midway through the evening about the proper way to pronounce the word Renaissance. Europeans tend to put the accent on the second syllable (Ren-NAY-saunce), but the way the music was written forced an American pronunciation (REN-na-saunce), much to the indignation of the many native Irish in the room. Overall, it was a lot of fun - and I was pleased to see everyone again the next night...

...because on Wednesday, the choir hosted a showing and sing-along of Mamma Mia! in the basement of the library. (The basement of the library isn't really a basement. And it doesn't strictly attach to the library. I mean, there are about 6 classrooms, bathrooms, and 2 computer labs down there, and you can't access it from the library. At all. Needless to say, this confused me a lot the first week I was here, and I was told to go to Boole Basement, and going downstairs in the library didn't get me there.) Anyway, the sing-along was an absolute blast. There must have been 60 or 70 of us in the room, and every girl was singing at the top of her voice with the helpful follow-the-bouncing-ball-type captioning. Tom even joined in, loudly, a time or two. It was brilliant. Afterwards, Susan, Chris, Franzi, and I went to the Thirsty, a local pub. Chris is an Asian kid from New Jersey, who is somewhat socially oblivious but a great guy nonetheless; and Franzi is an exchange student from Germany who speaks excellent English and is very nice. Susan struck up a conversation with one of the musicians there, as well, so a good time was had by all.

Tonight, Kristina and I went to another Comedy Club show, this time at the Old College Bar. It was quite a small crowd; there were only perhaps twenty of us in the audience. The main comedian was great - he also spotted Kristina and me right away, and proceeded to make as much of his routine about America as he could! He was excellent and had us laughing the whole time. We enjoyed ourselves. :)

My computer course is finally underway. It's online, and the program is neat and organized. Despite the fact that it could safely be used to instruct someone who's been living in the Stone Age and has an IQ of 72, I'm actually enjoying going through the neat little lesson plans - which, due to the test date being next Wednesday, I will spend much of my weekend doing.

Hope all is well with ye - tog bog e!