Guitar Festival

Just to clarify, nettles are plants, not bugs. I think I was a little misleading about that in my reference to ticks. I guess its more like poison ivy..

Friday night, I had the cultural experience of getting together with the five other au pairs in Killavullen. I was the only native English speaker, so it was definitely an experience, but I'm glad I met with them. Two were from Germany, one from Hungary, one from France, and one from Austria. I really enjoyed being with one of the Germans (Maren) and the Austrian (Franziska). They both spoke very good English and we could really have normal conversations. The other three were a little harder to communicate with, so I didn't get to know them as well. I'm sure I'd like them more once the communication was easier, but now its a lot of me asking them questions and them staring at me blankly! The French girl kept saying that I talked too fast! One of the Germans is OBSESSED with America and wants to be an actress in California someday- Tay, I gave her your name and number.

Today, we went into Cork so Katie and Eoghan could have their pictures taken. Kieran won a free photo session with a photographer in Cork, so they scheduled the appointment for this afternoon. Afterward they dropped me off to meet up with April (the girl from Washington state that I met last weekend at church) at her boyfriend Matt's rugby match. April was nice enough to invite me to go with her. It was a lot of fun getting to talk to her- and very nice to have someone in almost the exact same situation as me. We bonded over things we miss about America and common expressions we get confused here. It was great.

After the match, Matt and April took me to Clonakilty which is in west Cork. There's a four day guitar festival going on there, so they thought it would be a fun thing to do. We went out to eat and then went to a pub to listen to guitarists. The pub was open-air (of course with HEAT LAMPS) and the band was really entertaining to watch. A different band plays each hour at each different pub. I think they were also holding seminars and workshops, but we didn't go to any of those. Clonakilty-or "Clon"-is honestly the prettiest and quaintest town I have seen here. It was so colorful and had a thousand cute shops I would love to eventually go back to see. It was a lot of fun being with April and Matt and they made me feel so welcome.

I forgot to mention the other day that Eoghan's cousin Ben told me that he wants to be a T-Rex OR a Triceratops when he grows up. Since I hadn't chosen a career path for myself, I'm thinking about becoming a dinosaur when I return to America...

Eoghan has also gotten into saying things are "dangerous". The reason I put that in quotes is that the things he says are dangerous are things like the remote control (when he is watching a show he wants to watch) or his "doe doe" (pacifier). He gets so serious when he tells you- its great.

Tomorrow is the all-Ireland gaelic football championship. It's between Cork and Kerry. It has been so much fun to be living around one of the participating cities. ALL the houses have red and white flags out to support "the rebels" of Cork. I assume we'll be watching that match tomorrow afternoon!