Some New Friends

So.  There's a team from Northern Ireland helping out at DCM for the next two weeks.  Yesterday was the first day of Summer Project, and they were there helping out with the activities.  The first guy I talked to from the team, Jordan, aka "Fridge" told me that he plays American football.  He also told me that he's a Jacksonville Jaguars fan and that there's an Irish sister team to the Jaguars that "tried out" for the NFL, but didn't make it.  I had a little interview with Randall, "Fudge," and I told everyone that I was from Jacksonville, FL, so we both thought that our mutual connection was pretty random and cool.

Today at Summer Project, we started the morning off with some of the usual games, then we broke for lunch, and I decided to stay back at DCM with the team from Northern Ireland.  I really enjoyed just sitting with them and beginning to get to know them.  I discovered some linguistic differentiations between Irish and American English, such as saying "salad" instead of "lettuce" on a sandwich.  I was legitimately confused for a whole minute trying to figure out what was on the sandwiches that they made...  We had a good laugh over that.

They put butter on their sandwiches.  Like, meat, cold-cut sandwiches.

They also told me that American chocolate isn't nearly as good as Irish chocolate, specifically Hershey vs. Cadbury.

After lunch, we took ALL the kids (about 35-40) up the road (like 20 minutes of walking) to Phoenix Park.   It was really, really beautiful.  There are open fields with nice, soft grass, big beds of brightly colored flowers, and a huge obelisk monument thing in the middle resembling the Washington Monument.  I played football (soccer) with a group of older kids fro about an hr.  I fell over about four times total.  I learned that my ball control skills need improvement, BUT that I'm a great Back (defender) because I'm really fast and quick and can stay in front of pretty much anyone, and I have pretty quick reactions.  Good fun.  

There was also a family quiz night thing scheduled for tonight, so for a couple hours, I went up to Danielle's kitchen up-upstairs with Natalie (Irish Natalie, not New Zealand Natalie), who is one of the leaders at DCM.  We ended up watching that show where those people are all competing for a role on Glee.  It was entertaining.  I wouldn't keep up with it.

The Quiz Night was pretty ridiculous.  Irish people, at least these Irish people, have a tendency to bend the rules slightly by breaking them and cheating.   Even the parents of the kids.  They are just as loud and rowdy as the kids, only with more discernment that comes with age, usually.  WE CAME IN THIRD!  One of the "questions" was a little competition where we had to fit as many people as we could onto a trash bag laid flat on the floor.  This activity involved me standing stomach-to-stomach and head-to-head with Travis and Noel's father, who smokes.  It was unpleasant.   He was a pretty nice guy though.

Anyway, I got the phone numbers of two of the guys from the Northern Irish team, and they told me a lot about the ministry that they come from, Exodus.  They said I should make a trip up sometime.  I have two weeks off in September when the DCM staff have their Holiday, so I'm thinking about just catching the bus up North for a week or so.  Seems like it would be pretty sweet, and a great opportunity to continue building relationship and friendship with Christ-following Irish people my age.  Looking forward to it.  We still have a whole 'nother week after this one away at camp, so that should really give us all an opportunity to bond.

Ok.  That's enough for now.  It probably took you like an hour to read that.

Love you all,

Kyle