Northern Immersion - Where Everyone Knows Your Name

I had a great day at work today, despite the fact that I had a headache.  Yesterday, on a whim, I had rewritten the last supplemental activity in my manual.  It actually turned out to be a really good activity that challenged even the cockiest guy in the class.  I was pretty proud of how cool it turned out despite the fact that I had written it in about 30 minutes.  It was divine, that’s all I can say.  I have learned a lot from this training period.  I need to put a lot more work into cleaning up the curriculum…if Randy lets me.

For lunch, LFand I walked down the street and went to the Sandwich Co.  Yes…again.  I got the same thing, BLT and soup.  It was still good, even for the third time.

Tonight, LF, DS, and I went to La Sosta for dinner.  It was a fancy Italian restaurant that was down an alley and through an unmarked door.  We figured that Americans alone for Thanksgiving should stick together.  Dinner was excellent.  I had a Farfalle e pollo con asparagi (farfalle with chicken and asparagus).  I also got a side order of garlic bread in olive oil.  And I finished it off with chocolate pudding with cacao powder.

But as good as the food was, that was not the highlight of the dining experience.  On our way out, we met a local (and seemingly more widespread) celebrity.  John Hume, who along with David Trimble, won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1998 “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.”  He chatted us up, asking about our visit to Derry, where we were staying, about our business, etc.  We didn’t realize the magnitude of the moment until we were walking through Bogside and saw his picture painted on the side of a building alongside Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  I told Marguerite, the lady at the front desk about him, and she told me that he eats at that restaurant every night.  Everyone around here knows John, and now we do too.

After dinner, LF, DS, and I walked around, so LF could take pictures.  We walked all over town and even down to Free Derry, so she could see the murals.  At one of the pubs in town, The Anchor Bar, we found a guy outside smoking a cigarette.  When LF pointed her camera in his direction, he started posing and waving his hands around and smiling.  I knew right off that he was probably gay based on his behavior.  He confirmed this fact himself when he started talking to us.  He suddenly looked down, realized he was still smoking a cigarette, and said, “Oh my god, I hope she didn’t get the fag in the picture!”  Laughing to myself, I thought, “I’m pretty sure that was exactly what she was trying to take a picture of.”  LF and DS were completely oblivious to the double meaning that “fag” in the UK actually refers to a cigarette.