The First Monthish!

THE TRIP SO FAR

So it's about 10:15 PM my time, which means it's about 3 in the afternoon for most of yall, on September 2^nd, and I'm in my bedroom writing out this blog on Word. The next time I'm in town (which should hopefully be tomorrow) I'll post it online.

I've officially been in Ireland for three weeks now! It's felt like 3 years! So since I really haven't had ANY time to really get in touch with any of yall, or go into any depth about anything since I got here, I'm going to attempt to summarize everything that's gone on up to this point. Please excuse my grammar and punctuation, its never been something I've particularly excelled at anyways and we just wrapped up a ridiculously busy week and I'm exhausted. With that said here goes....

So the plane ride....

The original plan was for me to take United from San Antonio to Houston, 3 hour layover in Houston, then fly to Boston on United as well. After that I'd switch to Aer Lingus and fly to Dublin. Well once I got to Houston my flight to Boston got super delayed and United switched me over to a flight to Newark. At the time I was pretty stoked because this also meant that I'd be flying to Dublin on United as well...less chance of losing bags right......

(also I was flying through the same airports I went through 10 years ago when I went to Ireland OooOo)

Anyways I was stoked when I got on the flight to Dublin because, unlike my flight to Chile, we had TVs in our seats with touchscreen monitors and at least 30 movies to choose from, including the Avengers!!! Unfortunately, as I quickly found out, the audio on them, regardless of my headphone choice, was ridiculously scratchy and unintelligible. So I read and read and read...it really wasn't too bad. Ernest Hemingway!

I got to Dublin fine, unfortunately my bags didn't. In fact I didn't end up getting them for another 4 days. All I had was my backpack, which had my computer, some books, my camera, and some journals and such, and a phone number to call to let my contact here, Morgan, know I was alive. Shortly thereafter I was running around outside the Dublin airport looking for a bus to Derry, a city right on the border with Northern Ireland and my home for the next 6 weeks, and after a couple mixups due to unintelligible accents I found myself sitting at the bus station, in my bright red(I'M AMERICAN) pants, chatting it up with the delightful Irish folk. After correcting a couple errors in there perceptions of Texans, the bus arrived and I promptly passed out for the next three hours, waking up just in time to get off in Derry.

Like I said before Derry is in Northern Ireland, right on the border, and is the second largest, I believe, city in NI right behind Belfast. The population is right around 100,000. It straddles a beautiful river and it's full of really awesome old Cathedrals.

Anyways yeah I hopped off the bus with no luggage besides my backpack, and I wasn't getting picked up til about 1, as it was only about 10 AM I had some time to kill. As Harry and John can tell you, I really enjoy wandering aimlessly around foreign cities, so I did just that for hours! I had lunch at a lovely sandwich shop and spent a solid 30 minutes trying to figure out a payphone before finally asking someone for help, the damn country code was seriously confusing. I had quite the moment when I was greeted by two charming, extremely drunk, bums named Paul and Sean. Sean was too drunk to talk to me but man was he singing, which Paul got into as well before they started reciting poetry and then fighting. It was straight outta Joyce. Well eventually my ride came and got me, around 3 or so, and I met my fellow musicians! Exciting! After showing us around town for awhile, the three staff members that had come to get us drove us to where we'd be staying for the next 6 weeks: the Carmelite monastery and retreat center in Termonbacca, an area literally like 30 seconds out of Derry.

Termonbacca, which is what I'll be referring to the monastery as, is just beautiful. It overlooks the beautiful river valley, and wow. There are flowers everywhere here! There are horses. There is a wonderful black lab named Tessa and we're great friends. It's really just an incredible place to spend 6 weeks.

So my first week here was music training. Basically what that consisted of was the 8 or so of us here just playing and playing and playing a TON of music. It took me a few days to fully recover from my jet lag. Like at night I'd be tired and I'd fall asleep fine...but I'd consistently wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for hours...it was really lame. About halfway through the weeks my luggage, including my guitar, came and I was finally able to play on my own instrument, and not the old rusty one I'd been borrowing from the staff!! Our days were long, and still are, we'd wake up every morning around 7, have mass with the friars here, have the same breakfast day after day, cornflakes and toast with butter, then spend an hour in personal prayer. After that we'd sit down and learn song after song after song until tea at about 11, then more songs, lunch at 12 30, more songs with a few quick talks sprinkled in, and then glorious sport!

Every day, that first week at least, we'd go out for about an hour and play soccer or ultimate frisbee, it was and is definitely one of my favorite parts of the day, and reigning in my competitive craziness has been a really awesome challenge. After sport we'd have showers then dinner, then we'd get to chill, watch movies, etc. We'd all pass out around 9:30 or so.

By the time Friday rolled around I had already run through a whole gamut of emotions. I was completely in love with Ireland, the people, the weather, the green; I was really enjoying training as well, it's a really great group of people we've got out here and we were all getting along great. However there were still plenty of moments where I was sad, frustrated, confused, lonely, etc. I would often find myself thinking, wow, none of these people really know me. It was a far cry from being back in Austin, where I'm constantly surrounded by an amazing group of friends, or back in San Antonio with my family. Thankfully me and the other guys really bonded. Pretty early on, three of us would go down to the dining hall right before bed and all get toast and talk, this became a nightly ritual and it SERIOUSLY helped calm me down. It was just so comforting to know that these guys were going through the same things I was dealing with as well.

On Friday we went into town for a free day and it was WONDERFUL. It was so nice just getting out into the city and exploring. Our first stop was the mall for Internet and supplies, which, surprisingly, I didn't really need due to the fact that I'd packed well for a change. Anyways, after my buds had stocked up we went exploring. Derry really is a beautiful town with a lot of history, unfortunately a lot of that history recently is all caught up in “The Troubles”. A tough time in Irish history where the IRA rebelled against British rule in Northern Ireland. While there's been an official peace for something like 20 years now, things are a lot worse than I was expecting. The city is still very much divided amongst Catholics and Protestants, an IRA graffiti is pretty common. Things are so rough that we were told not to tell people in Derry we were Catholic missionaries. Which me, being the brilliant guy I am, totally did when introducing myself in a Protestant bar...I totally thought we were on the Catholic side of town. The guy was fine though and we both laughed about it and drank to our differences. Guinness in Ireland is SO MUCH BETTER than Guinness in the US! WOW! And the pub atmosphere is great! We had a great time talking with the locals on topics ranging from the Alamo to Michael Jackson to cow tipping, twas wonderful.

After walking back to Termonbacca we found we had company! Most of the other missionaries had arrived that day and our numbers had more than doubled. There are about 26 missionaries(mainly Canadians and Americans with a few other countries thrown in), then a staff of around 10, plus anywhere from 2 to 10 random other people NET related people here day to day. The monastery staff is relatively small though and we hardly ever see the Friars (the Carmelites spend most of there time praying) Back to the story...a few days later regular training began and things got crazy. These past two weeks have been so so so busy. I've legitimately forgotten what day of the week it was more than once. I almost forgot my own birthday! Each week we've had a new priest come and stay with us and they've all been awesome. Father Columba, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal, spent this past week with us and he was so dang cool. Mean guitar and soccer player. The week before him we got Father Rory and Father Phillip, two great diocesan priests and big NET supporters who had an absolutely hilarious banter going the whole time. I LOVE THE IRISH WIT. A typical day out here starts at about 6:30 and ends with me in bed at about 10:45. It's like I've been on retreat for the past three weeks. It's been so beautiful though. The downs are becoming less and less frequent while the ups are happening more and more. The emphasis NET places on prayer is really amazing and this lifestyle has really been incredible for me in so many ways. I've been super vocal about Schoenstatt especially and I've found myself really loving it, and the Blessed Mother, on a whole new level. Heavenwards has been my constant companion, and the prayer “Accept Oh Lord” has really become my required daily reading.

This past weekend we spent on separate men's and women's retreats. Ours was absolutely amazing. It was led by an amazing man named Shane Bennett, the founder of NET Australia and all around BA Aussie. I can't really divulge too much other than we got really dirty and really close, and ended up swimming in an Atlantic Inlet in ridiculously cold water, then running and screaming on the beach...it was awesome.

We were placed on our teams at the start of this past week. I really wasn't terribly surprised with my assignment, music leader on the Road Team, but I am so stoked about our group! Being on Road Team means I'll be traveling all over the country in a big ol van with 9 other people doing retreats 5-6 days a week, staying at host homes, and basically living on the edge of my seat all year.

Our team is super International: 3 Canadians, 5 Americans (both o'the Texans!), 1 from Ireland, and our team leader Christophe from Trinidad and Tobago! We were all assigned a number of jobs, so in addition to music leader I will also be serving as our team's sacristan this year.

Ever since we got our teams training has obviously taken on a whole new dimension. We've done a ton of stuff with just our team, as well as just our “hoods” (brotherhoods and sisterhoods), basically the guys your gonna be spending the whole year with. So me and 3 other guys have done A LOT of hanging out the past few days.

I'm learning a ton! Everything from salvation history to how to play a good ice-breaker game! We seem to get a new manual everyday and I've taken a ridiculous amount of notes. Also the amount of personal discovery and inner transformation is like woah. Even though its only been 3 weeks I already feel so different. God is just so beautiful.

Some lows...

-I'm getting a bit stir crazy...we get 1 free day a week to go into town...other than that we're on the compound...which is a pretty decent size but still

-I miss junk food :( every morning it's cornflakes and toast...every other meal is mashed potatoes, sausage, fish, or chicken, and soup.

-Its been three weeks and I've already broken 3 guitar strings! Damn humidity!

-we have to keep our little dorm rooms neat...I've been failing at that #shocking

-I have no idea what's going on in the outside world

-Our showers are excruciatingly cold

Some highs!

-The people are so dang nice here...literally everyone you meet is down to have a conversation with you

-It's excruciatingly beautiful...everything

-the girls surprised the guys with a fort, a violent man movie, and junk food last night...it was amazing

-we got dressed up and surprised the girls with a fancy breakfast last week the tables were all done up super nice with flowers and stuff, and we serenaded them...it was so fun. Something that NET really stresses is honoring each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, and it's really really awesome learning and growing more in that.

-I've met some awesomely inspiring people. For example, our director Tony is a father of 7 and his whole family was here with us the past few weeks! The kids range in age from 15 to 3 and they're all so different and awesome. I could write a whole blog on the Foy family. But seriously its been awesome having them all here as an example of the type of family I would like to have one day. Tony has been such a great witness and example to all us guys of authentic fatherhood. There's been more than one occasion where I've really wanted to hug my own parents, and Tony has always been there to fill the void as best he can.

-I got a party on my birthday!!!

-Gaelic football is so fun to watch! Especially in the town square with the locals as the hometown team makes it to the National Final!!!!

-I have no idea what's going on in the outside world.

-A group of Italian missionaries showed up last week and did this hilariously amazing dance for us.  The guys all promptly became obsessed with it and long story short, the road team brotherhood is making t-shirts...

-One of my team brothers has started saying OHHHHH TIGERCAR and OhHHhH

So yeah! I realize this blog was really long so if you've made it this far I'm very impressed! I miss all of yall and I can't wait to hear from you. Like I said, we only get internet when we go in town and that's not very often. I leave for the road in 3 weeks, so hopefully, once that gets going, we'll be able to set-up some skype dates or something. You can also write letters! If you send them to the address I listed on Facebook they'll get em to me wherever I am! I can't guarantee a prompt response but I can guarantee a response! E-mail and Facebook are always good calls as well. Until next time guys I love you! Thank you all so much for all the prayers and know that I am absolutely praying for yall! Love and miss you!