HellooooO!

Howdy strangers. I'm sorry I've been AWOL - our wireless internet has been down for the past week. An intervention from God, I'm afraid to say - I needed to be broken of my addiction. I've really been going through withdrawals, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I booked a flight to Paris in November! Going to be in France for awhile, and then to Italy, and then HOME! Yay! How exciting... Here's the news:

Minimum wage went up 30pence, or 60 cents, an hour... very helpful :)

Our store got bought, so our amazing manager's leaving, along with other great people, the name's changing and the food will change. Lots of stress for people, but I'm not worried. I'm leaving soon.

I taught my first ESL (english as a second language) class on Monday night, and supposed to do another next week - it went ooooookay, just okay. It really is the type of thing one should have formal training for. But I don't, and I guess that's okay.

Going to a friend's 21st birthday party tonight. I'm making cookies. Did you know they don't really use peanut butter here? For anything? They don't use maple syrup either. I really think they don't know what they're missing.

No creepy people or scariness lately, and that's great!

OOOH, I forgot to tell you the end of my Derry story! Well, what happened is that Jenni and I were walking along the wall that surrounds part of the city and looks over into the Bogside, and there were a toooon of young teenage boys surrounding this empty car and they were bashing in the windows and kicking it, and were probably preparing to burn it out. On the wall we saw two policemen with cameras trying to capture the boys' faces so they could press charges. The boys saw them and started throwing stones. The policemen were ducking behind the wall. As Jenni and I walked away - quickly - there was an explosion behind us. Didn't stay to find out what it was. Reeeeally tense. I guess there was a celebration that day commemorating the Battle of the Sommes, which Catholics interpreted as being pro-British or something like that. Basically, the kids are violent because their parents grew up during the Troubles and learned not to trust the police (often for good reason) and now the kids are angry and lawless, but don't know why. It's really sad.... need lots of prayer. There are a lot of generational cycles that need to be broken, and only Jesus' presence can do that.

What else... hopefully going to visit Charlie in Switzerland this month! I'm stoked. Well, I think that's about it. I miss you! Talk to you later!