Zach took a trip to Barcelona, staying in a hostel for a week and seeing the sights. He flew out of Dublin. While there, he met some great people and so had people to hang out with and travel with and such. He has made plans to meet up with one of them in Dublin in April, and then they will also go to Scotland and London together. They have already selected hostels and will book the plane and/or train tickets this week. His travel companion is from Argentina, but she is currently based in Spain.
We are getting ready for St. Pats in Dublin with our company from New York! Haley has basketball and football, and so is making arrangements to stay with a friend over the weekend instead. This will actually free up some car space...
Steve is currently in the US. He had a meeting in California, flew to Chicago and saw our friends for dinner, then drove to Iowa City for a basketball game with Connor, and now is back in Chicago working and fitting in doctor appointments. He flies into Dublin on Saturday, as does Laurie, and we will all stay there until Monday! Steve will be one tuckered puppy on March 18th, but it will all be wonderful I am sure!
Update on Haley: She had strep throat and so was on antibiotics to clear that up. Now we at least know how to go to the clinic for help! All her teachers love her and her conferences went very well.
Conferences were done differently though! All the teachers sit in the gym in little desks. There is another desk opposite and facing them, and they are lined up with all the teachers facing the same direction. There were 4 rows of these 2-desk pairs, and about 5 pairs of desks per row. Horizontally, between these rows, were several chairs for parents to sit and wait their turn for when the desk across from the teacher was free. Then on your turn you would sit opposite the teacher and talk about your child, and then you would move on to the next set of waiting chairs by the next teacher you needed to see. It actually went smoothly, but it was fairly distracting and if your child was having a lot of problems, I don't think it would be the way you would want to have your conferences. Anyway, it was an experience and it was nice to get all the positive feedback on Haley.
More pronunciations!
Here there are many things that are just said differently than we would say it back home. Often it is just that the accent is on a different syllable or a vowel is given a long or short sound opposite from how we say it in the US.
They often use the letter H with a hard sound - so herb is pronounced with the hard H sound at the start.
Also, when they are spelling out loud, to say "h" they would say "Haitch"
Aluminum - here is pronounced "al-you-MIN-ee-um"
Omega is "o-MEE-ga"
Film is given two syllables - "fillum"
There are many more that I notice when listening to the radio and television but one that really caught me was how they say Hyundai. Back home we say "Hun-day" but here they pronounce it "Hi-un-DYE" I don't know which is right or wrong - but it certainly is different!
It may be English, but there is a learning curve!
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