World Cup and a New Game

Besides the great weather, it has been fun to be in the UK during the World Cup. Not only do I get more opportunities to watch the games on the telly (listen to me:-), but listening to the conversations has been eye-opening. The Scottish wanted the English to get obliterated and the team has not lived up to expectations. Many people blame the English media for hyping up the team and being so arrogant about them, so the English fans are angry at their team and the coach and the rest of the UK is happy as happy can be. I never would have had this viewpoint had I not been over here. A lot of the writers at the workshop have been pulling for teams like Spain and Ghana or African nations. Of course, the American team has been popular because of the ire over the English. It would be nice to see soccer really take off more in the States. The sense I get from most futbol fans over here is that they don't want that to happen as much, as we will dominate eventually due to the size of our nation and resources. I 'm not sure they have much to worry about for bit.

Laura introduced the game Mafia to us on our last night, and I don't think I've been that involved in a game like that in a long time. It could make people get angry at one another, though! Luckily, we were all friends at the end:-) One person is in charge and picks two or three mafia (hit men) and one detective and the point is for the mafia to try and keep knocking off players while the detective and the players try to figure out who the mafia is so they can save everyone. We played for hours and it was really great fun.

I landed in Dublin late this afternoon, as it was a quick 45 minute flight from Edinburgh. I spent about 5 hours walking around tonight and I posted a picture of Dublin at night on my way back to my hotel. I will write more tomorrow about my walk around the major sights here and I'll post pictures as well. There's a lot to keep one occupied here!