texas in tirol (6/21/11)

Well, the Internet is down for now, probably due to the fact that it's pouring pretty hard outside, so I'll just record this for now and then go to sleep. It's actually causing the ceiling to leak in our upstairs bathroom, so hopefully that doesn't cause too much trouble...
Today was a pretty good day. Between class and lunch, I went down to visit the goats and piglets, and it was fun just to pet them and watch them play around with each other. :) Lunch was a hearty, cheesy pasta followed by fruit salad, and then it was time to make chili for our "Texas in Tirol" dinner. We were assigned shifts (except I was talking to Brigitte while this happened, so I didn't sign up for one, haha), so I helped with chopping bell peppers and onions for the first shift. Afterwards, I found Ted, the professor from St. Andrews, sitting outside, and I chatted with him a bit. The weather was pretty nice, so I was trying to decide whether or not to go for a short hike, but then the guinea fowls were trying to escape from the front gate, so I just stayed and wasted a couple of hours online (but I did upload photos, yay!).
Before I knew it, it was around 7 p.m., so I went to the kitchen to see how things were going. Most people were there, and there was a chess game going on (it seems to have gotten really popular among us in the past week; now I'm wanting to play someone! I probably will only play Jon, since he's not very good, and I'm pretty sure anything I learned from 10+ years ago at summer camp, other than the rules, has long gone out the windows of my brain. Anyway...). The chili (two pots, vegetarian and meat) was done, so we were just waiting around for all of the guests. I ended up getting to sit at a table with Mary, India, Nick, and Brigitte (and Monica, Matt, and Jason), so that was pretty entertaining and interesting. We ended the meal with Mexican hot chocolate, courtesy of Grace, which tasted mostly like hot chocolate, but it's still yummy. Cleaning up wasn't too bad, and we got to see Dr. Redman's chess skills in action as he played Greg, who's also pretty good. Dr. Redman still won, but it was a good game. Chess is so intense!
After Sachin and I finished cleaning up, we saw a lot of lightning on the way back to the croft, so we detoured to the balcony outside of our classroom, where we watched the lightning light up the sky and mountains in the distance. Lightning really is God's most beautiful natural light show :) It reminded me of when my mom and I were driving back from Dallas this past May, and we saw a TON of lightning (it actually scared my mom a good bit). I thought it was awesome, haha. Anyway, the night was quiet and calm, and we just sat and watched the lightning in awe. So beautiful :) However, I think our whispers carried to Dr. Redman's apartment, which was right there, so we left pretty soon after (and good thing, too, since it started pouring soon after!)...and now here I am. Bedtime!