Hi Mom,

No worries 'bout the 3 emails. Enjoyed your declaration of health.

The past few weeks have been very musical.

Highlights of the Oxegen festival were The Prodigy, and The Streets (UK hiphop). Green Day mainly played their slower, ballad-ish tunes. I enjoyed their faster, more rambunctious numbers. It was interesting how they played up to the anti-Americanism present in the Irish youth, denouncing Bush and whatnot to great cheers.

Camping with 10s of thousands of people was interesting - I think there were 70,000 during the day. The Irish kids were a friendly bunch, a bit too fond of the drink me thinks. ;) Were many pirates Irish, because the accent lends itself well to "argggg" and "matie"?

The Guinness tasted different, smoother.

The U2 concert was a powerful experience. When we arrived at the ArenA two long entry queues had already formed; we were 4 hours early. Our attempts to sneak into the line failed. ha! I'm surprised that we managed to get so close, considering our place in line. The Dutch crowd was very polite in the "pit," we stood near the front barricades and had room to jump, sway, and stretch.

Bono dedicated one song to Theo Van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn, and later called on the Dutch to lead the world in terms of Christian, Muslim and Jewish coexistence.

(Note that the Pim Fortuyn article on Wikipedia, like many others that mention Islam, is marked with a neutrality dispute.)

I'm off to AH for groceries.

Love,
K