Coming back from winter vacation and starting back into our routine here felt a bit like when I returned to college second semester freshman year. The first semester is so full of newness and excitement and homesickness too, but it doesn’t feel quite real or very permanent, and you’re just stumbling your way through trying to figure things out. Then you leave for winter break (in college it was to go home, here it was going on vacation), and it sort of feels like it was all a dream. But then you return and the feeling hits that this is the new normal (at least for awhile). I remember in college, and here too, it’s mostly a positive feeling and a sense of coming back to at least a few familiar things (people, places, routines), and also a feeling that it wasn’t just a dream and is actual real life. Hard to explain, but just musing on this similar feeling I’ve had in the past few weeks.

We’ve had a pretty low key few weeks as it were. One of the highlights was going to see the Peter Pan panto here with Isaac. It’s a big performance and a big deal here, with lots of kids and families going to see it over the course of the holidays. I didn’t really know what a panto was (it’s short for pantomime, but not like the silent mimes with white face paint that we think of :)). There is one put on every year in Seattle and I’ve heard about it from friends but have never had the chance to go.

Here, as I said, it’s a big deal with signs going up for it all over the city several months in advance and lots of kids going to see it as a holiday tradition. It was held at the Gaiety theater, which is a beautiful classic Victorian theater that was built in the 1870s and is Dublin’s oldest continuously run theater. So that was cool to get a chance to see the interior of the Gaiety. It was actually Isaac’s first real play, and he enjoyed it a lot, and it was fun to have a special date with him!

The concept of the panto developed in Britain as a Christmas/new year tradition, so it’s very popular in the British isles (including Ireland). In case you’re like me and don’t know much about it, it’s a form of musical comedy aimed mainly at families that uses song, dance, slapstick humor, adult humor, cross dressing, and is loosely based on a fairy tale story. It’s also audience participatory, so the audience is expected to sing or dance along at times or shout things out to the actors (like if a bad guy is sneaking up on someone, all the kids shout “behind you! Behind you!”) And the one here, anyway, used a mashup of popular songs and Irish current event references too, which gave the adults a laugh and made the version we saw feel uniquely Irish.

Speaking of current events, there have been a few things in the news lately and I thought it might be interesting to share to give a sense of what some of the big news stories are here:

— water charges beginning for the first time. Yep, historically, the Irish have never had to pay for water usage, but starting in 2015 the plan was for charges to begin. This is partly to raise money for the still struggling economy after the crash/recession, and also to help fix infrastructure within the water system that’s in need of repair. But there have been huge protests across the country about the charges, and even despite the fact that they’ve been reduced from the original plan, protests continue and 30% of households say they will just refuse to pay. It’s not so much the water charge itself causing all the public outrage, but more that it’s the last straw for all the austerity measures and government cuts the country has endured over the past 6 years. This was a big one they definitely poked fun at during the panto.

-gay marriage. In May, a referendum will be voted on to make gay marriage legal in Ireland, and the current Taoiseach (prime minister), Enda Kenney, says he supports the referendum. It has good public support too. In addition, a priest in Dublin just came out as gay to his congregation and was accepted and supported by the congregants. Very cool! Hope the vote passes!

-back in December, a big story was about a pregnant woman who was being kept on life support against her family’s wishes in order to try to save the life of her 15 week fetus. Because abortion is illegal here, the medical staff were unsure whether letting the woman die went against the fetus’ rights so the case went all the way to the high court, where it was decided that the woman should be taken off life support and allowed to die with dignity.

Anyway, that just gives a little snippet of some of the current events here in Ireland and some of the issues of interest to people here. Ironically I get most of my news from my dad who is a devoted listener to Irish radio and streams it over the Internet. Thanks Dad! 🙂 Hopefully once we get our car (which is happening any day now!) I will have more chance to listen to the radio and keep up on news while driving around.

Alright, signing off for now, but here are just a few pictures from Peter Pan inside and outside the theater.