Students are a Silly Bunch

Never have I come into contact with a sillier bunch than young people.

Everything is new to us, we don't have daily existential stress or taxes to worry about, and we've got more energy than anybody older than us. We're curious, we ask questions, and we like thinking that we can all do something revolutionary and create something original. Who knows? Maybe we can, I'm just one of the young and naive.

What I, the young and naive, do know is that random silliness crosses cultural barriers. I've said before that there were Italians all over the place on campus, but there were also Canadians, Russians, Spaniards, Britons, and even a few Irish students. That said, languages didn't matter. Almost all the other student groups were at UCD to learn English, but we all crossed over and made friends out of mutual interest in silliness.

For a few anecdotes:

On Luke's eighteenth birthday, our four Russian friends came up to him and asked him how old he was turning. Upon learning his new age, they pulled his earlobes eighteen times, simply because that is what you do when a friend has a birthday.

When we played Capture the Flag with a bunch of Italians, after a roughly translated explanation, none of them quite understood the point of the game. And yet they ran around tagging everybody anyway. Points for enthusiasm!

One evening, a new group of Spanish kids made a dramatic entrance through our little square of apartments. They paraded the Spanish flag and sang what I'm assuming was the national anthem. I never got their names or why they were at UCD, but they made abundantly clear that they were from Spain.

My second favorite story:

I was coming back from a walk when I saw a guy standing in front of a giant puddle of water. He stood in front of a bush at the foot of the facade of one of the three-story apartments, which had all its windows wide open. In the third floor window was a girl holding a cooking pot filled with water.

I paused to figure out what was going on when he lunged at the bush, and she dumped the water out the window, aiming at the guy on the ground. She ran out of sight giggling, refilled the pot, and returned to her spot at the window.

He saw me looking confused and explained that he'd lost a football in the bushes. The girl had decided to thwart his attempts by pouring water at him. By the looks of the puddle, she was succeeding.

(For closure, Mike, one of our group, came to the Irish guy's rescue and dove into the bush to get the football while the girl aimed water at the Irish guy. The football was recovered and John Wayne rode off into the sunset.)

And my first favorite story:

After visiting Dalkey Castle, we were given an hour to roam around the tourist area of the coastal town of Dalkey. I walked into a little grocery store with a butcher shop and tons of pickled vegetable combinations. One jar said "aubergine," and I asked the cashier guy what that was.

 "You're American, huh?"  Yep, how'd you guess?

We chatted a bit about some different words between Queen's English and American English. He said Americans use a different word for coriander, but he couldn't remember what it was. I had no idea either, so I said good day and wandered around Dalkey further along the same street.

When I was walking back towards the meeting spot along the street, Cashier Guy ran out of the store as I passed, shouted, "CILANTRO! It's cilantro," and returned to the store. I laughed and continued on my merry way.

So, naturally, I want to learn thirty languages now, so I can travel all over and have more experiences like these. Maybe not thirty languages, but I certainly don't want to stay in America all my life!