Making Friends!

We're between Shannon and our next destination, Dingle. We just stopped for a five-minute bathroom and stretching break, but there was only one toilet at the gas station so five minutes turned into ten, then twenty. While we were walking up, I noticed a handful of teens sitting at the only table out front. One of the boys jokingly said to his friends that we were like a bunch of sheep, following each other. We waited in this line and soon enough the kids came up to us and struck up a conversation. They were delighted to learn we were from America and proceeded to ask us if we knew different Irish celebrities and bands. I had to admit that most of them had me stumped, but at least I could say that I knew Evanna Lynch, Pierce Brosnan, and One Direction. To my delight, the girls asked if Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games were big in America, and we had a great conversation about books while the guys talked about movies. One girl, Mary Kate, asked where I was from and when she didn't know where Minnesota was, my friend Marie told her it was by Canada. For the rest of our visit, if someone asked where I was from Mary Kate told them it was by Canada. One of the boys then asked if I knew about the Timberwolves (and then if I had ever seen one). They asked if they were hard to understand, and we said that we loved listening to them talk, but that they were sometimes hard to understand when they talked fast. They told us in turn that we sounded "weird." I got a picture of them with us, and then one of the boys asked for my name so he could find me on Facebook. When we told them we were on a sort of bus tour across Ireland, they joked that they would come with us. We said our goodbyes and then they chased after our bus as it passed, waving. And that is the story of how a handful of American college students made friends with a group of Irish teenagers.