CleanPlace BlogSpace

Suillad!

This is Elraen, in case you couldn't guess. It's bright and early (well, 8:06) on Tuesday morning, and I am the only one awake in my host's basement. So I decided to take the time to blog about yesterday.

We all gathered at Yellow Leader's house in the morning to play games, hang out, and eat lunch together. I must say that I have the highest admiration for Yellow Leader's parents, taking all of us loud teens in like that. MOTS and Dolphin arrived towards the end of the morning, so we got to meet them. I brought in my sword, Anduril, and passed it around to various people. I think my swords are some of the best conversations starters I have ever found.

After lunch Mangy took a crew out to the airport to pick up Caspian, our final out-of-state mooter. Midget, Maranar, Child, Eowyn, Lissi and I all piled into the van that Mangy is borrowing and took off. On the way we stopped at a grocery store, and Mangy and I went in and got lasagna, watermelon, and ice cream for that evening. Then we went on to the airport.

Mar, Midget and I were all wearing cloaks, and we definitely got some strange looks, but I'm rather accustomed to that by now. We only had to wait a few minutes for Caspian. Before long we spotted him walking around the corner. It was a really surreal moment for me, as so many moments throughout these past few days have been. We all greeted him and went to get his luggage and take a group picture before heading back to the van.

The airport crew went back to Mangy's to make dinner and hang out for a few hours. I really enjoyed getting a chance to be in a somewhat smaller group for a little while, and it was also nice to get to know Caspian a little. Yes, he is every bit as nice in person as online, if not more so.

We headed out to Mangy's church for dinner and the moot concert. As usual we had plenty of willing hands to set up dinner. As dinner ended, those of us with medieval costumes changed. The display of beautiful dresses worn by beautiful girls was quite incredible. Elder Fern told me that it was impressive "just because of the sheer yardage," and though I laughed I think she was right. The dresses were definitely very long and full! Not to mention all of the cloaks. Warrior Maiden, Telpe and I's dresses are all made from the same pattern, and it was fun to be in one place together and see three very similar and yet different dresses.

We had a hugely varied range of performances at the moot concert. If I attempted to list everything I know I would forget something and hurt someone's feelings, so I won't try. I will admit that the highlights for me were hearing Child play For the Moments I Feel Faint (one of my all-time favorite Relient K songs) on her guitar, and listening to Wolfsong's wicked improvising. I have the whole concert on video, but decided against posting it all; it would take forever to watch!

After that we went into the auditorium and watched Nimelen's Freedom slideshow, as well as one of MOTS's short films. That was a lot of fun. At Feowin's suggestion, we all sang Amazing Grace together before taking group pictures to finish off the evening.

Our newest mentor, Muzik, was at the concert. He seems like a really fun guy, and I'm so excited to see him around Clean Place.

I realize this is already quite long, but I would rather write too much than leave something out! The days here are very long, and by the end I am always quite ready to crash on my air mattress. I think (even though I wasn't here last year) that the biggest change between the 2007 and 2008 moots is the sheer bulk of people. I'm not sure there's any way to really convey exactly how many CPers are here. It's insanity. I asked Wolfsong the other day "was it this chaotic all the time last year?" After thinking for a moment he said "Well, there were less of us, so the chaos was in much smaller doses."

Alright, I believe I will finish up this post now. I'll see if I can get this video to work. I took this in Mangy's living room on Sunday afternoon.


-Elraen-