What in the heck is a Ceili?

Irish square dancing? Are you kidding? That's what we were faced with on our schedule for Friday night. In the conferene's desire to expose and engage us in Irish culture they thought sixty plus people learning a form of dancing in a room was a good idea. Well, I'm not sure it was a good idea, but it was fun to watch. And I'm sure the local "band" who came out to play got some good laughs out of it...

The ceili is a traditional Irish social dance. Think riverdance meets square dance - but it involves couple in pairs, etc. working together in a hodge podge of twists, turns, and weird unnatural foot movements. It's really easy for us to criticize because we abstained from trying. Technically I tried but I almost killed myself and would have most certainly maimed others.

Nevertheless, we had a good time watching our new friends have a good time. Maybe if we come back next year we will try it again. In the meantime we are going try hosting some at the seminary...or maybe not.