Darragh does Detroit

As you might have gathered, for the past week we've had a 17-year-old Irish fiddler staying with us called Darragh. Last year the Flint Youth Symphony stayed in Ireland and met up with this group of fiddlers there ("there" being Great Island, which is apparently just off the coast near Cork) and arrangements were made for them to come to Flint. (Poor bastards, they raised the money without checking out what Flint was like.) Most of the week they were kept trapped, either in the Flint Institute of Music practicing with the Youth Symphony or on short road trips to local High Schools where, Darragh related incredulously, they asked questions like "Are Leprechauns real?" But Friday was their day off, and their fondest desire was to go SHOPPING, because, as Darragh relates, in the current economic climate everything (with the noted exception of flights on Ryan Air) is ridiculously expensive in Ireland now. (Every time he saw the cost of anything, from pancakes at a diner to jogging leggings [the purchase he was most excited about] he would report the price in Ireland and Jami or I would be suitably gobsmacked.) So he asked to be taken to a mall in a place called Auburn Hills, which is on the way to Detroit, whose legend circulated among the Irish in hushed whispers. So, obliging sort that I am, I took him. Here he is posed outside of a store bearing the name of one of the brands that teenagers appear to venerate with the first of his purchases:

I was planning to make a series of these, but (a) he was embarrassed, and (b) after I took the one below, a mall cop whirred up on his Segway (a sight Darragh found appropriately ridiculous) and told me that I was not allowed to take photos of the stores. When I rather confusedly asked why, he told me that it was partly because they were worried about competitors, but "mostly because of 9/11". Curses, they saw through my plan to fly a jumbo jet into their temple of Capitalism.

His appetite for designer brands at rock bottom prices sated, Darragh was keen to see Detroit. I understand that most of the kids really wanted to to see "the ghetto". Well, I hope beautiful abandoned buildings sufficed instead. The following photos were taken by Darragh:

And just to show that it's not all squalor:

The name of the baseball team is the Tigers - could you guess?

This morning we put Darragh on the bus that would take him to Chicago airport (don't ask me why they didn't fly into Detroit) and both sides were quite moist-eyed. He was very pleasant company for a week, which makes him an unusual 17-year-old indeed. Plus he brought over TONS of Cadbury's, McVities and Barry's Tea (as served by Mrs. Doyle, he assured us). AND he has promised to send Thomas his complete collection of early Pokemon cards. If he doesn't, Thomas will track him down and extract them by force...