Hi, I am an American by passport, and have lived in central Virginia, where the weather is great by my standards, for about 15 years with a summer researching in Spain thrown in. Before that, 6 years in the Boston area (froze my fanny shut!) for college and soon after. Before that, roughly 15 years in Africa, in mostly in Ivory Coast but 1 in Tunisia. Born in St. Louis but we moved to Abidjan when I was 5 so I don't really remember it. I like the weather in tropical Africa best - although I *love love love* snow. If it snowed in the 50's and never got below 40 I'd really be happy. I especially like the DC-area summers in the high 90's all the time, with everyone else wilting by the roadsides... they should try an African rainy season! I don't play any instruments although have always sung. Used to be tone-deaf then got into a very musical crowd at Tufts and now am no longer. The funny thing is that when attempting any songs I learned while tone-deaf and haven't sung since, I still sing those off-key! I have to hear them sung right to be able to myself. I love the Mudcat because I know many-but-not-all lyrics to tons of songs, mostly folk (my parents liked the Weavers and the Clancy Brothers, for instance), and I now have a place where I can look up the one verse I never quite got... And I also wonder where to submit lyrics when I have a good song to share with all of you? I have a repertoire in English, French and Hungarian, with some in many other languages thrown in. I even know some in Gaelic but wouldn't want to try writing them down... and anyway, how do you pronounce bodhran? I have twin sons about to start kindergarten, conceived while on honeymoon in Ireland without spending one night anywhere that wasn't in a Clancy Brothers song. I consider them Made In Ireland. X2B is no longer in the picture. Mom is a survivor of the Holocaust, of Hungarian Jewish parentage but from the Serbian part of Yugoslavia. Really tone-deaf, cannot tell which of two consecutive notes is higher, I do not exaggerate. My dad was a Quaker, killed by terrorists in the 80's along with intermittent bunches of other Americans. He played the guitar in his youth, though, and he sang a lot too. His mom was Russian. I have a Tasmanian brother-in-law, a Puerto Rican aunt, and relatives who espouse anything from judaism through Islam, Mormonism, Catholicism, and atheism. My sisters and I are the only people we know who were raised without any religious upbringing at all. Just in case we want to bring anything besides the weather into this thread, or into its new incarnation if we get one per prior suggestion...