As the children's laughter echoes from outside, 35 adults, most of them 50 and older, sit in a classroom, listening attentively to Richard Somerville, professor emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and a specialist in climate change.
In the house, there are faint sounds of activity − the gentle tapping of keyboards in the computer room next door, the buzz of excited conversation from the courtyard outside, the laughter of the group having lunch in the kitchen down the corridor.
Here, the few dozen hardy audience members were confronted with a dim but constant mechanical rattle, the rumble of high-speed ferries pulling in and out across the dock, and the squeals and laughter of merrymakers outside.
Farther on, the din of laughter was floating outside of Olstofa, a watering hole on Vegamotastig Street where writers, journalists, artists and other locals were cozied up in wooden booths drinking beer.
Just before falling asleep, she's "roused by a loud screech outside, followed by laughter — a party of people on the street, eight floors below me.
Their laughter never made it outside to this gray city of burned-out steel mills.
And outside the laughter erupts.
There would be deep snow outside the windows, laughter and good music within -- a New England pantomime whether experienced in rural Idaho, suburban Missouri or bone-chilled Brooklyn.
With nervous laughter, Lynne and T.J. walked outside to their SUV.
At extended family gatherings on Sundays, the women-only kitchens felt full with big personalities and loud laughter, while men sat solemnly outside discussing the drought.
