Day 11- One of the Best Days of My Life



Hey folks!

Today has been amazing, simply amazing. You know what!?! I may even call this one of the best days of my life. Even though nothing extraordinary or life changing has happened, today has been so peaceful, relaxing and fun and completely free of any sadness or less than awesome feelings. It's wonderful.

Church

We started the day by going to St. Peter's Catholic Church. This was a new experience for me. The beauty of the cathedral was absolutely breathtaking. As a lover of art history, I wasn't able to focus on the sermon or really anything going on because I was so focused on the beauty of the place. There were beautiful stain glass windows behind the lectionary. Hundreds of sculptures from biblical scenes around the building in addition to the dozens of beautiful paintings on the walls. To top this all of, a choir of dozens of boys stood by the organ behind the rows. They had the most beautiful voices that I've ever heard, seriously. The paintings, angelic voices and the beauty of the place made me so excited to go to Heaven. If a church can be this beautiful, what must the actual place be like?

Afternoon and Chinese

I was then able to spend a relaxing afternoon getting caught up on homework with friends. My most stressful assignment is finally done! Several of us ordered Chinese for dinner. What an experience! They have similar foods but they're still so different. The meals also came with this delicious white crisp thing. Although it resembled Styrofoam, it was so good!

Our group leader, Billy, is from Ireland. And he treated the boys to pickled hearing. Here's my friend Luke trying it:

Facials 

The day ended on an awesome note when our team leaders gave us facials. How awesome is that!?!

 

We finished the night off by watching, "The Importance of Being Earnest". This was originally a play written by Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish author that we're learning about in class. Seriously funny movie. Probably one of my new favorite plays. 

Again, awesome, awesome day. Classes again tomorrow (sigh). 



Day 10- First Time Ever Being Discriminated Against for My Faith

Hey folks,

Well, today was an experience! It was a free day, meaning no classes or tours. Lots of students went down town and I staid home alone with the cook (who is normally a professor at my school) and worked on homework. Since we were the only two people here, we decided to go see "The Great Gatsby" at the cinema in the evening.

We took a bus downtown (seriously love this transportation system). We walked through the city center to the cinema in the mall. To my surprise, the monument at the center of the town was swarmed with dozen of rowdy teenagers. I haven't seen large groups of teenagers since I arrived.

The movie theater was different. For example, they do not put any butter on their popcorn. Instead you can choose to get sweet popcorn (kettle corn) or salted popcorn. GET THIS: They also had Ben & Jerry (FROM VERMONT) ice cream, and their special of the deal was the Vermontster. How cool is that!?!?

Another weird thing: the previews for the movie were 35 MINUTES LONG!!! That's insane! And very few of the ads were actually for movies. The vast majority were shoes, plays and mall sales. Weird, right?

So, since we didn't plan on the long delay we completely missed our bus. No biggie right? We made our way over to the place where taxis come and get people leaving the cinema. We had to pass through the city center again and it was revolting at the amount of trash and broken glass liquor bottles the teenagers had left. It completely reaked of alcohol.

Anyway, we get to the taxi station and this is really where my story begins. The only cab left was an old black cab. Beautiful, just like the ones that you see in old movies about London. The taxi driver was an old, plump man. He talked to us for LITERALLY 3 minute about us. Asked where we were from and what we were doing, ext.

We got in the car and he began to drive. Quickly the prof I was in began to shift uncomfortably. I've been down to Belfast city center several times and began to notice we were not going back our usual way. In fact, I had no idea where we were going. He took us down unfamiliar streets and on the highway. I began to feel uncomfortable. And, of course, being the dramatic person I am began to picture myself on some show about an innocent American girl who was abducted by a foreign cab river. Great, just great.

As I looked over at my prof, she didn't seem to be uncomfortable this way. Instead she was looking up at the cost monitor and quickly counting out more and more pounds and shaking her head. I looked up and I was shocked, 20 pounds and we weren't even there yet! This is just over $30!

When we pulled onto our street my prof asked us to be dropped over earlier than our drive. Again, this was strange. When we got out my prof explained that the black cabs were driven by Catholics. By asking questions and the part of town we were being dropped off in, the Catholic cab driver figured that we were Protestant. This means that he not only charged us more but took us the LONGEST possible route home. Yup, only because we were Protestant.

Surprisingly at first I wasn't that offended. I actually thought it was "cool". Weird, I know. Since Ireland has had SO MUCH struggle between Catholics and Protestants (gosh, one o the reasons the country split was because of it) it was neat for me to feel like I had been part of the struggle. Although really, I know I wasn't part of the struggle I saw a very slight part of it.

I can't claim to have been persecuted. There are believers around the world who loose family members, homes, receive lashes and also lose their life because of their faith. I only lost a small amount of money.

So, that's my story. GET THIS, the IRONY OF IT ALL: Tomorrow I'm going to a Catholic church, maybe I'll see the guy there ;-)

Day 9-Carrickfergus Castle & My First Injury



 
 
Hey folks,
 
Again, I apologize for being behind on blogging. So, this post s about yesterday (May 25). However, today's a free day which means no travels and lots to catch up on. Woohoo! So, here we go:
 

Carrickfergus Castle

 
Yesterday, we went to Carrickfergus castle. This castle has been used for over 1,000 years and was not turned over to the government until the 1920s. As a history geek, I loved this place. So many cool stories, so much history, all in a beautiful location. Here are some pictures from the castle:

 
 

 

 

 

Fish N' Chips

 

We then went to a Fish N' Chips joint where we had just the chip portion of the meal. Chips are like fries, however, they are not crispy and are coated with vinegar and salt. Very yummy, but very filling.

 

First Injury

 

Almost every night we play soccer. Since it doesn't begin to get dark until after 11PM we often play really late. And, we often play much longer than expected (we often think it's only 8PM when it can really be 9PM ext because the light is so much different from home). A few nights ago while playing defense (bring back so many awesome memories from high school soccer!) I got kicked in the shins pretty hard. I got a pretty nasty bruise but, hey, I blocked the ball. So all is well :-)





Nightly soccer outside

OUCH!



Day 8- St. Patricks (LOTS OF PICTURES!!!)

St. Patrick's first Church



Hey folks,

When many people think of Ireland, three images usually come to mind: green, leprechauns and St. Patrick. Many Americans combine these three on March 17 to celebrate this man even though they know nothing about him. Before this trip I was one of those people. Thankfully, this trip today allowed me to get to know a lot more about St. Patrick and see some of his history up close.

About St. Patrick 

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. It's believe that he came to Ireland first as a slave from England. After serving in Ireland as a slave for several years he returned to England, only to feel called by God to come back as a missionary. He introduced Christianity to the country which for the past thousand years has been suffering from wars and fights between Protestants and Catholic. St. Patrick is admired by both.

The first place we went was St. Patrick's first church. Since his original church would have been built of timber, this was built a few centuries after. However, it's still so cool to know what I was standing where Christians have been worshipping for over 1,600 years! HOW COOL IS THAT!?! The church was set on the beautiful green hillside next to a super cool graveyard.

 

 

 

Read this! This guy died during the potato famine



 

St. Patrick's Cathedral

 

We then went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's believed that St. Patrick is buried under the stone.

 



Beautiful view!

 

 
 

 
 

The Rock St. Patrick is supposedly buried under

 

Then the guys decided to fool around in the graveyard:

 

 
 

 

 Then we went to wells where St. Patrick supposedly helped to heal people. Today people still come to the wells for healing.

 

Since this is holy ground you can supposedly do anything you want here and it not be a sin LOL

 
 



 



The next place we went was Inch Abbey. THIS PLACE WAS BEAUTIFUL! This would be an old monastery. And it was right on the water next to a willow tree with a perfect view of St. Patrick Cathedral. SO BEAUTIFUL!

 

 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 

 

 

When the prof's weren't looking Karl climbed all the way to the top! Just looking at how high he was made my stomach squirm.

 

 

Yesterday was awesome. I'm falling more and more in love with this place! :-)