I'm not quite sure where to begin but the next pictures on my phone after the last blog post are from the Ulster Museum, so I'll start there. A few of the housemates and I decided to visit the Ulster Museum a few weekends ago on a rainy day. It was a very interesting place. It had three floors: art, nature, and history. We spent a few hours going around but I probably could of stayed even longer. I really do enjoy museums when I have the time to really look and appreciate what's there. I usually end up finding some quite cool things. After the museum, we walked around for a bit and while passing an Arts Center, we noticed a craft market going on inside. The sign said it was only open for another 15 minutes but we figured why not have a look anyway. Turns out, it was really a really neat market. They had loads of stuff made by the local Irish people. I didn't end up getting anything but I wish I had had more time to look because I probably would have. After the market we decided food would be a good plan. We stopped at this Italian restaurant and long story short- I got a free pizza out of it. Apparently if you order a pasta or pizza, you get a free pizza or pasta. So I ended up with a free pizza and it was quite a good day.
We've started a bit of a routine with the housemates and some of our friends. We have Maddens Mondays and Cinema Tuesday. I think I've mentioned Maddens before, it's a small traditional Irish pub where we meet our Irish friends to here them play music and hang out. It's like a folk, bluegrass, rock, Irish jam session. I love listening to them play Bob Dylan with a banjo, guitar, and flute pipe or beautiful Irish tunes about women and the landscape. It's such an amazing combination of young, old, male and female. I love that people can come together- some old enough to be my grandparent and some even younger than me- and play beautiful music we all know and love. Plus it's been really great getting to know some of the people at Maddens really well. We've made some truly good friends there and have had even better times. One evening a few weeks ago our Maddens friends invited us to hear them play at a different venue. Alex, Marina, and I decided to go and it was fantastic. It was at a bar called McHughes and it wasn't until I got there that I recognized it was the same bar Dr. Reigelman from Centre took me to dinner! The bar had three floors- the main pub level, above was restaurant area (where we ate), and below was venue area for shows. It was a really great time listening to our friends play and some other bands. We were having so much fun we ended up standing outside the pub for hours after it had already closed. Once it hit around 2 or 3am we walked over to McDonalds and that's when I saw one of the most surprising things of the night. The McDonalds had a bouncer. Not even just one bouncer but multiple bouncers. I have to admit there might be a problem in the world when McDonalds needs bouncers. Yes, it was a very large McDonalds, late at night, and there were a lot of drunk people about but I never thought I'd see the day.
Another great time was Halloween. St. Mary's Students Union planned a Halloween party at The Fly, the club where we had the UV party. The housemates and I had planned to be skeletons because we found five pound shirts at Primark, so why not. Jenny did my makeup, which turned out into an amazing Mexican inspired sugar skull. Alex did my hair, which made me now want a clamp-less curling wand for Christmas because I loved how it turned out so much. So we all got dressed up and had a great time at the Halloween party. The next few nights we did similar Halloween activities but getting dressed up the first night was probably my favorite.
We've been keeping so busy it's quite hard to remember everything. Anja, Alicia, and Jenny's boyfriends all came to visit and stay with us for about a week. It was quite interesting fitting eight people into a house that barely fits five. It was lovely meeting them though and they were all very nice guys. Everyone here in Belfast kept telling us to take a Black Taxi Tour so we finally did. Alex, Michelle, Rahel, Marina, and I all did a tour of the political murals around Belfast. For those who don't know about Irish history (as I didn't before I came) Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England have had quite the troubled past. There is even a time in history called The Troubles referring to this time in Ireland. There's a lot of history involved but it has basically led to the division of Catholic (Nationalists) and Protestant (Unionists) in Ireland- two groups who have not and do not get along even today. While there are religious labels it is more a division over politics, territory, and a history of unequal power and abuse. Nationalists want all of Ireland to be it's own nation while Unionists want to be part of the United Kingdom- hence why Northern Ireland is called Northern Ireland and not just Ireland. Geographically they are the same but politically two different countries. I won't go too much into it now (but if you're interested- ask me about it because it is interesting and I feel like I know a good bit about it now) but basically even 20 years ago in Ireland it would have been a dangerous place to live. There are still bomb threats every now and then (I've experienced this but surprisingly it's not such a big deal), "peace" walls built around certain areas of Belfast to "protect" one side from the other, and marches going on all the time. As a foreigner, I've been told I'm neutral even though I'm attending a Catholic university here in a Catholic area of Belfast. I've also been told when I'm in certain areas I should say I'm from Queens and not St. Marys just to be safe. It's been very interesting seeing the dynamics of politics and religion play out here especially coming from an outside perspective. Before coming I never pictured Ireland having such deep issues but I suppose every country has it's problems. Honestly though I feel that some people here have almost forgotten why they're fighting and dislike the other side so much. It's almost like they've been told to hate them but aren't sure why anymore. Anyway, we went on a tour of the political murals because almost every wall is covered in them in Belfast. We saw the Unionist and Nationalist murals as well as the peace walls and other landmarks of the city.
One of the absolute best things we've done so far was take a road trip to Donegal, which is the Republic in west Ireland. Michelle and Rahel had been talking about wanting to take a road trip for awhile and when Alicia and Anja's boyfriends came to visit- Alex, Jenny, and I decided to leave them the house for the weekend and go on the road trip. We rented a car and Rahel being amazing like she is offered to drive. She had driven before in Ireland but remember it's on the other side of the road so it's still very stressful for the driver to adjust. We started early Friday morning and set off for Donegal. It was about two hours and a half and we had already made it to the coast. It's so funny because in the US a road trip implies at least five hours or more in the car. Everyone laughs when I say I could easily drive 7 hours and still be in the same state while our friends from Switzerland can drive in circles around Switzerland for 7 hours. Basically, the US is big. Really big. Kentucky is probably the entire size of Ireland if you flipped it around. We didn't have the best weather on Friday, very cold and wet, but we stopped at some beautiful places. We found a castle, lake, lighthouse, almost got stuck going up some abandoned roads, got "lost" quite a few times, and still made it to a great hotel for the night. I was really excited because I got the big bed since at home I got one of the small rooms. We were exhausted from the first day so went out for dinner, watched X Factor, and played these observation games (hard to explain). The next day we got up early, ate an Irish breakfast, and set out for the highest cliffs in Europe. We stopped along the way at a gorgeous national park and another castle. I can still vividly remember how incredible the mountains looked. One of the best parts was pulling over onto the side of the road all the time to take random pictures. We saw something we liked, stopped the car, and took pictures. We got a few strange looks but we didn't really care. We drove under a double rainbow, in Ireland, so we felt extremely lucky that day. Finally, we made it to the cliffs, walked up, and sat on top of Ireland eating our packed lunch. I don't know many people who had a view like mine for lunch that day. Michelle and I chased some sheep to take pictures of them. We marveled at the views some more and finally headed back for Belfast before it got too dark.
