I woke up today realizing that my adventures were already halfway over. It is hard to believe that time has gone by so quickly! I can’t wait to see what happens in Belfast!
Today we had breakfast at the Queens Scholar Center- which does not come close to how good breakfast was at Trinity. I will be living off of toast and rice krispies cereal…mmm delicious…
Our first class was at 10am at the University just down the street. It is only about a 15-20 minute walk, but I am just hoping it doesn’t rain too much. That walk would not be fun in the rain. I walked down a bit early since I wasn’t 100% sure where the classroom was. The campus is beautiful! The main building is quite spectacular and made up of red brick. I walked around the campus a bit and saw the Great Hall. It looks like the dining hall straight out of Harry Potter! All it needs is a magical ceiling!
I found the classroom in room 207 and our class lasted until about 12:30 or so. We got to discuss some of the poetry and female Irish writers so I really enjoyed class today. Our field trips for this week are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so today was pretty laid back.
I wanted to go explore though so Megan, Catherine and I decided to go walk down to City Centre. It takes only about 30 minutes to walk to city centre but it definitely is a pain to go to the grocery store and if it is raining…not so fun. Also a lot of the pubs and clubs are downtown so we’ll have to take a cab to get home since the busses end at 11pm. Oh well I guess we will make it work. I walked down to the University again to buy my Queen’s sweatshirt. It is navy blue and is a zip up one…I figure I have to get one so I don’t seem too biased toward Trinity (although I think I like Trinity a little bit more.)
We went and walked around the City Hall, the Victoria Square, and the Scottish Provident Institution Building. I was just trying to get my bearings in the city. I think I succeeded…and we found some great places to go out and eat too! We walked over to the river and saw the Hoop of Peace statue, the Courthouses, and the St. Georges Market. It seems to me that Belfast has a lot of history, but I don’t find it quite as pretty as Dublin. I think I am just biased toward Dublin right now since I fell in love with the town in the first 2 weeks. I think tomorrow we will be going on a tour and I will get to see even more of the city! At this point I am just trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B!
After seeing the city, the three of us walked back to the University. We passed the BBC, so we definitely felt the British presence…To me it feels like Ireland is really only half Irish. Northern Ireland has a lot more UK pride. I believe that there should be a united Ireland. It doesn’t seem right to have it split up with half of it under UK rule. I think it is silly to have to switch currency going from south to north and there has to be a way to find a common ground. I hope that in the future there can be a united Ireland.
I went out to dinner with a group of about 10 of us. We walked down to The Botanic Inn just down the way. They have a deal where you pay 4.95 pounds to get dinner and you get a free pint! It was close too, so it was a win-win situation! Dinner was pretty good, although enchiladas in Ireland are not even close to being called Mexican food! The place was fun and their music selections were good with Nirvana and Radiohead going…I felt like I was at home.
After dinner we walked down to Lavery’s (the pub recommended by Paul the day before). We were looking for a place to sit and we ended up sharing a table and corner of the pub with a group of Canadian rugby players. They were a lot of fun to talk to and they tried to teach us how to sing Rugby songs. Maggie, a girl in our program who plays rugby at UCD, had a lot of fun with it! It was such a fun night! Savannah and Rose came out with us too which was a lot of fun. We had a great time talking and singing along to the random Tina Turner and Bon Jovi songs. One guy in our group, Jon, can do a great rendition of Tina Turner…we were all impressed!
Today was such a fun day! I got to see more of Belfast, learn more about Ireland’s history, see beautiful historical buildings, and I had an amazing night out with all my new friends! Belfast is definitely going to be a fun place to be for the next 2 weeks!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment