Country roads, take me home

Tuck in.  This one’s long, but it’s the last one.

The party I hosted in Guthrie immediately following my last post was one of my favorite nights in Belfast—it was just a simple night of good friends and good fun. With several peoples’ flights home cancelled due to the downpour of snow, it became a gathering of the stranded, the Ducks, and a few stray Shakira fans. Though I was afraid I would be emotional, the night was too entertaining to spend time being upset.  After a brief night’s sleep, my final day started with breakfast with some of my favorite friends, a black taxi tour of Belfast, which explained the political background of the Troubles (hosted by a very Catholic guide), peppermint tea with a friend, and a £172.56 farewell dinner (we decided to ignore our college budgets…and self-restraint).  I had my final Magners and gave out goodbye hugs to my friends at the front door of the Student Union as the Dragonslayer Club’s party was still thudding from inside.  I returned to my flat well after midnight to my completely unpacked room.

To procrastinate packing even further, I started browsing cooking recipes online (as has been a recent trend in my life—not to actually cook, but just to read.  I don’t know.  It’s weird.) But as I was looking at Creamed Corn with Bacon and Leeks in an article for Top-Rated Vegetables, snow balls started hitting my bedroom window.  Nervous at what I would find, I pulled back my curtains to see Roger winding up to throw another, Thorsten bending to scoop more snow, Eugénie running down the street, and Dan launching snow balls after her.  They seemed a bit shocked that it was after 1:30am and I still hadn’t even pulled my suitcases out from under my bed.  After letting them into the kitchen of my flat, I realized their arrival was a good way to get rid of my leftover food, so I was able to auction off my can of sliced carrots (intended for the soup I made a few weeks ago, but neglected because my pot wasn’t big enough) and unopened Tikka Masala sauce.  And also the fishing pole I used for Halloween.  Things escalated quickly from there.  Not sure how it happened, but Dan started fishing for whole wheat spaghetti, and that was all fun and games until Roger flicked a shard of uncooked spaghetti up Dan’s nose. In stereotypical fashion, the French was the first to surrender in our carbohydrate smack down, and USA was superior to Germany in the uncooked-pasta-munch challenge.  Several Kelly Clarkson references later, the guys handed out our final hugs in Belfast, and Eugénie stayed with me to talk about boys, stare blankly, and collect my cookware and bedding that will be donated to some new exchange student next semester.  Eugénie’s not impressed with my packing methods, but I think she really admires my sense of late night fashion.  Anyway, when 6:20am arrived, I finally got serious about packing for my 7:50am taxi ride to the airport.

Conveniently, one of my American friends had the same flight back to the States as me, so he had the unfortunate privilege of admitting he knew me as I stumbled deliriously through the airport with my bags. With one suitcase ripped along the front pocket and my second suitcase with a handle that refused to go down (compliments of my flight to Belfast), I checked my bags with absolutely no intentions of seeing my belongings safely in Pittsburgh.  (Sidenote: if security asks if there’s anything dangerous in your bag, they’re not looking for small talk about the imminent threat of the overstuffed zippers exploding.  Just say no.) (Another sidenote: the fees for checking two extremely overweight bags on an international flight are startlingly high. Ouch). There was a red head child boarding my flight at Belfast International who was absolutely hysterical while standing in line to have his ID checked, and though I declined competing with him for biggest public meltdown, I give him props for his commitment to the cry.  Maybe I’m starting to be able to relate with children after all.

Before the plane was even fully loaded, I was crying.  I was pretty well collected until the man assigned to the seat next to me looked casually in my direction.  Luckily, it was a mostly silent cry and I tried to inconspicuously hide under my blanket as I leaned against the window. I briefly fell asleep while we were still on the tarmac, and I woke up to cry during lift off. And on and off for the first few hours of the flight. I’m sure my seat partner couldn’t have been happier for us to get off the plane 6 hours and 48 minutes later.

In my sensitive emotional state, I refused to pay $5 for a cart in Newark to push my bags from the first baggage claim at customs to recheck them for my second flight.  I instead slowly dragged them down the corridor for a bit of strength training, and let my cool down phase occur as I waited in the long line to get through a second round of security.  Good thing I had that extra little work out, because once it was my turn to pass through security, not only were my carry-on bags searched, but I was asked to take off my cardigan to go through the metal detector. This left me wearing unmatched socks (they were both argyle, so I think it was still classy), leggings, and a thin spaghetti strap top to wait to collect my belongings.  But at least everyone in any of the extensive lines or walking by the windowed-hallway could verify that there was no way I could be using my body to smuggle hazardous things into Terminal A.  But other than my own partial nudity, I was greeted in the States with a lot of mustaches, several Nascar jackets, and jet lag for my six hour layover.  God bless America.

In hour twenty of travel for the day, I arrived in Pittsburgh to see if my already mangled baggage survived the transfer, and my giddiness from 43 hours of being awake led me to openly smile as I saw my first bag come down the conveyor belt, orange strap visible through the crowd of young hockey players standing at baggage claim.  I lugged it off to wait for my second, which appeared soon after, raised handle leading its way down the belt.  As the bag slid into its position to start its rotation around the carousel, the raised handle was at the perfect angle to systematically hit the knees of every hockey player standing too close to the conveyor.  Oops. Surprisingly, none of them offered to help me wheel my things to the opposite side of airport.

The rush of excitement from taking out a hockey team faded to exhaustion somewhere within my thirty minute wait for the courtesy van to the hotel, so my interest in crawling into bed was exceptionally high.  After quickly checking in, I dragged my two bags and carry-ons to the elevator, down a long corridor, and in front of the door that separated me from sleep.  Though my key card opened the door, the safety latch kept the door from opening more than an inch.  Confused, I momentarily poked the latch with my key card before slowly backing away.  Abandoning my belongings in the hallway, I zombie-walked down the corridor and down the stairs back to the front desk where the manager 1. checked the computer system, 2. came upstairs and tried the same key card in the same door, 3. agreed that the room was occupied after hearing a man say (not happily) “someone’s in here,” 4. left me in the hallway with my bags outside of the door with the now-awake man in “my” bed, and 5. returned to give me a key to the room next door.  I was so excited to finally have a room that after listening to his apologies for the inconvenience and dragging the first of my bags in my room, I didn’t grab one of my new key cards when I went to retrieve my second bag.  In misery, I held the locked door handle as I stood next to my orange-belted, ripped-pocket bag in the hallway.  I walked down the long corridor for the 4^th and 5^th times to retrieve a replacement key, opened the correct door, pushed my bag in, vaulted over it, secured my safety latch, and finally crawled into bed (after thoroughly brushing my teeth and removing any remaining make up, of course).

Though my day of travel seemed endless, it was nothing compared to the adventure that some of my friends experienced trying to get home.  In what the Black Taxi driver said was the worst winter in 26 years, Europe’s airports have been paralyzed.  My friends’ stories range from having a flight cancelled, rescheduling out of Dublin, arriving after a two hour bus ride to find the flight cancelled, returning to Belfast to continue celebrating goodbyes, riding back to Dublin to find another cancelled flight, and spending the night in a hotel before finally arriving home, a tale of catching a ferry to Scotland and renting a car to drive to their homes in England, to a friends’ mysterious Facebook status that mentioned (after a night on the airport floor in Birmingham) that the only flights out were to Jamaica.  There hasn’t been Facebook activity from him in two days, so his whereabouts are currently unknown.

In all of the chaos of leaving, the whole school thing came into play too.  I was surprised with how seamlessly my Creative Writing final came together—my professor here offered very high praise on my first draft, so I submitted it (in addition to another 3000 words of writing/commentary) with just two comma adjustments.  And, in true fashion to my student-style at Wesleyan, I took the January 12^th deadline for my other two finals instead of the optional December 17^th submission.  In the development of my ideas for final papers, I’ve figured out what I’d like to write for my Creative Writing Senior Thesis and which research I’d like to do for my Gender Studies capstone.   And somewhere in all of that, I’ve sketched out loose plans for my first year after graduation, and it seems to lie between living abroad again to (hopefully) attend a Masters program and living in my parents’ home working in the photo lab at Walgreens (again). At the moment at least, I’m calm about my future—I know that I’m happy with the relationships I have with friends, so as long as there is some sort of progress on my part, I’m ok to let my future slowly develop.

Memorable moments/commentary/successes:

1. If happiness could be measured in scones, then the steadily increasing revenue for French Village over the past three months should be testament to my current state of well-being.

2. I escaped meningitis.

3. In my second class of the semester (a poetry class I dropped in favor of prose writing), our task was to figure out the rhyme scheme of a poem.  As much as I looked at the poem, I didn’t see any coherent pattern, but the people around me all seemed to be jotting down some kind of ABAB scheme.  I still had nothing. Turns out the rhyme scheme only really works in an Irish accent.

4. My Vera Bradley umbrella survived Belfast when thousands of others fell victim, laid to rest in the carnage/wasteland of trashcans and sidewalks.

5. Confession: When we were in the Guinness Factory in Dublin, I didn’t actually finish my Guinness.  I don’t even really like Guinness.  I gave it to a friend.

6. As for the tree I found, I tried to give it to my person in our Secret Santa/ Caga Tió gift exchange and even had a friend offer to help me carry it the .8 miles to the party, but someone with access to my flat apparently doesn’t appreciate holiday spirit, so the tree went MIA.  Probably housekeeping.

7. Several of my most profound discoveries occurred in Barcelona, like that the feeling of happiness directly manifests itself through the feeling of nausea, and that a pre-emptive strike can go a long way.

8. Some of my favorite memories in no particular order—stalling rental cars in the rental car parking lot, replacing my bamboo spoon with a real eating spoon, free drinks in Galway, searching for guac, craving the loaf (both sandwich and meat), the front lawn of College Gardens, doing laundry in Guthrie, Dublin hostel dance performance, trivia night at The House, chloroform gloves and Chupitos, the beach in Donegal, ice cream in bed, the origins of Christopher Columbus, learning helpful Spanish phrases, discussing tattoo designs, sob stories in FV, dinnertime translations, letting Germans play Word Warp (in English) on my iPod, the future of renewable energy, Marc’s ‘Yellow Submarine’ singalong while the rental car fishtailed, the spaghetti battlefield, Spanish Irish accents, the open-mouth approach, the final night of my black flats’ existence, dissolving sugar, 10s and Queens in a deck of cards, sheep quotas, reacting to situations with poise/hiding behind garbage trucks, soup lunch lines, German engineering, and my dad’s Skype story about what happened at the Amy Grant concert.

9. My first purchase stateside (following Mexican food and Twizzlers in the airport) was a new straightening iron.

10. If I’ve learned nothing else this semester, it’s that Catalonia has a strong sense of nationalism.

Waking up in the hotel the morning after my flight to my old alarm clock, it’s hard to believe it all happened.  The only physical signs that my body has to let me know it was real are some fading scratches on my leg from an incident involving a snow ball attack and a bush, sore arms/back from pulling 130+ pounds of luggage and carry-ons through three airports, and a lingering sense of exhaustion.  Though I wasn’t happy to be leaving Belfast, I was happy.  There’s nothing I would change about my time abroad—some things I’ve learned from, but none that I would take back.  My friends and I agree that we did it right—any expectations we had for the semester were surpassed.  As much as my time in Belfast was a great learning experience both in a different school system and through cultural exposure, I’m most affected by the people I met.  I’m sure my semester would have been fascinating regardless, but I have endless gratitude that I was able to form friendships with such genuine people who have similar approaches to life—a sense of adventure and exploration, an interest in learning about new places and ideas, and an ability to keep life lighthearted.  It’s hard to say goodbye to people not knowing if or when paths will cross again, but with Skype, Facebook, and a shared interest in travel, it seems realistic that these friendships have a solid foundation for longevity.

Though this is probably stating the obvious, my summer of working two jobs and dressing up in a dog suit was completely worth the expenses of my time in Belfast.  The messages from friends, package from my sorority, and the Facebook photo albums my friends/former summer roommates posted just before my return home helped me transition back—I have great friends at home too, and I can’t wait to continue to spend time with them.  I’m looking forward to my final semester at WV Wesleyan before graduation in May, and it’ll be interesting to see what’s going to happen next.  I’m very lucky to have the support of my family, friends, and home university to allow this experience to not only be possible, but to be so fulfilling.  I can’t imagine having a better year in my life, but I’m happy to have set such a high standard of living for myself before I turn 22.

Thanks to everyone who followed this blog—I appreciate your support, and my offer to serve as a tour guide of the cookie-drop spot in Barcelona still stands.  European friends—I can’t wait to hear if you all are planning a trip to the US—don’t let my distant, hypothetical wedding be the earliest reason for your trip here.  And I’m ready for that trip to Cork next time I’m overseas—keep your umbrellas handy.

Happy Holidays and safe travels.  It’s been fun.

Me, Thorsten, Lukas, Roger, and Tom

From L to R: Handle that won’t retract, ripped front pocket

 

It’s wintertime and the mullets are out

My flight home is in two days. If the travel aspect of this semester’s end is as circular as the social part has been, my flight home will really be in five days.  In what is apparently very unusual weather in Ireland, it snowed again.  For real this time.  The bad part is that everything it shutting down—transportation (including most flights out of Belfast International) especially.  But the good part is that because the people of Belfast are so unfamiliar with snow, everyone is in a constant child-like state of glee.

To get into the joy of the holiday season, I met with a few friends to lend our voices to Christmas caroling for Tom’s Rotaract Club in City Centre.  I quickly learned that wearing ear muffs, while somewhat helping from the cold, caused me to be able to hear my voice much more accurately.  I now entirely understand why I got cut from auditions for a musical in high school.  Good call by the directors.  The first few snowflakes fell as we were singing, and it was a really beautiful moment. But then it started pouring snow. And then it was cold.  I was impressed by how generous the people were—no offense to my group, but we sounded pretty awful. The couple of good singers in the group weren’t much of a match for the rest of our poor execution of higher notes (in “Hark the Herald Angels” especially).  But a few charitable people did comment that they were donating because of our dedication through the cold, not because of the quality of our vocals.  Not offended at all.  After an Irish dinner and a Guinness overlooking the Europa Hotel and the streets filling with snow, we warmed our bodies in Kelly’s Cellar before making our walk to the Empire in South Belfast.  The walk that should have taken 15 minutes was a bit extended by the aforementioned child-like joy that seems to be contagious in this city.  Between my friends making snow angels in the street, juggling,  launching snowballs at fake Santas, and getting ambushed by a group of Irish guys (who may have been provoked), I could have appropriately used “sind wir bald daaaaa?” (German for “Are we there yet?” and arguably one of the most annoying phrases in the German language), but my mind was more focused on avoiding the torrent of snowballs than complaining in other languages.

And just to be clear, I’m not talking about some half-attempt at a snowball fight. Very aggressive.  These guys got dirty—scraping snow from moving vehicles, removing the snowball from the equation to create more of a forced-snow-eating atmosphere (pretty sure I heard the phrase “your future children are going to taste this snow”).  So again, the walk took forever, and snow violence never seemed to get old.  In a related note, I’m not sure if my friends mistook my pink jacket as a target or just have that bad of aim, but my efforts to remain uninvolved were useless.  I would think of them less with either reason for my getting hit in the face twice, but I’m trying not to analyze the situation too much.

Anyway. Outside of snow-related things, I’m not sure what caused the change, but there’s been a dramatic increase of really incredible dinner parties lately.  I don’t know if it’s been a competition between countries to see who can produce the best food, but I like it.  The first included some great Greek, Italian, and Chinese dishes, the second hosted traditional American Christmas fixings, a third was a Spanish/Catalan offering of paella and pa amb tomàque, and the most recent included jamón and melon tapas.  My contribution to these?  Turns out there are these stores that sell pre-made desserts.  Crazy world.

Since my last post, things have been tying up really neatly.  My primary group of friends all gathered for a gift exchange/Caga tío celebration during the third dinner party, and it was great to be surrounded by such good company.  One of my favorite moments was the simultaneous singing of our personal favorite holiday songs—the noise we created was a great mix of languages, tempos, and tunes.  As I learned on my first night in Belfast (Roger or Jaume, correct me if I’m wrong),  Caga tío is a Catalan tradition where a smiling log is placed on a table, fed by children throughout the holiday season until it becomes very fat and has to use the restroom, which conveniently occurs in the form of gifts at Christmas.  When that moment arrives, the children gather around the log and hit it with a stick while singing a song that Wikipedia roughly translates to “poop log, poop log/ hazelnuts and cottage cheese/ if you don’t poop well/ I’ll hit you with a stick/poop log.” The children leave the room, the log defecates presents, and everyone ends up satisfied.  The fascination with using the restroom continues in the tradition of hiding a figurine of a “crapper” within their nativity scenes, and the crapper is meant to represent that everyone is equal because everyone poops.  Charming culture.

The night continued post-gift swap at a pub called the Bot, and when we were seated, we noticed that we were sitting in nearly the same order as we were my second night in Belfast.  Everything is coming full circle.

Other things:

1. Some of the most enjoyable evenings lately have just been walking around City Centre and the Christmas Market with friends.  Cinnamon and mint hot chocolate, kangaroo burgers, and crushed velvet dresses are a beautiful combination.

2. The ongoing discussion about raising fees in UK universities has resulted in a few protests outside of Queen’s.  As well as discussions about tuition with my European friends, we’ve had a few conversations on which languages/accents have the ability to actually sound angry.  Irish accents can.  The German language can.  British and French? I’m not convinced.

3. The soup that I made explodes in the microwave, but my first response after surprise at the explosion was an appreciation for having a way to use some of the paper towels I bought in excess at the beginning of the semester.

4. Eating the same soup for seven separate meals really lets the unique combination of flavors grow on the taste buds.

5. I’m learning a lot about the way humans react to denial from my first-hand, self-introspective observations.  Haven’t even pulled out my suitcases yet.  The state of my room is beyond awful.  Just now realizing the extent of what I have to do to be ready to leave this Sunday.

6.  Just to clarify, statement #4 was a lie.  So sick of this soup.

7.  I thought I had accepted that we’re leaving Belfast until after the pub the night of Caga tío.  Parting ways, two of the girls hugged for goodbyes, but I hadn’t realized that their flight was the next morning.  I gracefully took the shock that we’re actually leaving by dissolving to tears, and I used my walk home to openly sob.  Shout out to Eugénie for being my emotional crutch.  And I think that’s one point to me for being the first person crying in public.  In my defense, most of my international friends are either coming back in January for exams or are here for the entire year, so leaving is a much more permanent thing for me.  Tissues will be on standby for the remainder of my time here. Lesson learned.

8. My closest friend here flew home on Thursday. I don’t have words that would adequately explain what an impact she’s had on me, but my positive experience here is inextricable from our friendship.  I also partly blame her for the cat pictures that I keep using to symbolize my life.

This is a really hastily thrown together entry, but I just realized that I wanted to post these events before I write my final post back in the States.  Pictures will follow in the next blog.  I can’t believe I dedicated part of this post to spreading Catalan propaganda. And I also can’t believe this semester’s over.

But in twenty minutes, I’m hosting a party for the remaining group, so tonight is for fun, tomorrow is for packing/goodbyes/emotions, and Sunday should be a day of travel, weather permitting.

Now if I could only figure out what to wear…

Sind wir bald daaaaaaa?

I’m not sure how it happens, but every night that I’m hesitant about going to the pubs has ended up being a lot of fun.  One night when I was especially interested in going to sleep, I reluctantly pulled on my gloves and met a friend for what resulted in a Ms. Movember contest (a girl with mutton chops won) and a Christmas tree adoption.  Technically, it’s more of a garden tree than a Christmas tree.  Maybe even a shrub.  But it still radiates a significant amount of holiday joy. Anyway, not only is the common room in my flat now festive and my allergy to pyramid-shaped trees rediscovered, these successful nights out are good encouragement not to pass up opportunities for fun.

For travel outside of Belfast, four of my friends and I squeezed into a two door rental car for a final road trip to Galway.  This is the first time that someone realized before the trip that our radio options are limited by our lack of fluency in Irish, so we left Thomas in control of making CDs, Thorsten in charge of the German guidebook, Roger responsible for driving, Marc to enjoy the scenery, and me just to break up the testosterone.  One of my obvious touristy desires was to hear the song “Galway Girl” performed in a pub in Galway, but I was a bit concerned that since we were visiting outside of tourist season that the locals really didn’t care to hear the song incessantly.  We found seats in our first pub (The King’s Head) as a song was ending, and by the time we had taken off our jackets, the beginning notes of “Galway Girl” were coming from the stage.  First full song in our first pub. Not quite as big of a challenge as I imagined.  Check that one off the list of semester goals.

An interesting experience on the trip was at a club when a group of girls recognized me and my friends from their trip to Belfast about a month before.  Once the connection was made, I remembered meeting them on the sidewalk of rainy Dublin Road and leading them to Filthy’s to show them our favorite pub in South Belfast.  It was really wild that we randomly met up with them again in Galway, and it was definitely neat to find familiar faces in a new city.  Some other perks of the trip included seeing the Cliffs of Moher and shopping at the Christmas market, but with traveling so much this semester, I was happy just to spend time away with my friends instead of forcing a really tourist-driven sweep of the city.

For the ride home, our breaks from the CDs to listen to the radio filled the car with mass hysteria about the two inches of snow that had blanketed parts of Ireland, including endless announcements of school closings and people calling in to describe the roads as “knackered.”  There was some ice, but really, Harrison County schools wouldn’t have even gotten a two hour delay.  We tempered the endless car ride with some brief dream interpretation, Walt Whitman and Rubik’s cubes, and German jokes about cucumbers and bulldozers.  I don’t want it to go to their heads if they read this, but my friends are pretty cool, and it was a really great trip for my final experience in the Republic (for this semester at least).

And for a nice melodramatic sob story, I’m pretty sure the phrase “persistence pays off” doesn’t apply to me.  From my recent experiences, I’m becoming the poster child for pursuing things that are unattainable.  One example was my quest to find a ticket to see Two Door Cinema Club perform in Mandela Hall, but when I checked for a ticket in late September, they were already sold out.  I’ve had a few friends keeping an ear out for any spares, and I checked a couple of other ticket selling vendors to see if there were any left.  None of that helped.  So when it came concert time Tuesday night, I dropped by the door to see if they would let anyone in since the mass hysteria around the road conditions most likely scared a few people away, but the security guards performed their jobs and, though they sympathized, didn’t let me in. No one outside was selling tickets, so after waiting about 15 minutes, I moped my way to the library for an hour of work while the opening bands were performing.  Thinking about that cute phrase about persistence and admitting how much I wanted to see this band, I went back to haunt the door.  45 minutes of standing in the cold later, the guard told me that it was really unlikely that anyone would be this late and happen to have an extra ticket on hand.  Defeated and no longer able to feel my limbs, I walked the icy sidewalk back to my flat where I soon began receiving texts from my friends inside telling me what a great show it was and that it was a pity I missed it. Not one of my favorite nights in Belfast, but I tried my best—maybe I should have tried to sneak into the back door, but I think I had been pathetic enough about the situation that getting rejected again would have been a bit much for one night.  Probably a long overdue lesson that I can’t always get what I want, but it’s just a concert.  Pretty sure I’ll make a full recovery from this disappointment.

And I luckily have Twizzlers and Reese’s from my friends in WV to help aide in my recovery. I don’t trust the post system here so much.  On my way out of my building earlier this week, I happened to notice a paper stuck between the payphone and the radiator, and upon closer inspection, saw that it was a notice to collect a package. For me.  I found it on December 6.  It was apparently delivered on November 16.  So two post office visits and an online form later, a package sent by Alpha Delta Pi was properly delivered.  I couldn’t be more appreciative of the support from my sisterhood, and it was really nice to indulge in some of my favorite candy, read letters from friends, and receive shirts for our philanthropy (Ronald McDonald House) and Fall Bid Day just as my laundry situation was getting desperate.  For anyone who believes that Greek life means paying for your friends, I’m not paying enough—these girls and our friendships are much more valuable to me than the cost of dues.   As much as I’ve been fighting that this semester abroad has to end, the package came at the perfect time to remind me of all the people I have to look forward to surrounding myself with next semester (friends, family, faculty).  My life in Buckhannon is pretty cool too, so I really can’t complain.

Listing:

1. Finally had a successful visit to the library.  Just needed to quickly print something before class.  In a total of 4 minutes, I had logged on, found the file I needed to print, accessed the printer, and swiped my student card to get out of the library.  It was glorious.

2. My Arabic teacher saw me in a bathing suit at the gym.  I guess he was in a bathing suit too, but that didn’t make the poolside conversation we had any less awkward.

3. While people in Northern Ireland have mistaken my cultural identity (with suggestions ranging from Spanish to British), people in the Republic seem to consistently go out of their way to tell me how American I look.

4. Number of falls on icy sidewalks (so far): 1

Number on seconds lying on my back on the side of a busy road: Enough.

5. On that note, the health benefits of daily cardio may not always outweigh the danger of icy sidewalks.

6. But if I overcome the life-risks of Belfast’s mostly untreated sidewalks, it feels really refreshing to be back to a proper schedule of exercising, eating, and studying. Also long overdue.

7. I made what I think is considered soup.  It doesn’t taste especially good, but I have enough that I could probably host church lunch.  The scrape of the cabinets to avoid another trip to Tesco for groceries has begun.

8. Within the friends I’ve made in Belfast, if I ever get married, I’ve found another one of my bridesmaids. And though my guy friends have said they’d come to America to throw me a bachelorette party, they have graciously recognized that perhaps an ideal reunion may not include them coming with me on my hypothetical honeymoon.

9.  If my international guy friends do come to my hypothetical future wedding, their admittance will be refused if any of them try to rock a mustache.  I’m sure it can be a very respectable look on some men, but these guys just can’t pull it off. There’s a wide spectrum of facial hair alternatives that we can all discuss at a later date if necessary.

10. I feel like my blogs used to have some hint of educational content, but I’m not sure referencing mustaches in two separate ideas is really continuing with that curve. Let’s just pretend that there’s intellectual thought being dedicated to my final papers.

Speaking of final papers, the semester’s not over yet.  It’s probably going to be a rough ten days, but plenty of good things can still happen.  I’ve got two somewhat extensive final papers to write and the task of fitting my belongings into two suitcases before I board my flight. And Christmas parties and goodbyes.  It doesn’t seem real that the Flying Ducks have to disband or that my scone and tea intake is going to dramatically decrease soon, but I’m happy with the influence these friends and experiences have had on me.  What a great semester.  I’m prepared to soak up as much of it as I can while I still have time. No better way to start than with bed time.

Cheers.

Belfast Exposed

While I thought my Thanksgiving dinner was going to be free soup at a local church, I passed up the lunch for a bag of Peanut M&Ms and some light philosophical discussion in my Nietzsche class.  My real Thanksgiving dinner was served at a pub called Laverys, and though I would have never expected a nice meal to be produced in the same place my friends and I go on nights out, they offered an American Thanksgiving meal special.  Turkey, ham, sausage, stuffing, cranberry sauce, two types of potatoes, vegetables. Incredible.  The same post-food coma that makes Thanksgiving feel like Thanksgiving hit while my friend and I were still in the pub, and I became most thankful for my twin bed and the gap of time I had to nap.  My Thanksgiving was completed by celebrating a friend’s birthday at one of my favorite pubs (Filthy McNasty’s) with several of my favorite people in Belfast.  Not at all how I would have imagined myself spending the holiday a year ago, but it definitely exceeded the expectations I had for spending an American holiday outside of the States.

While I didn’t want to trivialize my experience in Barcelona by publically writing too much about it in my last entry, I’m revisiting the trip in this post to expand a little on the adventure.  For a really anticlimactic story about feeling fear, Katrina and I decided to explore our hostel a bit by following signs up to the terrace that was rumored to overlook some of the Gothic Quarter.  The sun had already set, but we at least wanted to check out what our hostel had to offer.  We found the ‘Chill Out’ room, which was a dimly lit but brightly painted room with some fake plants, a small table, and a couch where an older man seemed to habitually sleep.  As I led the way up the stairwell toward the terrace, I had a growing sense of unease–my chest tightened the further I went, and my body just felt off.  By the time I reached the door, I could barely breathe (which, despite my lack of recent physical activity, I don’t think was just being out of shape).  I looked back at Katrina, and we agreed that something about being there felt wrong.  I reached for the door (I know…I would be the first girl to go in a horror movie) and we took a few steps onto the terrace before agreeing that we needed to leave. Immediately.  Talking about it, we couldn’t figure out why we felt that way–it just after dusk, so it wasn’t even late enough for most Catalans to even start thinking about dinner.  And the bright green walls didn’t do much to strike fear in the people staying in the hostel.  But we both felt it.  There was some real force telling my body to get away.  Crazy world.  We visited the terrace again a few days later in daylight without feeling that same sense of dread, but we opted not to spend quality time hanging out there.  Our last view of the hostel terrace was from the roof of a building a street away.  It looked slightly less creepy, but perhaps that was just in comparison to the night we’d had.

But Barcelona more than redeemed itself for our moment of terror as we got familiar with the roads and were able to identify our location by things like ‘this is where our tour guide explicitly told us not to be at night’ and ‘this is where I dropped my cookie.’   With walking the equivalent of 17 months within our four days, I’d be happy to give a guided tour of the area for anyone who wants to pay for my flight back and has a particular interest in seeing the spot where we had to use broken Spanish (not Catalan) and sign language to refuse offers of going home with Afgani guys who wanted to cook us dinner and use our skin for bracelets and lampshades. (They didn’t clearly state their lamp-making intentions, but that’s what I gathered from my translation/context clues. A bit forward for our first meeting, if you ask me.)  Even a few weeks out, memories of the trip still have a calming affect, and I’m excited to go back in 2026 for a reunion with some of my best friends here to see the Sagrada Família completed. Facebook event has been created.  And the sixteen year wait begins.

It’s a weird point in the semester now.  The huge parties with all of the internationals mixing have become much more spaced out as friend groups are pretty solidly established, and with all of the city’s momentum toward Christmas, it’s becoming a constant reminder that I really only have three weeks left here.  Even my dreams have begun to incorporate the tasks involved in moving.  I’m experiencing a bit of the feeling I got in Hilton Head when meeting tourists—regardless of how interesting the new people I meet are, I’m hesitant to start the process of really getting to know anyone else when I know I have such limited time with them.  And with such a neat group of friends I’ve already established, I’d prefer to just enjoy the people I’m close to.  Maybe this is a normal feeling to have, but I usually think I’m more open to getting to know new people than I am now. Oh well. It’s another one of those times in my life where I’m so happy with the way things are, I don’t want to accept that time has to pass. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next.

A numbered list:

1. Old journal is full. New journal is filling.

2. I didn’t take my iPod on my trip to Spain. I’m not sure there’s a correlation, but I did more journaling in the time in Barcelona without music than I had done in any four day span in Belfast.

3. My understanding of pocket veto has never been more solid.  It can really apply to most current aspects of my life.

4. I finally got a membership for the Physical Education Center at Queen’s.  The facility is gorgeous, the machines are endless, and the people are beautiful.  In the fitness room, the bikes and ellipticals are in separate circles, so twelve bikers/ elliptical-ers are all facing in on each other.  You know how there are people you enjoy seeing, but would prefer not to see when you’re excessively sweaty from running and are biking on a low resistance for a cool down, which may make it seem like the 4 minutes on a bike at low resistance is the reason for being out of breath?  Turns out it’s hard to go unnoticed when those kind of people begin biking in the same circle as you.  Impossible, even.

5.  I’m not sure what it is about this place, but it’s making me change colors.  I’m getting more pale by the day, my eyes have never been this green, and I’m pretty sure I’m going gray at age 21. It’s only a few gray strands now, but this is how it all starts.  One morning (probably next week) I’ll wake up and have that feeling of terror I experienced on the terrace as I approach the mirror to a head full of gray hair. But my hair’s pretty thin, so there’s a chance I’ll be mostly bald with patches of gray.  It’s imminent.  My friends in Elm’s (.8 miles away) will be able to hear my screams. Maybe even my American friends too, but we can coordinate Skype times if anyone else wants to share in the horror in case the Atlantic messes with the acoustics.

6. My converter/adaptor combination isn’t aging well either.  Somehow the prongs just don’t fit any more, which results in the converter falling off of the wall all the time.  It’s to the point that I have to hold it into the wall when I blow dry my hair in the hallway (so I don’t blow another fuse in my room).  Really awkward positioning if a flat mate were to choose that time to appear.

7. Speaking of, I’ve been living in Guthrie House for about a month now, and I still have no idea how many people live in my flat.  I heard rumors that there are a couple of Irish girls, and I know there are post-graduate students from China, Malaysia, Sweden, and Portugal.

8. I think the guy from Portugal leaves the seat up.  And there’s a chance he intentionally puts the seat up in both stalls of the community bathroom, because they’re always up and I’m pretty sure he’s the only guy on the floor.

Well this was fun. Enough writing.  Time to go live a bit more.

Cheers.

Parles anglès?

I’m officially in my last month of living in Belfast. Despite my attempts to extend my study abroad for another semester and trying to change my plane ticket until after New Years, December 19th will be it.  But great things have happened since my last update, and plenty of fun will be unavoidable in the next month.

Right now I’m having one of those weeks where I couldn’t imagine things being better.  I’ve made absolutely no progress toward figuring out what I’d like to do with my future, and I’m redefining myself as a student (not in a positive way), but feeling stressed has become such a low priority that I’m really just enjoying the way things are right now. Reading Week came at the perfect time—I had been a bit down, which I’m blaming on the rain, 4:10pm sunsets, and my unstructured sleep schedule, but everything seemed to fall together as I was packing for my trip.  Before starting my trek to the airport, I ended up having a few conversations (via Skype and Facebook chat) that were probably long overdue.  It was really strange how the timing worked out so well, but I was able to talk to some key people from my past to get a mutual understanding of why things happened they way they did.  It was really cleansing to have resolution on multiple fronts just before leaving.

Anyway.  At 3:15am, I met my friend Katrina with my carry-on bag for our walk through the empty Belfast streets to catch our flight to Barcelona. The four days we spent in the city were perfect.  We allowed enough time to actually relax on the trip, so the good weather to explore the new culture and enjoy two hour long lunches left me entirely at peace for my return to Belfast.  Katrina and I agreed that our expectations for the trip were not only met, but exceeded, and we wouldn’t change anything (though I think she mentioned she would have preferred lamb over the salmon we had on our final lunch).

One morning of exploration led us to the Picasso museum.  The exhibition started with work from Picasso’s youth, showing some of his school projects and beginning sketches.  Being able to read biographical information helped to shape my understanding of the development of his work.  I’m using ‘understanding’ loosely, but seeing the complete versatility in his early years that ranged from designing artwork for publications and creating endless landscapes made me appreciate his later, more commonly recognized work with a new respect. There was one section that showcased Picasso’s friendship with his personal assistant, and maybe I was just giddy from the off-brand Cocoa Krispies at the hostel breakfast, but I found their relationship hilarious. So to see a glimpse of the personality behind the art mixed with the dedication and obsession that’s obvious in Picasso’s series based on Diego Velázquez´s Las Meninas made the museum a fulfilling experience for me.  Add a few churros and some 2€ bottles of wine, and I think the combination produces something close to pure happiness.  Or overindulgence.  One of the two.

But after a bit of sleep on the airport floor, Reading Week came to an end, and life in Belfast resumed.   As for my low standards of school work, I’m not producing anything impressive in terms of written or oral contribution to my classes.  There was a 1500 word formative essay for one module that was “optional”, but it was explained that anyone who didn’t submit this paper was understood to be a tool bag.  And that’s where I stand.  So to get over feelings of guilt for deciding not to write this paper (which I had put off because of my trip to Barcelona), I took my friend’s offer for company while she went shopping downtown.  One crushed velvet dress and two cartons of orange juice later, we had to decide between sloshing home in the rain or dropping into a traditional Irish pub for a quick pint before dinner.  Five hours later, we were full with free Irish stew (cooked by the bartender), had been serenaded by middle-age Irish men, and were able to walk home without rain.  My night outside of the library ranked in my top three favorite nights in Belfast.  Not helpful for my motivation to be a good student.

In other life developments, I bought a baking dish.  And I prepared chicken in the oven.  This is a whole new realm of cooking for me.  While I was waiting, I made fried rice, and the timing actually worked out for me to have a complete meal.  On a real plate.  My friends and family can attest that this is a huge step in my culinary progress.  The chicken ended up tasting pretty awful, but I still haven’t had food poisoning in my time here, so I’m still counting this as a win.  I’m really surprised to find that I actually enjoy preparing food.  My living arrangements or work schedules before never really allowed me to have normal dinners, but now that I have time, I can see myself really getting into it.  My friends here have helped encourage this behavior by meeting to prepare meals together. With the positive reinforcement of good company and my mediocre food creations, I hope to one day prepare a meal to rival the soup and bread served at the free church lunches.

For random thoughts:

1. There’s some weird phenomenon going on in my life where I keep changing my computer desktop background to pictures of cats.  I definitely like cats, but I like a lot of things.  And these aren’t pictures of my own cats.  And cat photos have won out in the battle over my recent travel pictures.  Not sure what that means.  Hopefully this isn’t a sign about my future.

2.  My Halloween costume ended up being the most dangerous out of my friend group. I thought being a fisherman would be kind of fun, but a fishing pole happens to be a pretty lethal prop on the dance floor. Lesson learned.

3.  You know those runs that feel really good and you don’t want to stop?  Yeah, me neither.

4. I gave in and bought a new camera.  And still, cat background photos.

5. I typed part of this entry on a library computer, and it keeps trying to tell me I’m spelling words wrong.  Like favourite and behaviour. It autocorrects them.  So if any of them have escaped my proofreading, I’m not trying to be pretentious and use British spellings of words.  I’m just losing the battle to Microsoft Word.

6. Somehow, regardless of how little of a foreign language I know, one of the first phrases I feel confident saying is “I like chicken.”  Arabic is not an exception to this rule.

7. I’m on the last 3 pages of my journal.  I’ve had a back up journal ready since my trip to Lexington at the end of summer, but I’m so attached to the one I’ve got.  The spine is so broken in, it lays flat and the pages are kind of loose, but it’s captured what really has been the best year that I could imagine.  It’s going to be odd not to find sand imbedded in this new journal.

8. Still no meningitis.

It’s weird to see Facebook updates about Cabinpalooza and Thanksgiving dinners and not be there to celebrate, but it’s hard to feel homesick when I have vendors from all over the world in City Centre for the Continental Christmas Market and the Catalan Caga Tió tradition to look forward to over the next few weeks.  And it helps that my friends from home are sending hilarious messages to update me on their lives.  I still miss Twizzlers, and I’m craving Mexican food in ways I didn’t think were possible, but this whole study abroad experience is still a lot of fun.  I’m in no place to complain.

Happy almost Thanksgiving…America—Northern Ireland has been celebrating Christmas since this weekend—Friday is your day to step up to their level of holiday spirit.  Good luck.

Cheers.

Belfast: Where good umbrellas go to die

To give an explanation for why there’s such a time gap between entries, here’s a day in my life in Belfast.  Since I don’t have class on Fridays, I met with a new flat mate in the morning to walk to City Centre for a guided tour of City Hall. After sitting in the Council Chamber and trying on ceremonial robes in the Robing Room, we walked a few blocks to St. George’s Market where we were greeted by local retailers selling goods ranging from underwear and electrical tape to jewelry and fresh fish.  After purchasing a Moroccan chicken curry wrap (filled with couscous and chick peas), we found the only two open seats at a table with a middle-age couple.  Somewhere between setting down my umbrella and taking the first stabs at chicken with my plastic fork, the couple began to talk about what it was like to be raised in Belfast during the Troubles.  It was such a sincere conversation to have with strangers, which both exposed the friendliness of the culture and added more weight to our next activity, which was exploring the Ulster Museum.  An hour touring the first floor allowed me to see an exhibit dedicated to the Troubles, and my flat mate and I walked home in silence.  Once I somewhat recovered from how moving the exhibit was, I met up with another friend to walk to a travel agency to solidify plans for Reading Week.  (Since the UK naturally doesn’t care so much about Thanksgiving Day, Reading Week is when some departments have classes cancelled to allow students to dedicate time to reading [do recall the zombie library culture].  So naturally, I’m leaving the country).  My friend and I decided against the limited options through the agency and continued downtown to shop for skin care, groceries, and warm/water resistant outerwear.  Surprisingly, it rained the entire day.  And it wasn’t just a light rain.  Downpour, complete with wind.  By the time we made it to Primark (a Forever 21-like department store) and discovered that waterproof and warm are unfamiliar descriptions for coats, my Sperrys had absorbed their full capacity of street water, and I was exhausted.  So deprived of warm, comforting things to buy, I broke down and visited McDonalds for my first time living here.  It was glorious.  After walking home and freshening up, I met up with a group of friends for one of the many pre-Halloween parties hosted this week, which resulted in a late night cooking adventure and a very solid night’s sleep.

Overall, I’d say my personal growth/wellbeing is going really well.  I don’t think I’ve experienced a day in Belfast where I haven’t been challenged to expand my ways of thinking.   Both my classes and my diverse group of friends make learning unavoidable, whether it be cultural or personal. I’m not sure if this is a natural reaction, but because so many people have so much exposure to American history, politics, and pop culture, I’ve noticed that I can feel somewhat vulnerable since my formal education hasn’t really had an emphasis on following other cultures with the same attention to detail.  During the second week of classes, my Gender and Reproduction lecturer used a video about motherhood in America as a prompt for class discussion.  It was my first time being in a formal setting and listening to others discuss the issues and social patterns that occur in my home country. With my unfamiliarity in discussing my culture from a removed perspective, I remained quiet.  I didn’t know how objective I could be speaking about “the United States” instead of “my country” with my American accent.  Keeping the diversity of America in mind, I recognize I’m not really qualified to talk about America as a whole, so I’m getting more comfortable with prefacing my opinions with “from my perspective” or “from what I understand from my region/experiences.”  Perhaps I’m thinking too much into it.

But to take my American accent out of the classroom and into the world, I took my third road trip with two Spanish and two German friends for another weekend exploring Ireland.  We visited five of the six counties in Northern Ireland, hitting highlights such as the Mourne Mountains, Murlough Beach, and Enniskillen Castle before spending the night at a friend’s roommate’s sister’s vacation home in County Donegal (in the Republic).  After taking a late night walk to the beach, having a brief conversation with the police, and acting as a beacon of pedestrian safety with my new police-issued reflective vest, we overtook the living room floor for a night’s rest.  We woke up next to a cemetery and a golf course, which was a really interesting combination for the gray morning skies and a chocolate cookie and pancake breakfast.  The weather cleared up for us to have a picnic on the cliffs in Donegal for lunch and to have some amazing views as we drove into the mountains.

Because we had German engineering to work out the mechanics of our trip, we passed up the GPS for Thorston’s navigational skills. In general, the car ride was pretty fun.  And by fun, I mean terrifying.   From what we experienced over the weekend, Ireland’s roadways are predominantly like the ones to Audra State Park, but they’re narrower and unmarked with the added help of the occasional stray herd of sheep and signs written entirely in Irish.  Perhaps because I’m used to driving country roads, I fell into my state of borderline narcolepsy and slept for a good portion of our car ride.  My body’s desire to nap caused my Diet Coke to act more like a sedative, which I think can be a testament to how much I trusted Roger driving, despite our other passengers’ occasional handle-gripping fear (due to no road shoulder, sharp turns, high speed limits, etc.).  Since I don’t think ‘car sick’ is in my travel companions’ vocabulary, we took the scenic routes when we were able, and it was neat to see the low stone walls that cover some of the landscape, all while listening to a radio tribute to Tupac. With all the farm land, I definitely reached my annual sheep quota, and I really enjoyed experiencing the rural environment to better visualize one of my Irish friends’ comments that his favorite pets are his hens because they’re both cool and practical. After 537 miles and an uncountable number or cookies and premade pancakes consumed, we arrived safely back to the civilization of Belfast.

We were able to use the rental car to help me move from my old room in Elm’s Village to my new room in Guthrie House the morning following the road trip.  In my new community kitchen, I had to maneuver around a package of squid paste to make room for my chicken in the freezer, but I successfully reserved refrigerator and cabinet space for my newly purchased plate and bowl.  Not paper.  I’m now living on a floor that’s used as temporary housing for the nursing students, whose program rotates them through different hospitals in six week segments. Other than brief encounters in the kitchen and in the parking lot (or car park, as they say) during two fire drills, I’m not really sure who was living on my floor, but most of my flat mates moved out this weekend.  There are two or three other people left living here, and we’re waiting to see if new people move in or if we’re splitting the 14-person kitchen amongst ourselves.  As for the place itself, my room is a bit nicer than before, the location is incredible, and the walls are thin enough that I can hear my neighbor flick the light switch.  I couldn’t be happier with the change.

Because of the excellent location of my new home, I’ve easily talked myself into taking advantage of Belfast, even when I’m wearing my new knit slippers (these things are legit) and am wrapped in my blanket reading. In doing so, I’ve attended several concerts, explored a bit more of the night life, and have consistently made it to my classes on time.  The first concert I attended from my Guthrie location may have been the best live show I’ve seen. Munto Valdo and Krystle Warren performed in this cabaret-style venue, and I encouraged my friends to grab a table in the first row. I knew the concert was heading in the right direction when Munto Valdo took off his shoes as he was walking onto the Oriental carpet that covered the stage.  He’s from Cameroon, and the combination of French lyrics and the purity of his voice was really beautiful.  It was my first time seeing a performer use a recording mic and pedal system during a show to loop and layer his own guitar/vocals to build a full sound, so I was entirely impressed.  And while I didn’t think it was fair for someone to have to follow such a great performance, Kystle Warren created a really neat atmosphere and had direct and fun lyrics—it was refreshing to have a night with such real music.  The concert made for a great Tuesday night and was a really nice way to welcome in the Belfast Festival.

I’m not sure why, but I kind of like the numbered formatting for my less complete/more trivial ideas. So a list.

1. For the English language, Europeans use the word ‘trousers’ to mean ‘pants’ and ‘pants’ to mean ‘underwear.’  So in my Creative Writing class when I mentioned a character’s pants, my Irish audience had a bit of a different impression of where my story was going.  Awkward.

2. Carved pumpkins have a relatively short lifespan in Belfast.  Within 12 hours, I could see chunks of my pumpkin from my bedroom window.  I pass the biggest remaining chunk on my walk to class.

3. Number of time I’ve been licked in the face by a stranger in 21 years in the US: 0

Number of times I’ve been licked in the face by a stranger in 1 month in Ireland: 2

4. I’ve knocked the breaker in my new room.  Twice.  Maintenance and I are starting to have an intimate relationship.

5. I went to a poetry reading by Paul Muldoon, a poet I studied in my Contemporary Irish Poetry class last spring.  Muldoon made reference to Medbh McGuckian during his reading and gestured to the woman sitting one person away from me.  I had given a presentation on McGuckian’s writing methods for the same class.

6. My camera isn’t going to make it much longer.  It’s put up a good fight, but the toggle to switch from taking pictures to viewing pictures has mysteriously disappeared.  To upload my most recent batch of pictures, I had to use tweezers and human tears.  German engineering would surely have been able to solve the problem, but I had to use my resources.

7. When turning in my first paper for class, the MLA formatted hard copy of my paper that I brought to class was entirely pointless.  The system here requires submitting a hard copy to the department office and an electronic copy through the school website.  And I was given a random number to keep my work anonymous, but I think the “Harbert [page #]” at the top right corner of every page might have given me away a bit.

8. I had the opportunity to try to define the word ‘sassy’ for my roadtripping friends, and I’m trying to infuse some phrases like ‘I’m game’ and ‘go big or go home’ into their vocabularies.  So much fun.

9. To try to be more domestic and less selfish, I cooked dinner for a friend.  He started sweating from the heat of jalapeños.  I think he cried a bit too (which conveniently helped me upload my photos).

10. I haven’t eaten a Twizzler in over a month, and I’m not coping with it very well.  If international shipping wouldn’t cost significantly more than the Twizzlers, this would be a plea to send supplies.  My layover in Newark in December is going to be complete gluttony.

11. No meningitis so far.  Life is good.

12. With Daylight Savings Time, it’s now dark around 5:15 pm.   I’m definitely not in Hilton Head any more.

But now, I’ve got class presentations to prepare and Halloween festivities to enjoy. It’s hard to believe I’m about halfway through my time here.  Lots of great things planned in the next few weeks, so I’m prepared to take in as much as possible.  Starting with “fancy dress” at the pubs tonight.

Cheers.

Driver Roger and me, post-nap

Navigator Thorsten and me, post-nap

“I didn’t expect much, but this is even less.” -TA

Check out those road markings

Roger, Jasmin, Thorsten, and me, post-nap

Tom, Thorsten, and me

One of many

Settling.

My money has arrived, the trick to opening windows has been revealed (there’s a button to push that I wasn’t pushing..pretty embarrassing), and I can consistently remember both my Student ID and my new phone numbers. It’s great to be here, and I’ve had to keep refocusing myself on enjoying this life while I have it instead of thinking about how much I’m going to miss it all when I return home (which I do kind of miss too, especially El Rincon in Bridgeport and Asian Bistro in HHI).

For travel outside of Belfast, my trip to Dublin last weekend was definitely an interesting experience. Within the first 14 hours, I almost got hit by a bus on two separate occasions (I’m talking close calls here), I witnessed the craziest dance off I hope to ever see in my life (which occurred in the glow of an imitation disco ball), and I got licked on the cheek by a very sweaty, very bald older man (not voluntarily).  After the two and a half hour bus ride from Belfast, 19 of my new international friends and I walked through the streets of Dublin with our assortment of overnight bags to check into our hostel, knowing we were getting closer by the increase in graffiti.  We weren’t allowed to check in until we had smaller values of currency (we had to switch to Euros while we were in the Republic) so we ate before following the winding corridors of our hostel past the diner (open late), the hostel bar/dance club, and the hostel chapel before finding our bedroom—16 bunks and one restroom. Eight members of our group were placed in a nearby room, and we had four strangers fill the extra bunks in our room. After touring the Guinness Storehouse and the Temple Bar area (scene of sweaty bald man’s cheek licking), I fell asleep to the sound of my international companions whispering in their native languages, creating a quiet mix of Spanish, French, Italian, and German.  After passing frozen milk and trying Nutella for the first time at the hostel breakfast, my friends and I starting our really relaxing day in Dublin.  I wasn’t impressed with the city on the first day, but with the beautiful weather, shopping at a book sale in the middle of a cobblestone street, and stopping to chat about life at the Yeats Memorial Garden in St. Stephen’s Green, I found myself really enjoying Dublin.  I think we all boarded the bus back to Belfast at peace, and I’m looking forward to going back to see the Book of Kells sometime in the near future.

As for life around Belfast, I’m still trying to figure out the protocol for sidewalks here.

I’m aware that when I leave my housing to go to class, most of the people have to be going to the same place. But acknowledging the distance to the university (still .8 miles) plus the absurdly slow walking pace of freshmen, my notoriously poor time management skills help me be constantly aware that the human body is capable of moving much more quickly than everyone else seems to go. I’ve been trying not to have aggressive walking techniques to make it to class on time, but it’s surprisingly easy to tailgate when groups of girls in heels span the entire sidewalk. Anyway, for my first class of the semester, I arrived at the correct building and saw a sign for my class number with an arrow vaguely pointing either down the corridor or up the stairs. With my new knowledge that the American first floor is the European ground floor, I kept my powerwalking pace to arrive at the class just in time.  The American professor arrived just moments after I did and passed out the syllabus—for a class I was not enrolled in.  I looked at my class timetable and realized that I was in the right room, but I wasn’t there at the right time—I was one hour early. I sat quietly during the introduction to Epistemology, and I got to enjoy the unfamiliar feeling of being early for my real class.  I’m hoping that being excessively early for my first class will somehow compensate for the times in my future when I’m not so punctual, but from what I learned in my not-scheduled Epistemology lecture, knowledge doesn’t quite work like that.  Oh well. I was encouraged that four kids showed up even later than I did—I think I’ll fit in here really well. Minus the Vera Bradley. And the accent.  As for my real classes, I’m taking Gender and Reproduction, Creative Writing (Prose), Poet, Philosopher, and Anti-Christ—Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arabic I. I’m happy with the mix of lecture, writing, and discussion, and I think the combination of classes will be interesting.  Not having exams and only having each class once a week doesn’t offer much incentive to read the assigned texts, so I’m still trying to find a balance between focusing on school work and enjoying Belfast and the surrounding areas.

Perhaps I’ll have a better studying experience when I start to understand the library. I haven’t had a positive library experience yet. It’s actually a pretty terrifying place.  There are at least four levels, and a prerequisite to attend seems that you have to become a zombie.  I’m serious.  My first day of classes, I went into the library to look for a book, and I was genuinely shocked that even in the obscure back corner of the third floor where I found that my book was not in stock, every single table was full.  Full.  On the first day.  I really cannot fathom what people could possibly have been doing.  I visited the library again a few days later with the simple tasks of printing some papers and sending an email, but my computer science skills are so low that my only accomplishment was finding a seat on the second floor. But no one speaks, which is another reason why I’m convinced these people may be the living dead.  The pale skin may have something to do with that too, but mainly their silence and lack of bodily functions, like breathing.  I’ve downloaded a video tutorial of the library, and I did find the Language Centre’s section for French grammar books, so I’m taking small steps to understand. I think my future in the library is somewhat promising.  Let’s hope it’s the near future.

Another numbered list:

1. There are two local churches that provide free lunch for students, so my Tuesdays and Thursdays are structured around standing in soup lines.  The free meal was particularly important in my life on the day my money was wired—I was within 3 pounds of being entirely out of currency, so I was among the first to sit down to a meal of apple and parsnip soup.   These meals kind of remind me of last winter’s trip home from Nashville when my friends and I ate Salisbury steak at 2 am provided by the Salvation Army.  I suppose my current lunch needs are slightly less dire than when we were stranded on the interstate in a snow storm, but I still definitely appreciate the service the churches provide.

2. For those who know my extensive history with naps, I have successfully had my first socially destructive nap, missing dinner and a friend’s party during the six hours I slept soundly.  My second socially destructive nap occurred in the C.S. Lewis reading room of the library.  A nice man woke me up from Nietzsche faceplant to recommend that I go home, but he conveniently tapped my shoulder just in time for my first Fencing practice.  I don’t think one that counts for a successful library visit either.

3. I went to a Kate Nash concert this weekend, and despite the reviews that her most recent album is “distinctly disappointing” and would not be enjoyable for anyone who is not an “emotional teenage girl”, the show was great.  It’s in the top two weirdest concerts I’ve ever seen.  I’m thrilled to have such great venues nearby—the next few weeks are the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, so there will be some great international films, plays, musicians, writers, exhibits, etc.  Really looking forward to it.

4. With the whole walking situation, I’m on the waiting list to move from freshmen living to a postgraduate housing area that’s only five minutes from campus and fifteen minutes from City Centre. My flatmates are great, so I’m not looking forward to leaving them, but to get the most out of my time here, I’d much rather spend my time walking around the actual city instead of just to class.

5. My Fulbright application has been submitted. Every conversation I have with my international friends makes me realize how much there is to learn to become functional in a language. I’m really lucky to have found a French tutor for conversational French and a good girl friend who is patient enough to respond when I ask “comment dit on” for every topping she has on her pizza.  I’m really not sure what I want to do next year, but it’ll be interesting to see if Morocco really is an option.

6. British food has absolutely no taste.  I’m actually attempting to cook on my own to avoid the disappointment of nice plating and no flavor, and so far I’ve prepared a few meals that include meat (this is a big deal for me).  I haven’t gotten food poisoning yet, so I’m really excited. I’ve been adding jalapenos to pretty much everything (except the cereal..so far), and I actually made a meal so spicy that I cried, so I couldn’t be happier.  Unfortunately, I’ve used the last of my paper “bowls,” so I’m back to eating cereal out of my cooking pot, but my recent spoon purchase means I no longer have to use my bamboo stirring spoon for eating.  Successes all around.

7. My French lessons this evening were postponed when my French tutor’s flat was taken by minibus to the hospital for meningitis vaccines. There are two reported cases of meningitis in the housing village where I live, and one was a girl on my tutor’s floor.  I didn’t have direct exposure to the girl this weekend, and I’ve been vaccinated, so there shouldn’t be anything to worry about. We’re all keeping tabs on each other to make sure we get immediate medical attention if symptoms start to develop, and I’d be sure to give an account of British Health Care if something were to happen. I predict it would involve bland food.

8. At least 75 international students were at a house party this weekend.  At one point, at least 20 of them were dancing wildly to Britney Spears.

That’s it for now.  Hopefully my sinus infection/cold will be over by the next time I write, and maybe I’ll even be living closer to campus.  Oh, the possibilities.

Cheers.