Today is my last day in Good Relations at the Belfast City Council :(. I am really sad because I have grown really close to these people and have learned so much from them. I think that the hardest thing about leaving Belfast is knowing that I may never see these people again. However, I have been looking at Queens and Jordanstown law schools here in Belfast so maybe in a couple of years when I finish SMU I may return to do my law degree (Yes that means that I would live here). But, I have some time to make this decision. The people that I work with surprised me on Tuesday with a "going away" type of party. They tricked me into thinking we were having tea time at 3, which would not be an abnormal thing here. There were some tears shed as reality set in that these people have changed my life in so many ways, and that like I said I will never see them again. Tea time was not a joke though, we had tea/coffee, brownies, and little chocolate rolls. They staff in good relations was very generous and gave me a silver necklace with a little diamond in the middle of St. Bridget cross, an official Belfast City Council pen, and a black leather purse. After I opened the gifts and card they wanted me to give a speech, so of course I whipped out my 4-H speaking skills and gave them a speech. Little did the staff know that I had been planning on giving them something the next day. Being I grew up and am Minnesota nice (the people in my group think i am SO Minnesotan) I had got them monster cookies over the weekend, as well as wrote each of them a thank you note. So Wednesday morning I came in a little early to drop off the cookies and thank you notes. They were both a big hit because the cookies were so big they called them American sized cookies which I thought was very funny. Tonight I have to pack up my room (which will consist of throwing stuff into suit cases) so that I can move back to Portrush tomorrow.

I am not sure if I will blog again before I leave because we don't have internet access in the flat in Portrush. So if I don't thanks to everyone who read my blog! This summer I will continue to work at Sun Place tanning, take two summer classes, be a Centennial Leader at SMU, catch up with friends, live in Winona, and finally be interning with the Winona County Attorney's Office. Yup I will be a busy girl this summer, but I am excited for it.

P.S. Now that I am international student I feel the need to take another semester abroad.......... So I am looking into going to Australia in February- July of next year! I have to check through the school first to see if they will accept the program. Wish me luck!!

Greece

I just realized I have not posted for 17 days. Oops, time really goes by fast here. Well as some of you may know I went to Greece for my spring break trip!! Well we went to Athens to be specific. Athens was a beautiful city, but it was not what I thought it would be in both a good and bad way. Athens is a beautiful city with all of its old Greek mythological historical sites. However, Athens is very citified (probably not a word) meaning that around all of the historical sites there are hotels, businesses, and flats. Athens is a very touristy city, with lots of hotels, hostels, restaurants, and gift shops. All of the gift shops basically had the same stuff so I felt like once I had seen one shop I had seen them all. One interesting thing that I learned about Athens is that there are no houses, everyone instead lives in a flat, which I thought to be weird because then basically everyone lives in apartments. We did a lot of site seeing on the trip (Oops this trip was from Saturday- Sunday). I left Belfast for Greece on Saturday afternoon. I had a layover in London which was exciting for me, because I left the airport and checked into my very first hotel room that I paid for! The hotel was only a few minutes from the airport so I did not see any of London except for the airport and what I could see out of my window in my hotel. The most exciting thing about my room was that I had a California king bed, which was plenty big for me. Then I got to Greece on Sunday, when we got there we just spent the day walking around and figuring out what we wanted to see. Monday and Tuesday we got on a hop on- hop off bus that took us to different sites in Athens and Piraeus. Some of the sites that we saw were Zeus Temple, Hercules Library, Greek Parliament, Syntagma Square, Hard Rock Cafe, Acropolis, Socrates prison, Aegean Sea, Ports for major cruise ships, Agora, Ancient Agora, Flee market, and a food market. There are not very many grocery stores in Athens, so people just go to a massive food market to get there food. It was pretty cool to see the meat of animals just hanging out in the open for people to take. Of all of the sites that we saw I would say that Ancient Agora was my favorite because there was a big rock that we could climb up to the top of and see all of Athens from (I could also see snow covered mountains). Ancient Agora had a temple that was still mostly standing which was pretty cool to see, as well as many foundations of buildings. The weather in Athens was GREAT and a well welcomed change from the rainy cold days In Northern Ireland. Greece was between 65- 75 degrees everyday, and it only rained once while we were there! On our last full day in Athens we took a tram for about an hour to the beach to see the water and just relax. The water was so pretty and blue. Their beaches are a little different then ours are, because theirs mostly consist of rock and little sand. However, this did not stop me from sitting out in the sun and basking it up. Little did I know that I was getting extremely burnt. I left Athens early early early Friday morning and got  back to Belfast late that night. I was running on no sleep for 46 hours so that was a lot of fun :(. I had another layover in London where I had to go through security twice, and two bio metric scans again. I assumed this was due to different travelling rules. As I got off the plane in Belfast it was a shock to my system because I was not prepared for how cold it was going to be there, but I quickly adjusted. Getting into the airport was very welcoming for me because I got to hear those all to familiar Irish accents. Greece people speak Greek, which is not easy to understand so I was glad to be with people that I could understand. My weekend was filled with little relaxation as I quickly realized that there are only four weeks of the program left, and I have three MASSIVE papers due in that time, thankfully one of them is a group paper. Being I am in Belfast and the Titanic was built here we had to go and see Titanic 3-D as it was the 100 year anniversary of it sinking this weekend. Belfast is having a lot to do with the commemoration of  the Titanic and that also opened up this weekend. Well that is all I have to say for now. I am going to head out and grab a coffee before I start my work day. O this is my last full week at my internship, as I leave for Portrush again next week.

P.S. pictures will be put up later. They are taking awhile today.

Dublin Week

So.... Dublin and I met again!! This was once again an excellent trip for me and the rest of the crew. Flat three of Arboe (where we live in Belfast) started our morning off slow and tired as we had to clean our flat before Nigel and the Derry crew came and got us. We did not only have to clean the flat, but also had to pack up all of our stuff and put them in one room as Stranmills puts other people in our flat when we are gone, but they did not tell us who's flat the stuff was going into until 8AM Monday morning... so everyone had to pack regardless. As the luck of the Irish would have it my room was chosen because it was the cleanest... if I would have known this before hand I could have saved myself some time by not packing my clothes up, but O well what can you do. Nigel then came to pick us up around 10 AM and we hit the road for Dublin in the "beast", this was a long trip because we had to stop a few times for different things, like sunglasses for Nigel because he had grabbed his wife's by mistake. Then we stopped for lunch at a mall, which was a brilliant stop as they had this great bagel restaurant that served gourmet bagels for breakfast, lunch, and supper (most of us had this because we thought it was brilliant), however some of course went with the classic Subway. Of course the bagel did not do me over for lunch, so I had to get a gourmet cookie to go with it. People in the group like to point out sweets to me because they know that I have a huge sweet tooth and can't ever resist them. After lunch we headed to Newgrange, which is one of the oldest sites in the world, and is the oldest site in Ireland and Northern Ireland combined. This site dates back over 5,000 years, and was used as an ancient burial site. The weather was beautiful for touring this site (as it was all week, t-shirts all week, and NO RAIN!!) The group actually got to go inside the hut/cave and look around. Even though the site looks big on the outside it is really small on the inside only about 10 people at a time could go in and see it. There were very low ceilings and narrow tunnels to get us to the burial/ sacrifice spot.I know that it was low ceilings because even I had to duck.  We looked around for awhile and then the tour guide showed us a "light" show. Once a year for nine minutes when the sun rises it will lite the whole cave up, so she showed us how the sun does it with a replica light show, which was a brilliant experience. Then since it was so nice outside we walked around, took some pictures and just relaxed in the fresh cut, extremely green grass. After the tour and such we headed to our accommodations which was at  All Hallows College in Dublin. This was defiantly the best place I have stayed since I have been in N. Ireland and Ireland combined. I had my own room, closet, desk, dresser, bathroom (with a heated towel rack and floor)!! We were also served breakfast everyday so that was really nice. Monday night Nigel took us to a pub close the campus to have supper and a pint if we fancied one. Fagans was where we ended up going which is what I would classify as a fancy pub because the pint was not cheap, nor was the food. When I opened up the menu I almost died inside because all of the items were about fifteen euros or more, so I ended up getting chicken wings and chips (which let me tell you seeing me eating chicken wings is a pretty site). After that we and a couple of my mates just relaxed with talking the crack and listening to some music.

Tuesday brought another extremely beautiful day of weather and learning. We got to experience the city bus for the first time in Dublin, which I would say is a lot like the subway in New York... crowded and always standing. Our first stop of the day was Kilmainham Gaol (jail) which was a place where prisoners of war, or people who were causing problems during the troubles were sent. This place is full of painful memories as many people were publicly executed here. The jail is no longer used, but is instead used as a museum. There are new and old wings to the jail, the new one is used quite often for music videos and concerts as it has a great acoustic system. I felt it quite hard to listen to some of the prisoners stories of how they were executed and why they were, as some of them were often innocent. After this tour we had a picnic on the side walk in the sun. We were all laying in the sun basking it up, when I sat up and saw tourist taking pictures of us, which I thought was really funny. After this we headed to the Guinness Storehouse. This was a really cool experience, as the building does not look like much from the outside, but once you get inside you are totally amazed! There are six floors of stores, pubs, and exhibits. The crew went through the exhibit first and learned about how they make Guinness and beer in general. They had a lot of interactive things for us to look at and do. In the middle of the tour you could take a small sample of Guinness, which most of us did, where you learned how to properly drink a Guinness (you have to use all five senses). Then we continued up to the Gravity pub on the 6th floor, where we received our free pint of Guinness (really fresh and ice cold = Perfect). I had never had Guinness before I came to the storehouse so this was a real experience for me. I guess Guinness is not my favorite beer, but it worked because it was free and I had to walk up 6 flights of stairs for it. The pub had windows all around it so you could practically see the whole city from the top, it was extremely beautiful and not something I will never forget any time soon. We all had to get the Guinness stash from drinking the pint so that was pretty funny to see. The group likes to make fun of me for being so small, so after I said this Guinness is going to take a long time to drink because I ate to much lunch they decided to make that into the joke of the day. "I had lunch so I can't finish my Guinness" #skinnygirlproblems. After we finished gift shopping and what not at the storehouse we headed off to tour the Trinity college library where we looked at the book of Armagh which is pretty close the our program directors heart. The college was really cool, as was the library, there were two floors of really old books and some pretty cool statues. Trinity college also had a big lawn for us to lay on, so the whole group took a little nap on the grassy knoll for about an hour before we headed off again. Nigel left us to find out own supper so me and a mate went and had fish and chips. We decided after we paid almost 9 euros each for this that Dublin is not a cheap city at all. We found that people are very friendly there though because when the two of us were trying to figure out which bus stop to get off at multiple people directed us to the right one, as well as made sure we were off the bus. Tuesday night consisted of relaxation and watching a movie with a few mates.

Wednesday was our day to visit parliament, so that meant getting dressed up and talking to the big shots. We met with three different representatives and talked to them about their goals, and how the plan to bring peace and reconciliation to Ireland and N. Ireland. We were supposed to meet with four politicians, BUT there are 11 girls and 1 guy in the program so all of the girls had to use the toilet at once, and as luck would have it there was only one, so Nigel had to cancel one of the meetings. Jackson and Nigel timed us, and it took 22 minutes to get 11 girls through the toilet. So that is a new standing joke at every place we stop at now. At parliament we got to sit in on sessions of their Senate and House of Representatives. The day ended early for us as we got done at 2 PM, so me and two other mates grabbed some lunch and then explored Dublin for the better part of the day, which consisted of sitting in the sun a lot and soaking up those rays. That night I and a few other girls decided to check out the Temple Bar district which is a very popular part of Dublin. We ended up on a pub called Buskars which had live music, the music was so good that we stayed until the band was done at about midnight. This band played all American classics so we were all very happy students. I and another girl went to talk to the band to find out where they were from and as the Irish luck would have it once again o the main singer was from Anoka county Minnesota!! We once again got to experience how expensive Dublin is with the cab ride home which cost the 5 of us 12 euros total, which is a lot of a cab over here.

Thursday was probably the best day this week for me and many of my mates... well all except for two that were really sick with food poisoning from something they ate the night before. Nigel took us to Glencree Peace and Reconciliation Centre which is a lot like Corrymeela, where groups can go to work out peace and find a comfortable and shared space for each other. We talked to the directors there who filled us in on how they are working with N. Ireland on reconciliation steps. They provided us a brilliant lunch of soup and bread with different types of toppings. Then begin it was once again a nice day the crew played some soccer  which was a really fun, we played for about 2 hours. We played monkey in the middle for a long time which was a lot of fun because if the ball was kicked to high in the air we would just play with it like it was a volleyball. I really struggled with this game because I used my hands to much, like if the ball was coming at my upper body I would just grab it, which was breaking so many soccer rules. Also when I was in the middle I would whip out my basketball skills, get down in the defense position and get that ball... this epically failed for me when Nigel had the ball, what happened was a complete freak accident, as I was going for the ball I kind of tripped right as he was kicking the ball. So as all of you are probably guessing right now YUP I did get a nice kick of the soccer ball to the face, as well as some foot (Nigel did not think I was that close). I thought it was so funny, but Nigel felt really bad, and the rest of the group was in complete shock because I was laughing so hard I was crying and they could not tell if I was crying for real or not. Let me tell you a soccer ball to the face is not the best feeling in the world, but it did make for a great story. There were a few other incidents in the games that we played as well, such as we missing the ball when I went to kick it and I laid myself out on the ground. The day continued on to Wicklow county where we walked around a brilliant lake and took some time to take pictures and chill out. We all spent the evening relaxing and watching a movie once again.

Friday is when we packed up and headed back home. We spent most of the day driving around Nigel's hometown area. This was a much anticipated day for many of us because we were all dying to know Nigel's role and place in the troubles. As we expected we heard his story, all I can say about it is that I am shocked and not surprised in many ways. But getting to know someone who was closely involved with the troubles has changed my way of viewing a lot of things here and at home. As I returned back to Arboe 3 I realized that the week had gone by extremely quickly, as well the program is quickly coming to an end, which is a very sad thought for me in many ways. This would be because I have grown to love the country, my group mates, and have learned  so much about myself.

 Cliff in Wicklow County

 Hill in Wicklow County

 Ducks that I was obsessed with once I found them

 Emily and I

 Newgrange

 That hill in the center is an a hill that a tunnel in Newgrange leads to.

 Rock in front of Newgrange

Here are some beef cows for the AG lovers out there. When I see livestock I really start to miss home.
Well this week I will be working all week and preparing for my Spring break trip to GREECE. Which I am extremely excited about!!! So look for the next post after that.

O Dublin..... Well I survived St. Patrick's day in Dublin!!! The Belfast group had to get up at 5:30AM to get to the bus station and on the bus by 7AM. We had to get there early because we were told that the bus would fill up quickly to Dublin, which it did so we are happy that we got there early. Me and two others walked to the bus station instead of paying for a cab because we wanted to save our money for Dublin, the bus station is not as far as the City Hall so it was only about a 20 minute walk which was not to bad. But let me tell you Belfast is dead at 6:15 in the morning. The bus ride wasn't to bad it was about 2 1/2 hours long in which I attempted to sleep because I knew that it was going to be a long day. We took an express bus so that there would be less stops on the way there, but at every stop I had to laugh because the people who boarded were decked out in their Ireland gear. Most were complete with wigs, face paint, and all green clothes. Our bus got pulled over on the way their by a boarder patrol cop to check the bus to see if anyone was crossing illegally. Luckily this time I had my passport, but once they saw one of our's they did not look at the rest. Nigel told us they do that because they think Americans are safe and trustworthy, which I still thought was interesting. We finally got to Dublin at about 9:30 and the roads were already packed with people, but we waited in the bus station for the  Derry/Londonderry group to come so that we could make a game plan of what to do. We all decided to watch the parade which was a massive fail because there were so many people watching it that we couldn't see a lot, but I looked at it as it's the thought that counts. I am also barley over five feet tall so that also made it a little harder for me to see anything, because the stereotype that Irish are small is far from true, most of them at really tall. A lot of people had brought ladders to stand on and watch the parade with which would have been a good idea if I wasn't a traveler/student here. I did get to see a little though because I got on a group members shoulders so that I could get pictures for people in our group. A little random fact about St. Patrick's day in Dublin is that you can not go into a restaurant (even fast food) to go to the bathroom unless you area paying customer. After the parade we headed to the Jameson Distillery to check that out, it took quite awhile to get there because there was only one opening to cross the road, so that meant the 600,000 people that were there all had to cross it, I felt like I was at a rock concert again where everyone is body to body. The Distillery was pretty cool, we did not tour it though because as a group we are heading there next week for the whole week. After that then we split up as a group because going places with 12 people is not an easy task especially on St. Patrick's day when there are tons of people out and pubs are not all that big. We visited many pubs both small family owned and larger more popular ones. It was kind of cool to see the different ones and the people that were in them. We did take a break from touring the city and pubs for some dinner, which was an experience all by itself because everyone decided to eat when we were so almost every place was full, and most pubs don't serve food, so that also meant no one was in the pubs. We decided to eat at a little Chinese restaurant, this was a good choice because we got three courses for only 9 pounds, and this was most of our first and last meal of the day. After eating the group that I was with wanted to watch the England vs. Ireland rugby match so we went to a pub that we thought was less full, but looks can be deceiving because it was just as packed as the any other one. This pub had two floors, which was packed on both levels and the stairs, so I don't know how we managed to find a table for 6 of us. The match was pretty intense to watch, but sadly Ireland lost, which did not make to many people in that pub happy. I realized at this pub that there were more Americans, Germans, and French people in Dublin then there were Irish, which was OK because then it was less intimating. After the rugby game got over we decided to start checking out the clubs which was pretty intense again because they were all so full, because they were so full we decided to break off again into smaller groups which was a good idea because only two people could move at once in most clubs and it we were easier to keep track of this way. At about 11PM everyone slowly walked back to the bus station by chance and decided to bus home because we were all so tired. I thought it was funny that we all came to the bus station at this time because our phones were roaming in Dublin so we couldn't exactly communicate with each other without it costing a lot of money. The bus ride back was also full, but I was so tired that I just fell right asleep and didn't wake up till we got back to Belfast, which was at about 3AM because I guess the bus broke down and they had to fix it, but I slept right through that. When we got back to Belfast we tried to call a cab to take us home but at 3AM they were still all booked out, and it would be about a 40 minute wait so me and a friend decided to just walk home, which took an unusually long time because 1. there was a massive amount of people we had to walk through on the street and 2. I forgot that Stanmillis closes is pedestrian gate at midnight so we had to take a roundabout way of walking to the front of the university which I would say is about 2 miles out of the way. Needless to say I was one tired girl and fell asleep instantly when I got to my room. 

Sunday was a beautiful day here when I woke up me and another group member decided to head to Derry to hang out with those people. But first we wanted to enjoy the day (it was t-shirt weather here, which does not happen a whole lot, and yes I know you people in the states have had this weather for a week) so we walked around Belfast looking for a couple of stores, we got a little lost because we saw a sign that said "Train back to Belfast" which we both thought was funny because we only had a little idea of where we were going. Sunday here in the UK was Mum's day which freaked most of us out because we thought that it was back home too, so we were happy when we discovered that it was only celebrated here. The day ended with a bus to Derry and hanging out with the people there.

Monday we had seminar in Derry at a place called the Fountain which is a neighborhood in Derry with about 300 people so it is very small. We learned that most of the people there are treated very poorly by the Derry government and police. The man that was talking to us about the history of the fountain took us on a tour of the area, and every person that we passed he knew (even the kids and babies). I thought that was pretty cool, because even though the community as a whole is not treated kindly they are still pretty close.

Tuesday... well that is today as you all probably know. Well I am at my internship, and no one is here again just like Friday so I am doing a lot of paperwork, and editing their mission statement which is a pretty cool experience. Like I said earlier the group is going to Dublin next week so I will update again after that.

O and in case any one was wondering I come home in 53 days. Which is really sad for me :(  

 Sarah C, Me, Alice, Sarah B, Olivia, Rachel, Emily, and Jackson

 First Photo of the morning. Funny part is after the photo they told me is blinked so I put the hat back on to take another picture. In my defense it was an early morning.

 The masses of people in Dublin

 Green was EVERYWHERE

 Marching band in the parade

 Float in the parade. Not real sure what the significance is.

 Rhea, Olivia, Me, Emily, Alice

It's been a while since I have done this but time flies when your having fun. Nigel informed us today that we are mid way through the program next week which is really scary and kind of sad. This weekend I went to Donegal for the weekend which is in the Republic of Ireland. It was about a two hour drive from Derry where we had to bus to. We got up at the crack of dawn and were in the 6:40 AM bus to get there on time. We went to a McDonald for breakfast which is not cheap over here and is very classy. We then hit the road on the beast, then I realized that I didn't have my passport which is needed if you get pulled over across the boarder. But luckily we did not get pulled over! We went to Donegal state park which is one of Nigel's favorite places to go. It was AMAZING see the mountains and open land. When we got to the park we toured a castle that was fully standing and refurbished. The castle was quite interesting but we couldn't take pictures of the inside. Hence the abundance of pictures of the outside. We then drove around the area for most of the day and looked at different mountains and sites. Nigel also wanted to play some Rugby on the Atlantic beach so we all tagged along even though it was rainy and cold. Needless to say though the game was a lot of fun and I am quite good at the game I must say. I was caked with sand though from falling so much, but so was everyone else. The game started being touch Rugby but then quickly turned to tackle. Nigel likes to explain the game to people by saying that I am cheetah fast so of course his team won because I was on it.   I stayed Saturday night in Derry and hung out with the girls there. Sunday most of the group went to the Festival of Colours. This was like a Indian/African celebration to the start of Spring. There were many craft and food vendors there. Most of us participated in the free face painting. There were world champion dancers there which was pretty cool to see because they danced to some Bollywood songs which I actually knew. The powder party was the best part of the event because what you do is pay one pound for a bag of powder and then go in and throw it at people. It was a blast. The second best part of the day was when I went bull riding. No I was not very good but hey I tried. Well I will probably update this again after St. Patrick's Day which most of the group is planning on going to Dublin for!!! 

 Slug

 Part of group that went on trip

 Wheres the water

 Outside heated pool

 Somewhere over the rainbow

 Side of Castle

 Poison Valley

 Poison Valley

Church without a roof

 Powder Party

 Rugby

 Me bull riding

 Powder Party

 Look at my feet there not even on the ground that is how good I am!! hehe

 Rachel, Sarah, and I

 Before the powder

 Free face painting