Goodbye

It's 5 a.m. Monday morning, and it's dawn in Belfast. The window panes across the street at Methody are all pale gold, and birds are singing. I leave in an hour and a half for the city airport, to start the long flight home.

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to leave: I’m eager to be home, but all that means is that someday I’ll have to come back and live here.

I love Northern Ireland, even more so than I thought I would... and the people here have been kind beyond all my expectations. Especially the other College Gardens students, the wonderful people at both St. Bart’s and Fisherwick, and all the others I’ve met along the way.

Here are a couple pictures of St. Bart’s folks:

This is Jenny Forbes, her mother (whose name I can't remember off the top of my head), and a lady named Pauline, at Jenny's house, with the dessert we had after a light dinner to follow up the C.S. Lewis tour. Here is her brother, Robert, with Lola, the neighbour’s cat:

At St. Bart’s on Saturday I helped out at the summer fair, setting up and clearing tables. I also ate my own weight in cakes. On Sunday, during the service, I was called up and presented with a matted photograph of the church, which I hope to frame and hang up at home.

I’ll keep posting after I come home – you’ll all see pictures from the fair, and more...!

Here are Janice, Ron, and Herbie:

I know Janice has said she’s been disappointed by student interest in the past, because they – being in such a busy area, with so many students and others coming and going – are really seeking to be welcoming to the outside community. I’d say that yes, maybe hundreds of students might pass by, but in at least one case the church welcomed in one - one shy kid who's been going through a lot of difficulties. And that made all the difference to that one kid... I mean it.

That goes for the lovely people at Fisherwick as well. Going to church – and to the few CU activities I managed to get to, and to the free lectures waaay back when at the beginning of the year – might be my clearest and best memories from the past six months. Thank you.

I will continue this blog once I get home, with more pictures, updating entries which my computer wouldn't let me edit, and more. Maybe even putting up some pictures from home - of MY cats, for instance, or of some of the odd things in Virginia that I've been talking about all this time.  

Till then... goodbye. Goodbye, NI - somehow, I'm coming back. Someday.

Jack

Do you know of any famous people from Belfast? I do! I do!

My knowledge of the famous and infamous is... limited. Most of my friends learn this soon enough, when they name famous actors/singers/existentialist philosophers/whatever, and watch comprehension slide off my face like cheese off hot pizza.*

It's rare for me to discover someone who 1) other people know about, and 2) who I know about, like, and understand. It's extremely rare. One of these someones is:

(These three photoes are all over the internet... I'm not going to bother with sources.)

Who, I discovered when I got here, was born and raised here. Literally, right down the road. I have got off class and was bored and wandered down the same roads that he got off class and was bored and wandered down. I still think this is really cool.

Photo from http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/cslewis/brochure9.html (Jack's on the left - the other kid is his brother, Warnie.)


You do know who this is, right? Maybe not from the photos. He was an author, after all - the only photos you see are the ones stuck on dust jackets. This is C.S. "Jack" Lewis,** scholar, author, Christian apologist, expert in Rennaisance literature, sci-fi enthusiast (before it was cool), and all-around oddball genius. He’s best known for the Narnia books, and for the fact that he replied to every letter a fan ever sent, and for being friends*** with J.R.R. Tolkien. He also loved tea, thought sports were boring, and, yes, was from Belfast.

The infinitely kind Dr. Forbes arranged for half a dozen or so of her family and neighbours to go on a C.S. Lewis tour, on the logic that they could use me as an excuse, as you don't usually go on tours of a city when you live there.

The guide's name was Sandy. We got in a little bus at city centre. He pointed out the shop where Lewis, as a child, had wandered in and heard the "Ride of the Valkyries" being played (to advertise a gramophone, I think), and we got off and looked at the building where his father – Albert Lewis – worked, the place where the house was where he was born, the school he spent some time at (and hated), the church his grandfather was rector at, and so on. The guide quoted extensively from Surprised By Joy, which I haven't read, so it was all wonderfully interesting...

It was a quote from that book, in fact, that first sparked my... spiritual interest, I suppose you'd say... early in my teens. For the first time I’d heard a famous thinker quoted, from a nonfiction book, and I’d actually understood exactly what they were talking about. And he was writing from a similar direction to the one which I was coming from, so I found myself reading arguments that could just as well be addressed to me... also a rare and thought-provoking occurrence.

But really, if you want to know anything about Lewis’ books, go and read one. He was annoyingly productive as an author. There must be hundreds of the things. The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape**** Letters are some of the more popular ones, and each (I think) is worth a read. I'm not quoting him here, because, if you're reading this, you're probably friends with me on Facebook, and you probably see C.S. Lewis quotes all the time because of that. But back to the tour.

We got off once more and huddled round the gates at Little Lea. This was the house the Lewis family moved to when little Jack was still very little, and it's the house he remembers best: the house where his mother died, and the house where he would climb through the attics and hide in corners and read.

You can just see the peaked roof above the trees.

Our last stop of all, however, was The Seeker.

This is a statue, dedicated to Lewis, that stands in front of one of the city’s libraries. It doesn’t depict Lewis – the figure opening the wardrobe door is Diggory Kirk, the Professor from the Narnia books. He’s posed just opening the wardrobe...

Around the sculpture, in the pavement, Lewis’s name is written, with his date of birth – and date of re-birth – and with a description of him as a writer, a scholar, a teacher, a Christian... and an Ulsterman.

Belfast doesn’t widely advertise its history – though next year, the hundredth anniversary of the Titanic, has got people planning. But it seems to be proud in a quiet sort of way of C.S. Lewis. There’s a mural somewhere as well, and of course, there’s the study room at the QUB library:

Maybe I’ll re-read the Narnia books when I get home...

* I'm hungry.
** All anecdotal stories aside... seriously... what would you call yourself if your parents had christened you Clive Staples?
*** Who disliked the Narnia books because they were incoherent and allegorical, and described Lewis’ style as “pompous silliness.” Lewis, in turn, said (upon meeting Tolkien) that he ought to be smacked. Ah, true friendship!
**** I still think Screwtape would be a great name for a cat.

Seannacht i nGaillimh, part 2: Inis Meain

I decided to spend my last day in Galway on Inis Meáin. As I overheard a Frenchman saying on the bus:

“If you really want to know what is France, you do not go to Paris. With all this beautiful countryside, why do you go to Paris?”

Sometimes you have to out in the middle of nowhere if you want to learn where you are. Inis Meáin (the "middle island") is the least-visited of the Aran Islands. The ferry there was carrying supplies - a new TV, among other items, loaded by squinting, sunburnt men in caps into the sides of the boat - as well as people, and most of the people were locals traveling between the island and the mainland.

The boat was named Banrionn na Fharraige (that spelling might be off - I've not got my dictionary with me), which means "Queen of the Sea."

Now, my computer isn't letting me upload photos, so I'll keep this short for now and edit more in later (I'm sure you're all devestated at this sudden absence of pretty rocks). I went onto the island, and found a shop, which was closed. As was the other shop (there are two, I think, on the island), as was the hotel. I had no map, so I walked along for an hour or so until I saw another human being. She was sitting in a chair reading a book, in the yard, outside a house with a small sign that was advertised as a tea shop.

I tiptoed up and tried to look lost and friendly at the same time. She looked up, and greeted me - in Irish. Then she laughed and apologized at the look on my face.

Keep in mind that I've been learning to read and write Irish, not speak it - like most languages, it can be hard to recognize off the page.

It turns out the lady was from the Netherlands. She was a psychologist who'd learned Irish, moved to the Aran Islands, and decided that was they needed was a tea shop. I bought tea and banana bread. She stood next to the table and we talked for a while. She pointed out the path, and I paid and wandered off, and promptly got lost again.

It was lovely, though. All I could think, walking down the road, was, "Lord, let this not be the last I see of this place."

As I said, photos later.

Seannacht i nGaillimh, part 2: Inis Mor WILL UPDATE WITH PHOTOS

The boat was crowded but comfortable. It went fast enough to kick up sprays of salt water over everyone on the lower deck. It was named “Ceol na Fharraige,” which means Music of the Sea.  “Inis Mor,” by the way, means Big Island.* Inis Mor is usually where visitors go – it has bikes for rent, Aran sweaters for sale, and a Centra.

I acquired a map at the information station and made a plan of what to see – the Aran Islands are full of ruins and interesting historical sites.

When I got there, however, I found at I had instead was a killer headache and no idea whatsoever where I was on the map. So I went to the Centra and bought water and painkillers (noting that the receipt printed Go Raibh Maith Agat at the bottom), and then... wandered.

I was feeling a little disconsolate and more than a little lonely. I don’t do well travelling on my own. So when I found myself walking down a road beside a beach, I stopped, and turned, and stared. It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen all spring, including all the flowers in Belfast, and it was EMPTY. It was still too early in the morning for people to have congregated on it, and it was mostly on the weedy end, full of shallow pools of snails and limpets, and vast fields of pebbles and seaweed drifts, and the kinds of rocks that just beg to have mermaids perched artistically among them.

I came back up the beach three hours later, smelling of salt water, with my trousers wet through and seaweed between my toes. It was glorious.

The only problem with this was that I now had no idea where I was. The only person I met on the road was a dog, who walked with me for a while till we came to the sign that pointed upwards towards a couple bored donkeys and a hiking trail. Thinking that a trail had to go somewhere, I followed it.

Needless to say, I got hopelessly lost. There were cliffs, with huge green pools in the rock, high hilltops where all you could see were rocky shingles, wildflowers and small striped snails, and long lines of walls that separated the cows’ pastures.

I was very proud of myself for climbing over several of these without serious injury, though there were some nasty brambles that tried their hardest to change this.

I made it back to the pier before the boat left, though, and got a sandwich and some crisps from Centra because my granola bars were gone. I wandered through the sweater store, surreptitiously taking photos of the sweaters there for future knitting reference.

We were ferried back to the mainland in time for dinner (granola bars and Guinness). I spent that evening trying to figure out where to go next, because it seemed silly just to go back (which was what I wanted to do).  

* Some place names sound better when they aren’t translated into English.

Seannacht i nGaillimh, part 1

Easter Monday I went to Galway. As it was a bank holiday, everything was closed, and there was only one bus to Dublin. In it, I sat next to a man named Frank, who was very nice, and who talked about water sports and Spanish classes.

The countryside was lovely as ever. The fields here – as I may have said before – are small and bordered with hedges. Most of them are full of cows, or sheep. It’s rare to see any devoted to plants. The most vivid of these were the rape fields – I’d never seen so much YELLOW being produced by a living thing. Second to that, the most striking sights were the cemeteries, with the crosses done in black and white, the sun shining.

This was the farthest from Belfast I’ve been. I wish I had time to go to Cork, to go to England even... but no. I just have to come back. I don’t know how, but I will. I honestly hate travelling for the sake of travelling, but if, for instance, I could live here for another few months... well.

In Galway city, I got off (asking the bus driver “This is Galway, right?” just to make sure). If you’re looking for a city that excels in aesthetic beauty or interesting architecture, you’re not looking for Galway. Galway is lots of winding streets and boxy buildings, pigeons and seagulls, pubs and tourist traps and convenience stores. There are a few large shops that open into different streets in seemingly unconnected parts of the city. There was not a single time, over the course of the week, where I left the hostel and did not get lost. But it’s lovely if you find the riverside. The river in Galway is the Corrib, and there is a constant sound of wind and water behind the sounds of the city.

My first day I’d planned to go to the museum – however, they’d neglected to put “Oh, by the way, we’ll be closed for the next two months” on their website. So I wandered around the city instead. I saw the Spanish Arch, and went to a few shops, and went down to the river. I went down to the river at low tide, skirting discarded beer cans and a rusty old shopping trolley, and watched the swans swimming out in the sun.

I stayed in the Sleepzone hostel, near Erie Square. I highly recommend it, if only because they politely and patiently dealt with me:

Me: Can I buy a ticket for this here?

Hostel guy: You can book it and buy the ticket when you go to the bus station.

Me: What?

Hostel guy: *explains again, more slowly*

Me: Oh. So how much is it?

Hostel guy: €4.

Me: ... can you take a debit card?

Hostel guy: No, but there’s an ATM right around the corner *gives directions*

Me: *doesn’t understand directions at all, goes outside and wanders around, hoping to run into it, but doesn’t*

Me: *back inside* I can’t find it. Can I pay you later? Will you still have the slip thingies later?

Hostel guy: Yes, but really, it’s right around the corner... *goes out, points to different places, trying to explain*

Me: *wanders around for about twenty minutes, happens upon it by chance*

Hotel guy: You’re back, did you find it?

Me: Can you change a twenty?

If they can deal with this popping up at the desk every half hour, and sneezing on the brochures, and who knew what else I was guilty of that week, than they can deal with anything.

Anyway, as for that ticket, it was for a bus/walking tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Mohr. Most tours are bus tours, where you sit warm and comfortable in the bus and pay lots of money for some tour guide to be all Irish at you and let you off every now and then to stand someplace scenic and take pictures.

I picked the one I did, because I wanted to take at least one tour while I was here, and because it was advertised as a walking tour. If I have to sit on a bus for five hours to get there, I don’t want to sit on a bus for five hours while I’m there. It wasn’t a huge group, and seemed mostly made up of students, though many of these were clearly city kids who’d never seen a cowpat in their lives (this serves to increase the tour’s entertainment value).

The Burren is an expanse of rocky hills, limestone, that stretches for over a hundred miles.  It’s crossed over with stone walls and full of cows. Again, it didn’t look too unfamiliar, with its rolling hills and criss-crossed weathered rock, until I climbed it and kept looking down on unfamiliar flowers and rocks. The Burren is famous because of its strange geology and its resulting diverse range of plants and flowers. We walked by hundreds of different small wildflowers, and hazel trees, and more. It's beautiful - stunningly wild and calm all at once.

The guide’s name was John. At the top of the hill, he suddenly waved his arms and ordered us all to lay down on the grass and the rock and be silent – absolutely silent – for thirty seconds. We did, and it was lovely listening to the wind and the birds instead of the other people. And he said, “There. Now you know what it’s like to be a cow in the mountains.”

In the house they’d turned over to tours, I bought tea and apple pie after the tour, and looked at the wall covered in the names and places of everyone who’d come on the walking tour. We met the guide’s dad, and the guide’s dad’s two dogs, who were so excited to see us that they jumped in the cattle trough. It was a lot of fun. Here you can see the two dogs (and the dad), from out the window as the bus drove away:

The bus rambled through the countryside. Among the notable sights we passed were old stone buildings (lots of them in this area of the country). We stopped at a passage tomb called Poll na mBrón. This was the first real prehistoric monument I’d seen that hadn’t been all but annihilated by later generations, as it was roped off. The name means “Hole of Sorrows." The tomb is several thousands of years old, from the Neolithic.

The Cliffs of Mohr would have been beautiful had they not been infested with tourists. I felt bad for just existing when I saw a huge, sweeping expanse of rock and sea with signs saying PLEASE DO NOT LITTER, KEEP IRELAND NATURAL, etc, with cigarette butts stubbed out in the verdant green beneath them. But here is what they look like, from a good angle:

The geology of the area is really interesting. But I won't make this any longer than it already is... so back to the city.

In the hostel, I got five nights of international exposure. I shared the room with Daphne the Swiss student violinist, four Germans whose names I didn’t get, a thoughtful, middle-aged Australian named Nirelle who was travelling the world, an elegant Brazilian who bemoaned the state of the local cuisine, and a pack of pink-accessorised Londoners who trashed the bathroom. And two Americans – one, a talkative New Yorker named Chelsea, determined to have as much fun as possible during the week she had on the island, and the other, her quieter friend of South American descent who was also from the States.

This last was named Christina. I noticed with some surprise that she didn’t sound as though she had an accent. I asked her where she was from.

“Northern Virginia,” she said. And so I encountered the one other Virginian I’ve met abroad, in a hostel in Galway.

It was talking with the others that gave me ideas for the rest of the week. I’d go to Inis Mor, which I hadn’t planned to see, but which seemed easier (i.e. less expensive) to get to than I’d thought. So the next day I went down to the tourist office, got another ticket, got on another bus, got down to the ferry, and rode the ferry to the Aran Islands.

I'll write about the Aran Islands later, and show you pictures. I hope you find serene scenes of windy hills and old rocks as breathtaking as I do.

One of the girls from the walking tour, at one of the stops...



The End Of The World... Also Known As Exam Week

I know I meant to write about break, especially after that rather exhausting entry on Easter. But everything’s currently on hold for exams, and for exam anti-stress measures in between studying.

I had my first exam yesterday: Irish studies. The exams here are all essays, written in books separate from the exam questions. I am eternally grateful to my stepmother for forcing me to learn the standard, five-paragraph essay!

Exams here are held in exam halls. I don’t know if they have these anywhere in the States. At Wilson, we just go to class as usual, the prof hands out the questions, and we do them in the time allotted to the class (1 ½ hours). Here, students from many different classes all go to a large place at a listed time – Friday, it was the PEC, the gym – where they find their letter and number on a desk in a room full of little school desks in rows. It was frightening, in a way, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The mixed groups and impersonal setting, different from the actual classroom, made, I thought, for a clearer atmosphere in which to think. And we got 2 hours. In an essay exam, an extra half-hour can make all the difference.

I think I did well – I hope I did well. We’ll see.

To get to the PEC, you walk through Botanic Gardens, and past the Rose Garden. I was excited to see that the roses are beginning to bloom. There were a couple dozen out so far, and many more in buds, in yellows, whites, pinks, and creamy flame oranges. Here are a few, for you: though I can't take photos of the Ulster weather, of the light sun and rain - or of the gardeners, photographers, and schoolchildren that appear and disappear in the gardens here. They're like fairies in baggy jumpers.

                                                 

Friday night, Maureen and I went to the Queen’s film theatre to see a rather dramatic documentary about an Irish dance competition. It was fun. I know that dance is a lot of work, and that a lot of people never have the chance, physically or financially, to do it at a professional level (me among them), but I didn’t realize just how extreme Irish dance – any kind of dance, once it becomes competitive – can be. I’ll stick to being an amateur, go raibh maith agaibh!  

And It Just Keeps On Ending...

I've now completed my second exam, and yes, I'm still terrified. I've never seriously doubted my ability to pass a class to this extent... I seriously fear for my future. It doesn't help that I've found it impossible to look for work from across the Atlantic, so I don't know what I'm going to do when I get home this summer. It's a pity - I was doing so well, health-wise, in control of my diet, but now the stress-sickness has hit again. I've only been able to eat one meal today. But it hasn't stopped me from "experiencing life abroad," or however you'd put it: I did have Sunday lunch and tea at a kind church member's house (more about Sunday later! It was exciting - there was more than tea) which - though I spent a few hours not studying - is probably the only reason I haven't had a major breakdown during exam week, and why I haven't spent the equivalent amount of time staring at the wall and having small, silent panic attacks.

All I'm praying for, for myself, is that I pass my classes with high enough grades to keep my GPA at scholarship level. If I can graduate college, it will be a miracle, and it will prove to me once and for all that I can do anything. If I drop out of college, I don't know what will happen. I don't know what will happen inside my head.

Anyway... I'll end there. You're all probably sick of being my accidental therapists!

Holy Week & Easter

* Very enthusiastically, as will children anywhere when encouraged to make noise.

** She even brought out a blanket. It was like watching an infomercial. Are all those knitting needles slowing you down? Try a little crochet, and watch yourself create a baby blanket in a single night!

“By the time you read this, Easter will be past. Or will it? ... what we have is a seven week season of Easter... I think this is very important. The Christian faith is an Easter faith. Resurrection is central: no resurrection, no faith. It’s as simple as that... for a Christian, it’s even more important to celebrate it with worship and rejoicing than Christmas!... The usual interpretation of Easter is that it means you go to heaven when you die. It’s not my interpretation... It sounds dreadfully boring – all that harp-playing and Philly cream cheese? No thanks... Read the Bible, and you’ll soon discover that what the Lord’s resurrection leads to is altogether far richer and more exciting than that. It’s all about the renewal and transformation of creation itself...”

- Rev. Ron Elsdon

Easter in Northern Ireland... a bit late, I know. But it’s worth its own entry. The first week of break was Holy Week, and I spent most of it in church. I’m going to try and remember everything I did - so if this sounds like a list, I’m sorry. It was a lot to take in, and I’m still working through it in my head, even if I organize my photos and update my blog. But hey – it’s still Easter! And these two churches have kept me thinking, talking (and, often, fed) for nearly six months, so I’m going to talk about them as much as possible.

Holy Week began with Palm Sunday at St. Bart’s, where the children sang in front of the congregation.

In case I haven’t linked it before, this is St. Bart’s: http://www.stbartholomew.connor.anglican.org/wordpress/  



Where I sit on Sunday mornings.

Of course, this being Ulster, what they sang* sounded like “Shote hosannas tae ower Keng.” I still love the accents here... and you should read the above quote in a very proper English accent, as it’s a quote from the English rector’s letter in the parish magazine.

That night I went to Fisherwick. I was having trouble singing myself, because of being sick. But it was wonderful. The church was really throwing itself into the season, with a three-day prayer vigil – to pray for people to hear the word of God and make time for it in their lives - an art exhibit, and services of different kinds every night of the week. Trying, like Ron’s letter, to get people to really think about Easter as more than a day you just go to church on Sunday for.

This is Fisherwick: http://www.fisherwick.net/  

Monday, I probably should’ve studied, or cleaned my room, or done something otherwise productive. So I went to the zoo – more on that later. Let’s just say I was the only student who knew what a prairie dog was.

Wednesday I came in for the morning at Fisherwick, and found the place empty. There was tea and biscuits, and pictures and sculptures by local artists all arranged around the church. So I laid on the floor and drank tea, and thought and prayed and watched the sun shine in through the angels’ wings in the stained-glass windows. It was a beautiful day.

In the afternoon, I went hiking. In Belfast? Yes. I took a bus to Cavehill Country Park, and climbed to McArt’s Fort – that’s the bit known as “Napoleon’s Nose,” which supposedly inspired Swift to write about Gulliver on Lilliput. For people where I’m from – think Stony Man. I wasn’t tall enough, though, to climb into the cave on the hill. But it was fun. Afterwards I went to The Patchwork Goose, where you could hardly walk for heaps of yarn and fabric and hoops and this and that, and where I bought sock yarn, for knitting... feeling a little awkward as the shop lady had just spent a good five minutes expounding upon the wonders of crochet** at some other customers.

Pictures later.

Wednesday night was Fisherwick’s Taizé-style worship service. The choir did most of the singing, and the music was recorded, but I still knew half the songs by heart, including “Jesus, Remember Me” and “Bless the Lord, My Soul.” The minister had arranged them chronologically – with a song for each part of Holy Week. I’d never heard that done before, and it was beautiful.

On Thursday. Maundy Thursday, I brought my knitting with me and went to sit in the church. For the four hundredth anniversary of the King James Bible, they’d gotten people to read aloud during mornings and afternoons of the whole three days. I heard part of Isaiah, and Luke and Acts.

To people unfamiliar with the Gospels: Luke is the one that’s very narrative, includes women, the Magnificat, the shepherds, and “Blessed are the poor.” The author of Luke also wrote Acts, or the Acts of the Apostles, which tells what everybody else did after Jesus left – the conversion of St. Paul, and the stoning of St. Stephen, and so on. There’s a lot of emphasis on salvation being for all people. I like Luke. And it was really neat hearing it all read aloud, start to finish. You hear things that your eyes might skip over on the page.

Thursday night was the “Contemporary Praise” service.

Good Friday began with the early service at Fisherwick. It was a Communion service, and we sang “There is a Green Hill,” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” both of which I must’ve heard and sung a dozen times that week.

St. Bart’s had a short children’s service, later, followed by tea and biscuits while the children did crafts, making little paper baskets and things like that. This was followed by a quiet hour in the church.

That night was their Tenebrae service. That means... oh, here’s an explanation: http://www.kencollins.com/question-39.htm

Afterwards I went back to Fisherwick, where the choir sang Compline, and I sat and talked with people until the place went dark for the final night of the vigil.

Saturday morning, was breakfast at Fisherwick, served by the group of people going on a mission trip this summer, who’d spent the night up in the church. It was a full Ulster fry and it was wonderful.

But by then I was pretty much in shock, and I went and spent the day in my room, with a note on my door telling people not to talk to me till after Easter.

Easter Sunday!

Sunday morning was another breakfast – at St. Bart’s. It’s apparently a joke in NI that the only thing an Ulsterman can cook is a fry, so the men’s group does a huge fry breakfast every Easter morning, with nice tables set up and everyone invited. I sat next to Joan, an elderly lady who told me about her travels, teaching English in other countries, and how she never really learned to cook well because of the wartime rationing she grew up with.

You can tell it’s Easter when the church turns white, and when the clergy are standing around grinning like mad and handing out Cadbury cream eggs.

The Elsdons invited me to lunch at the rectory, along with a nice lady named Leslie, who I found out has guinea pigs and a good sense of humour. As before, Ron led me into the living room (or whatever they call it here), where I sat while he made tea. Then he came in, and Janice came in – and then left to change into shoes that weren’t killing her, having run about all week – and then Leslie came, with a bag of wine, and we all had tea and coffee and biscuits.

The rectory coffee table.

Tea went something like this:

"So," Leslie joked, "When's the follow-up post-Easter service?"

"Tonight, led by Leslie, readings by Meghan," retorted Janice, before drinking several cups of coffee.

“Ah, and his lordship has chosen to grace us with his presence,” said Ron, as the cat came in. Herbie climbed between the laps of Ron and Leslie, before he got bored with us and went to loll on his chair behind the sofa.

The rectory cat - Herbie, who is quite spoiled, and enjoying it immensely.

Both Janice and Ron were exhausted after Holy Week, and were glad to relax. We talked about travel and books and the silliness of the royal wedding. We had a lovely big lunch, with wine, and rhubarb crumble for dessert.

I came back later on for the Easter carols service, after which I went home, watched Godspell, ate cookies, cried for two hours, and slept.

Since it’s late, and I’m tired - I’ll stop there. Happy Easter, all!



One of the kitchens at 7 College Gardens, decorated for the season.

Warning: Depressing Filler Post

The week back from Galway, I promptly fell apart and had a major breakdown. I'd been fighting it off over the week, but without distractions I finally collapsed. I still feel like it's Sunday (that's how slow I am), I've been crying every day, every night, unable to concentrate on anything. I can't think, I can't talk, I can't read, I can't do any work whatsoever. The longest I've been able to stay on one idea is watching stupid comedy shows onine. I mean, this is difficult, right here, and this isn't even a real entry.

So... it's very bad. Thank you to those who have e-mailed me, or messaged me on Facebook. If my mother is reading this: you may have to take me to a doctor, if you want to take me anywhere, when I get home... a proper doctor. This is neither normal nor healthy, and if I hear another counsellor tell me "You're stressed" I'm going to scream in made-up languages and throw up all over them, and see what they think of that.

I said I would update my blog with actual things, but that may take a while yet. I have to somehow write a paper this weekend, and that's bad enough, even without exams coming up. I don't know if I will pass my exams. I may not have earned a passing grade on my last paper (I don't know). I don't know if my GPA will survive if I fail a class, and I don't know who to ask or what to do. If you know, or can help me, please do. Please.

I have to stop typing now because I'm crying again and I'm in the library.

Warning: Filler Post

You know those little things that need to get done, but never do? I'm trying to slog through them today, and relax my mind between Good Friday and Easter Sunday... and one of those things, I hope, will be updating this blog.

Another is when and where to get on and off the bus this Monday. Getting from Belfast to Galway is more difficult than it sounds. And I don't do well  with difficulty.... though, of course, it depends on the situation. At this moment, I'm studying Irish grammar while watching Japanese cartoons subbed in Spanish.

And knitting a sock. This is relaxation, see.

EDIT: Or not. I'm only getting internet with my window open, and it's too cold to type for long periods of time *sigh* so... Easter, next week?

Food, Glorious Food

It just occurred to me that it's been a while since I talked about eating something weird.

I shall now attempt to make up for this slovenly behaviour.

This is dulse:

Image from http://www.dulseonline.co.uk/dulse/

Dulse is a type of edible seaweed, that you can buy in little baggies from the Whitten's - the local fruit & veg shop. It tastes exactly like you'd expect seaweed to taste - very, very strongly of the sea.

This is spaghetti with mushrooms, cheese, and dulse:

For those of us who appreciate the delicately interwoven flavours of seawater and fungus. Mmm!

Then there are these, not so weird:

An unexpected sight for people with a TV-view of the UK. But, yes, they do have cookies here. They're what we in the States would call chocolate-chip cookies. Here, that term is redundant.

And then:

Yes. I did find noodles in a packet. I can always find noodles in a packet. Apparently, they're made in Singapore, and the flavour packets have pictures of the animals they're supposed to taste like, just in case you can't read any of the several languages splattered on the package.

Time for dinner!

You Can't Get There From Here

It's like this: unionism, in favour of the union; nationalism, in favour of an all-island republic. Loyalism, violent unionism; republicanism, violent nationalism. Troubles: baaad. Lots of violence. Recent violence. Allied with Christian denomination: unionists, Protestant; nationalists, Catholic.

These are extreme generalizations, yes. But the associations are true enough to segregate a good portion of Belfast. I was recently told that, even on prosperous mixed streets like Malone, people avoid problems by just ignoring each others' existance, and that's peace.

The best-known examples, though, of clear territorial differences are places like Sandy Row and the Falls Road.

Last week, I attempted to walk to the Falls via Sandy Row. Did not work. Bad idea.

I'm sure the people there are quite nice. But... there are still large murals of gunmen on the walls, and red, white and blue curbs, and UVF graffiti and so on. I got lost by a roundabout, and had to go back. And let's just say that pigs would have to grow quite a few wings before I'd go up to somebody on "Loyalist Sandy Row" and ask for directions to the Falls.

These are pretty old by now... now we have election posters.

That's how you can tell whether you're in a Protestant or Catholic area: the posters. The two sides aren't vying with each other. The parliament is set up in a way that makes it impossible... to pass legislation, it has to be passed by a majority of both parties. So the various nationalist parties are against each other, and ditto for the unionists. This means that they only put posters up in their own streets, because they know it'd be pointless in the others' streets.

Just look up the nearest lamppost. DUP and UUP stuck repeatedly on top of each other? You're on a Protestant/unionist street. Sinn Féin vs. the SDLP? Catholic/nationalist. Alliance? Oh, poor Alliance... probably Catholic.

Anyway, the librarian just told me they're closing, so... bye for now! Pictures from the Falls sometime in the future! I did manage to find it in the end!