Back together again...Dublin and the border for a week!

So I realize that I haven't blogged in a while, but thats just cause I didn't have internet access in Dublin and well the last week in Derry just went by all too fast!

My last week in Derry was amazing! I helped paint a wall mural, went out to a farewell/thank you dinner with my coworkers and had one last night out on the town with the derry crew! Leaving monday morning was actually kinda sad because all of a sudden we realized we had 2 1/2 weeks left, and that this amazing experience would soon be over. It didn't help that it was 8:30 in the morning and we had just carried all our stuff down three flights of stairs!

I really enjoyed my internship, particularly because of the people I got to work with! Everyone was so nice and I've learned so much! What impact this internship will have on me, I'm not quite sure, but it has definately been worthwhile!

From there we traveled down south, to the Republic of Ireland (Different country, language, currancy, etc.) where we spent a week! Other than the fact that it was ridiculously expensive (like everything was twice the price) it was amazing!! So pretty and yet very different from Northern Ireland, I mean walking around both Dublin and some of the smaller towns, the issue of religion wasn't really present, although that might have just been a result of living in Northern Ireland for the last two months!

This past week has included, meeting politicians, a literary pub crawl, visiting the guiness storehouse (and learning way too much about guiness) visiting an old jail, seeing a production of the producers(defintatly had an opening night jinx on it cause everything just went so wrong making it a much funnier play than I thought it would be! :)) and visiting the oldest monestary in Ireland! It was nice to have a day to do the tourist thing! For the record I got a complimentary guiness as part of the tour and managed to have five whole sips of it, before offering it up to the rest of the group! At least I can say I tried it and that i'm just really not a beer person!!

Now that I'm back in coleraine its time to buckle down and write three massive papers!! Actually doing work probably wont be that great but the topics are interesting and i suppose if I can sit down and get it done, then I can go out and enjoy the rest of my time here, so hopefully that will be good motivation for me!!

Oh and tonight we're all going back to the anchor...oh how we've missed it! It'll be nice to go back and get to go out and have fun with everyone! Plus now we won't be the only ones dancing making it just slightly less awkward!

Will put pictures up soon (I'll need another distraction soon!)
Katie :)

Holiday in SCOTLAND!!!

So this past week has pretty much been AMAZING!!! Here's a quick little recap:

(Last) Monday: Had weekly seminar in Belfast, which meant finally taking the 8:30 bus to meet everyone by 10:15, amazing bagle sandwiches, everyone singing happy birthday to me, me blushing and my first Reese's peanut butter cups in 2 months!

(Last) Tuesday: Got a cake and card from my supervisor...so sweet of her! Oh and I worked on a display board of the residential

Wednesday: Betsy and Eldon came!! Yay!! So exciting, they made pasta and we just sat and talked...it was so nice to see them!

Thursday: All of us went (including Betsy and Eldon) went out to dinner to celebrate Lindsey's 21st. Ironically it was the first time we'd all gone out to dinner here in Derry...hmm the food was really good, but the service was ridiculously slow. Eldon and Betsy caught the 12:45am bus back to dublin and while it was sad to see them go, it was amazing to get to just sit and chat with them!! :)

Friday: Left on the 8:45am bus to Belfast, where Lindsey and I caught the ferry over to Scotland!! It was like a mini-cruise ship aka amazing!! 4 or so hours later we were in Edinburgh!! It was love at first sight!! I mean what's not to love about a gorgous city, with nice accents, good food, and oh yeah a castle! Friday night we went out to a nice Italian restaurant, wandered around the city, and stumbled upon a ghost tour! It was pretty good, except I discovered I'm not a fan of walking around cemetaries at night! Afterwards I enjoyed a nice pint of strongbow (a beer thats like apple juice, and actually tastes good) ok only like half of it but still.

Saturday: We toured Edinburgh castle, which was huge! We had to wait in line for an hour, but it was well worth it!! We also just kinda explored. Good times! We tried to find a nice bar, but ended up just going to the one we got the free drink from on Friday.

Sunday: I went to Easter mass at what I think was an anglican church...not too sure! It was the first church I knew had an 11am mass, and knew where it was! Afterwards Lindsey went off and had a harry potter day, and I went to a starbucks and read Bridget Jones Diary before we met up again for a free walking tour of edinburgh! After our tour we got burgers at a place that had a 2 for 1 deal with our walking tour company!

Monday: Travelled back to Derry, finished reading Bridget Jones' Diary, had more Starbucks, got sick:(

Tuesday: Cleaned my room, slept in and was just really lazy, hopefully I'll feel a little better because I really don't want to be sick, especially for my last two weeks in Derry!

I think that's all for now!

Love + Miss y'all!!!

Katie :)

Europe, 21st bday, and some things in between!

So I haven't blogged in 2 weeks, partially because it's been a crazy two weeks, and partially because I'm lazy (as most of you know!) and have been procrastinating this! But here we go with a recap of the 2 weeks(I really hope this doesn't get too long):

Spring Break: AMAZING!!! (Well that was easy...next question) While in Rome we (Drea and I) did the tourist thing, touring the colossium, old roman ruins, vatican museum, St. Peter's Basilica, trevi fountain,etc. Pretty sure we lived off pizza and gelato for the three days we were there! Other than the lack of a warm shower at the hostel, and having a hard time finding the hostel in the first place, it was a really fun trip, and I'm glad I got to go back there, because I think I appreciate all the history and beauty a little more than I did senior year. As for Barcelona...it was so pretty! Not only did I get to use my spanish to find a second H+M on the same block, and to order food, but apparently I pass as spanish because some guy was trying to get me to do a survey about my job! Go figure! In Barcelona we spent most of the time with Becca, Lindsey, Ian and Ben (and a little bit with Alyssa and Jordan who joined us for the last two days! :)) eating, going on a bike tour of Barcelona (awesome experience and I didn't hit anyone, which is always a bonus!) and we spent an afternoon at the beach! Other than the obnoxious american college students there we had a good time, and I definately know the appeal of drinking on the beach...it's very relaxing! Oh and for some reason Hecua people are rubbing off on me because I read a book and a half on this trip! The first one being "He's Just not that into you!" Guilty pleasure yes, but it was actually pretty funny and a good read. I also started reading Che's Bolivian diary. I've developed some curiosity about che, and just kinda want to learn more about him!

In-between stuff: I'm starting to get more involved with some of the youth groups which is really fun! We had a residential (aka retreat) this weekend (yes I worked all day on my bday but it was well worth it, and its not like I was waiting 'til my bday to have a drink here!) Overall it went pretty well, but by the end of it on Sunday everyone was exhausted! It was really cool to not only get to know some of the youths better, but also to see how they interacted with one another!

Bday-ness: We celebrated my birthday on Sunday since I was gone all weekend, and it was perfect! Lindsey and Becca made delicious appatizers and this vegetable spaghetti dish, and there was two cakes: Banana and chocolate, and the chocolate one was in the shape of a duck!! It was too cute! We were going to go out, but we were all ridiculously tired, so we stayed in and played phase 1o! Oh and Justin sang happy birthday to me over skype because he felt bad he wasn't here! Today when we got to the buscentre in Belfast everyone was there to meet us and said happy bday to me which was just really sweet of them! They also sang happy bday in seminar today which was actually really funny! Overall it was a really good bday with great people, who in the past two months have gone from strangers to good friends...aww I really do love our little HECUA family!!!

This week: Because of the easter holiday the youth clubs are closing this week so that means no night work! Eek! Thats especially exciting because Betsy and Eldon are coming tomorrow and it means I can spend more time with them! Oh and Friday Lindsey and I are off to Scotland for Easter weekend! Don't worry mom, we're going to church on Sunday!

Ok I think thats all for now...this was shorter than I thought it would be!

With Love from Northern Ireland,

Katie :)

Quick update on my fabulous long weekend!

Hey everyone! I promise this will be kinda short seeing as how I have to go to work soon, but I just thought I'd write about my 4-day weekend, because it was pretty much amazing! Friday night we went out to the metro (we were going to go to a club, but it didn't open til 11 and so we stopped at metro for a drink and ended up just staying there!) for a little bit just to relax and have fun, but fully aware that we would have to be on a bus to donegal at 8am...or so we thought...

Unfortunately the belfast people missed their bus and so we didn't leave until 11 which we were all appreciative of!! Donegal was amazingly beautiful! We had sing-a-longs most of the way down and as part of that learned a good chunk of galway girl(which came in handy monday night)! Highlights include standing atop an old fortress with really strong winds, walking on the castle grounds in the national park, and dinner with nigel at our flat! After dinner we headed off to a going away party for one of sarah's coworkers and then went to bed early!

Sunday was a lazy kinda day, Sarah made delicious crepes, and then we did a little bit of shopping! After dinner we watched Hamlet 2 again cause Lindsey and Justin hadn't seen it yet and then went to bed because we had to leave by 8:30 for belfast the next morning!

Monday was a long but interesting day because we went to the U.S. Consulate and Stormont (NI Parliament) and talked with representatives from most of the major parties. It was really interesting and some of the representatives caused mixed emotions and reactions from the hecua group but I think that was probably a good thing. After we dropped off the belfast people we went to a little restaurant and had dinner before heading off to Ballycastle for the night! We ended up being able to stay at corrymela (a retreat and reconciliation center where justin is interning) and enjoyed both traditional irish and scotish music, and karaoke! Fun way to celebrate st. patty's day...between leading a bar in this little light of mine, and justin and Sarah's rendition of friends in low places it was perfect!

Tuesday we strolled along the beach and walked around ballycastle before taking a bus and a train home to derry! By that point I was exhausted and coming down with something so i just went to sleep! Yesterday I had to leave work early cause I was so sick but I'm hoping I'm really feeling ok enough to go into day! Wish me luck!

I'll write more and add pictures tomorrow before I leave for Rome and Barcelona!

With Love from Northern Ireland!
Katie

The Craic...(aka What's been going on...)

So of all the weeks to slack off on blogging this week probably wasn't the best to choose, but I was working a lot and the internet in the flat wasn't working most of the time so yeah...Anyways I didn't go to work on tuesday because my supervisor was sick which wasn't too bad except that i need to make up those hours now but oh well i figure it out. Tuesday night I went to meditation with the girls again and then we continued our tuesday tradition of following meditation up with going out for a drink. We got/shared a pitcher of a drink called frilly tutu-weird ordering it but it was really tasty! The irony of going to meditation then drinking isn't lost on any of us, and I think we're just finding peace in all sorts of ways...

Wednesday was somewhat uneventful just work, oh and a delicious family meal of stuffed tortelini and veggies. Oh and we play phase 10 which seems to be a new tradition...

Thursday I worked and while I was at the youth club I got a first hand look at the increased tension and ongoing conflict between kids in the fountain and kids from outside of it. It just made me realize how much different their lives were because as they were standing at a streetcorner arguing with other kids, I went back to the flat, made dinner and played phase 10. Quite a contrast... Oh and i booked my and drea's rooms for spring break so I don't have to sleep on a park bench!

Today started early as I had to be on a bus to dungiven at 8am (which is late considering i was going to take a 7am bus!) from there my supervisor picked me up and we headed to a conference in belfast! It actually wasn't too bad and I got some booklets that might be helpful in writing my research papers so that worked out well. Plus we stopped at a roadside restaurant and I had this delicious tomato, mozerella cheese, and suite onion wrap. And on my way home I stopped and got a carmel machiatto from the starbucks in the mall and it was the perfect friday afternoon snack! After doing a little window shopping I made it back to the flat ready to relax! Oh which reminds me to mention that due to recent events including the interception of a 300lb bomb (which I heard might have been on its way to derry/londonderry) there has definately been an increase in police visibility. Prior to the killings the only police i had seen were outside bars as they were closing, however they were checking cars when I got a ride home last night, and today as I walked back along strand rd. I passed three police officers. I should probably point out that unlike the cops in the U.S. being friendly is not part of their image. They are very serious looking as they stand there tightly gripping their m16s! And yet in a way its kinda comforting to know that they are out there keeping us safe.

As for this weekend...we'll probably go out tonight and tommorrow is our day in donegal! It should be fun, and Karen and ben are coming up from belfast for it so it'll be a little more than just the derry group!

Oh and in case anyone was wondering St. Patty's day is going to be low key because its normally crazy (and not necessarily in a good way) but with recent events and increased tension we all just want to celebrate in the flat!

Still loving N.I.!
Katie :)

P.S. More pictures coming soon!

Short and to the point?

So first off, as some of you may know there was an attack on an army base in Antrim, which resulted in the first soldier killed since 1997. It certainly came as a surprise to us, but to my understanding their had been rumors that dissident republicans were planning something so I suppose others might have been expecting something to happen. I'm not really scared of something happening, I mean I feel like I should take this incident as a reminder of where I am, but at the same time I don't really fear for my safety. Besides the fact that I usually get the sense that people can tell I'm american(or at least not from the UK) just by looking at me, in general everyone has been kind and welcoming so I'm just going to be aware of myself and my surroundings and continue living, working, and playing in Northern Ireland!

As for an update on this weekend...we went out Friday night to this bar/club where our ids were carefully checked, only to feel like we were the oldest ones there! To make things more awkward it felt like we were at a high school dance! Complete with guys and girls dancing in same-sex groups, that is when they were actually dancing because the girls were so decked out in dresses and heels that they found it hard to actually dance! Needless to say we went home early and watched Hamlet 2! Awesome movie and the perfect end to the night!

Saturday was just kind of a bummy day, we all slept in and did nothing which was really nice! Later we watched some movie about david bowie and iggy pop's relationship, it had christian bale and jonathon rhys myers need I say more!

Today my big accomplishment has been going to the grocery store! Except I didn't time it quite right and ended up walking up hill in wind and rain with a few too many groceries! It really wasn't that bad and I needed food so its all good I suppose. I think we're having another family dinner which are always fun, and then going out somewhere for a little bit because our seminar tomorrow is here in derry, and well why not go out!

I don't have to be me til Tuesday!

So last night was a bit of a long one, I got home at like 9 from work which is starting to get kinda interesting. Anyways after I ate some delicious pizza and procrastinated with the girls for a little bit, before we were interrupted by the world's longest fire alarm! It was probably 20-30 minutes before we could get back in. By that time I really needed to finish my paper which took a little longer than expected, but its all done and it's the weekend! So it's all good.

So there's a store in town called supertramp, and I pass it everyday on my way to work, and whenever we go into town, so for some reason I decided to stop in on my way home even though I was really tired and it was raining. The store has a few cute dresses (including one I bought in Coleraine!), cute t-shirts, and then it has a lot of neon clothes and tutu! Yes you read that right, tutues like the ones ballerinas usually wear. Not exactly what I would have expected from the name, but none the less interesting. Oh and when I was on the bus I found the piercing place in town, not to be confused with the tattoo parlor, but it's called something like "Ring in my thing" Oh I just keep noticing more and more about Derry and I kinda like it.

Oh and we're spending the weekend here in Derry now so I had to get a nap in before we go out tonight! I'm actually excited for it cause we've only been out once in Derry and even the people at St. Columb's Park house ask me where we go out and so far I've had to say well we just kinda stayed in and watched movies(Don't get me wrong last weekend was fun, but still)

Still Loving Northern Ireland and its ever changing weather!