If All Else Fails

I've finally come back to tell you about our Volunteer and Intern trip up north, though I think the incredible delay has taken the excitement out of it. Here goes!

The trip took place over the 6th to 8th of November. On the 6th we all piled into a couple of minibuses (aka vans) and headed to Belfast accompagnied by Sean who works on Iternational Programmes and who grew up in the north. When we got there we went to check into the Farset International and then had a very hurried lunch before going to Stormont for a meeting with Daithi Mckay. Stormont is the parliament building that now houses the Northern Ireland Assembly. Daithi McKay is a young Member of the Legislative Assembly, a member of the Sinn Fein, and went to the same high school (though at different times) as Sean. We had a really great discussion with him, though unfortunately we were unable to meet with someone a MLA from a unionist/loyalist background.

The view of Belfast from Stormont is amazing:

And here's a pic of Yukari, Majorie, Krystal, and Nadia in front of Stormont:

Next we started a tour of Belfast and the murals before going to meet some great people from a "housing project" located in a loyalist community. They are doing a lot of rebuilding within this community to make it a more desirable neighborhood as well as to get rid of and revamp a lot of the murals.

After this we headed out to Sean's favorite place to take people in city centre Belfast, La Sparanza. We had a great time and delicious food. Here's a pic of Ken, Courtney, and I at dinner.

Then we went to the historic Crown Pub for a few drinks. The woodwork in the pub is gorgeous and they have these great little booths. Here's a photo of us in one of them.

The morning of the 7th started out with a beautiful view of the city.

Then we went on to finish up our tour of Belfast and the murals. One place we stopped this morning was the International Wall which housed murals in support and protest of more worldly issues. This one being my personal "favorite":

From there we took a scenic tour of the coast while heading to Corrymeela. Along the way we stopped at Sean's mother's house for evelensies aka tea and biscuits. We also stopped at some ruins along the coast. Here we had some fun with pictures.

One of me along the coast:

A fun group picture:

A nice "senior photo" of me:

A great one of the van amongst the greenery:

And a picture of Gordon, the goat we met that apparently didn't want us to leave:

After this sidetrip we went to Corrmeela, which is basically the Glencree of the north, located right outside of Ballycastle. We met up with their vols and talked about the possibility of a volunteer exchange, as well as having dinner and enjoying everyone's company. It was a great time and really refreshing.

Of course we still had to drive to Derry/Londonderry that night. When got there we threw Sean a quick surprise birthday party! It was good and silly, and he had no idea, even though people had been collecting supplies throughout the day

The next morning we had a great tour of Derry/Londonderry, given by some local friends of the centre, both walking the city walls and driving around. We also visited the Museum of Free Derry. While walking around I encountered this in a shop window:

An interesting little bit After we finished seeing Stroke City, we headed back home, more relaxed and more informed, but in need of little sleep