Winding Down

Classes are winding down now. I had my last Travel Writing course yesterday. Today is the last meeting of Tuesday/Thursday courses, and on Monday and Tuesday of next week, there will be two more days of Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes. After that, there’s a reading day on Wednesday, which is a day between classes and finals for studying, then finals.

I’ve been fortunate to have some really great courses this semester. I’m really happy creatively with the work I’ve been doing in Intermediate Poetry. I’ve absolutely loved my Women in Biblical Tradition class, which has been consistently engaging and has challenged my own views. My Fiction of C.S. Lewis class has also been filled with interesting conversations, and I’m so glad I’ve finally read these books that I kept meaning to read. Music in Christian Rituals has been good as well, and, again, gave me a lot to mull over.  What’s neat for me about my religion classes is that they’re not simply subjects I pick up in the classroom and forget about later. They bleed into the rest of my life. Often our conversations in classes intersect with things I’m working through in my own head or the conversations I’m having with friends and people in my community.

Despite having a nice schedule this semester, I have to admit that I’m excited for it to end. I’ve been pretty stressed the past few weeks. While I’ve been doing well in my classes, I have felt overwhelmed a lot this semester. Thankfully, a blissful, homework-free state is visible in the horizon, though I have to tackle end-of-the-year assignments before I can get there.

Tomorrow my friend Karen and I are presenting a hymn that we wrote for our Music in Christian Rituals class. It was an overwhelming assignment to receive, but I’m excited about what we’ve accomplished. She composed it, and I wrote the lyrics. After the presentation is out of the way, we have to write a joint paper on the project.

I also have to write a final paper for Women in Biblical Tradition, revise my Travel Writing essay and do a self-critique on it, take a final for Fiction of C.S. Lewis, and turn in a chapbook of poetry for Intermediate Poetry.

Once these are done, I’ll be spending a relaxing week on campus before heading to a week of camp in New York with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapters from around Pennsylvania. Those weeks will be a great break between my schoolwork this semester and my 40-hour work week here in Selinsgrove this summer.

Before I close out what is probably final blog entry for the school year, I should probably reflect on the year as a whole, but right now, the task seems too difficult. This year has been strange, with ups and downs, split between two continents.  One semester was filled with exciting firsts and the challenges of adjusting to a new place, but also happened at a more relaxed pace.  This semester has been cozier and homier but also much more stressful.  Perhaps it will be easier to look back at this year after I’ve gotten a little more distance from it.

For now, I’m excited for this academic year to draw to a close—even if it brings me closer to the terrifying reality of being a college senior.

Porstewart, Northern Ireland

Portstewart, Northern Ireland

While taking trips with other people is great, I think there’s something special about taking a trip—even a trip of a few hours—by yourself.

Towards the end of my time abroad, I realized that I had never been to Portstewart, Northern Ireland. The town where I was studying in Northern Ireland, Coleraine, was very close to two coastal tourist towns, Portrush and Portstewart, where many students from the University of Ulster-Coleraine lived. Despite being nearby, I had only been to Portrush, not Portstewart.


Initially, I didn’t care all that much about missing out on Portstewart, but a friend encouraged me to go by emphasizing how beautiful it was. I had a free day so I decided to take the trek to Portstewart by myself. I didn’t ride the busses in Northern Ireland very often—at least, not the busses with local routes. I had used busses a lot for trips of a longer length, such as journeys to Belfast, but this trip by bus was about fifteen minutes. 


Cliff path

I knew I wanted to go to the promenade in Portstewart and then walk to the beach, but I wasn’t quite sure where the promenade was or when to get off the bus. At some point, I spotted a sign for the promenade and a minute or two later realized the bus was taking me away from the promenade instead of towards it. Thankfully, I noticed quickly enough that I was only walking about five more minutes than I would’ve had to otherwise. Though it was cold that day, I didn’t mind the walk. I had my digital camera with me and nothing distracting me from snapping tons of photographs.


At the promenade, I checked out a few of the shops.  I finally was able to find some gifts for Susquehanna friends at one of the stores.  They were little trinkets—a pretty key chain, a button my friend now has on her backpack, a cute mirror with a floral print on the back—and not particularly Irish, but I liked them a lot.





Short stretch of beach along the scenic walk

After wandering the promenade, I headed over to the cliff path. The cliff path took me by the former Dominican convent and gave me a great view of the water and of Portstewart. This cliff path turned into a scenic walk to the beach. It was a longer walk from the start of the cliff path to the beach than I expected. Though it was peaceful and the views were gorgeous, I was also quite cold, so I was excited when the beach was finally in sight. 

One downside of taking trips by yourself is not getting to be in your own photographs. I tried my best to take some pictures of myself with the ocean behind me, though doing so felt pretty ridiculous. 


It was getting dark as I made my way back to the promenade. When I checked the bus times at the bus stop, I had some time to spare before I had to head back to Coleraine. Portstewart has a famous ice cream place with some of the best ice cream in Northern Ireland. I felt like I should’ve taken advantage of it but I was way too cold to think about ice cream. Instead, I went into a café and enjoyed a warm, tasty Belgian waffle before catching the bus back to Coleraine.


Sad about walking back to town

Though I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed going to Portstewart with friends, it was also great to experience it by myself. The main attraction of Portstewart is its wonderful natural beauty, and I was able to enjoy that at my own pace. There is also a feeling of independence that comes with tackling one of the places to go on your To Do List by yourself. I was really glad that I ended up taking that friend’s advice.

Return and Reflect

A unique aspect of Susquehanna’s GO (Global Opportunities) program is the required reflection course after the cross-cultural experience. For my reflection course, I am taking Self Exploration through Travel Writing. During this class, every student writes a creative travel essay about their experience or an aspect of their experience.  The students in my course completed different programs. Many studied for a semester in London, but there are also people whose GO programs were in Costa Rica, South Africa, New York City, and Spain.

Last night, the draft of my travel writing essay was up for discussion. My essay attempted to explore the dangers and risk-taking that are involved with studying abroad and the ways in which the experience pushed me out of my comfort zone. I talked about traveling alone, a night out in Dublin, my experience at Northern Ireland’s biggest night club Kelly’s, the Halloween parade I attended in Derry-Londonderry, and the news that a car bomb had been found in a city I was planning on visiting the next day, among a few other things. Though I loved my study abroad experience, the essay focused in on some of those moments of anxiousness that came with it.

I do not consider myself a creative nonfiction writer and find it awkward to hear people talking about me and what happened in my life during a workshop, but it went better than I expected it had. The class and professor pushed me to convey more about how these experiences impacted me, especially my personal growth or development during my time abroad. Of course, to convey this I really have to think about it, which I'm not sure I’ve fully done before.

In some ways, my first intuition is to say that I didn’t change all that much, particularly in my attitude towards risk-taking, but I think that might be because I’m not giving the matter deep enough consideration. I need to set aside some time to think about the ways I’m different after that semester abroad and then explore those in the subsequent drafts.

I am also going to have to revisit some of the experiences I talked about more closely, since I mostly wrote in a reflective, summarization mode and people wanted to see it be more scene-like, with more dialogue. This is going to call for much more recall of detail than this initial draft did.

Despite how much work I have left to do on this essay, I think it has potential and I hope to submit it to next year’s Essay magazine. Essay is the on-campus literary magazine exclusively dedicated to creative nonfiction.  In addition to wanting a polished essay ready for submission by the end of the semester, I hope I can also have some answers to those questions about growth and change over my time abroad.

Nostalgia

At the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

To be honest, this semester has been pretty stressful. Going from the easy pace of a semester abroad to my regular, full Susquehanna schedule would have been hard enough, but I think this semester has been particularly busy.

I've been doing a lot of work since I've come back from Easter break--a travel writing essay, a term paper for my C.S. Lewis course, and a group presentation for Women in Biblical Tradition. In the midst of these late nights, I have felt particularly nostalgic my semester in Northern Ireland. I only had three courses, none of which started before noon. I had very little homework. I had time to just hang out, as well as time to travel. So often I was seeing beautiful things, and I was consistently surrounded by stunning landscapes.

The fact that I was working on my travel writing essay, a creative piece that is supposed to reflect on my time abroad, did not help matters at all in terms of nostalgia—especially when I was going through my photographs to help write up some descriptions.

Though I really miss that time abroad now, I should probably also remember how much I missed Susquehanna while I was abroad. I missed my friends most of all, but I also missed the familiarity. I missed not having to pay for printing and a campus that was sensibly organized. I even missed Susquehanna’s cafeteria.




Gorgeous sight in Republic of Ireland

It's really hard to ever be fully content in one place—or at least it is for me. On my Northern Irish adventure, some part of me wanted to be home, while here some part of me wants to go back to Northern Ireland for more adventures. Maybe the key here is that nothing is going to be perfect. My semester abroad was great, but I was homesick at times and it didn’t feel like the same ideal, never-want-to-leave experience many of my classmates have had. At the beginning of this semester, I remember people who studied away commenting how much they didn’t want to be back at Susquehanna and how sad it was to come home, while I was thrilled to be back at SU. Being back at SU is great in its own ways, but like almost everything else in life, it’s not fun all the time.

I hope that I will eventually be able to spend some time abroad after graduation. It certainly fuels the nostalgia that I had a little less than three months in Northern Ireland and I have no guarantee that I’ll ever make it out to Europe again! I’d love to spend some more time in Edinburgh or Dublin, two of the cities I visited. Maybe I should start viewing my Northern Ireland experience as if I am anticipating those future travels. 

A semester away doesn't have to be a finished story. It can be chapter one.


Edinburgh: Haste Ye Back!

Graveyard in Edinburgh

One of my favorite weekends when I was abroad was a trip I took with three friends from Susquehanna to Edinburgh, Scotland.  I may have arrived Friday morning and left early Sunday afternoon, but the city left such an impression on me.

My friends from SU were all studying in England, so they took a train to Edinburgh together. I bought the cheapest possible plane tickets from Belfast to Edinburgh. My flight left very early on Friday—departing at 7-something in the morning.  This wouldn’t have been such a problem if I lived in Belfast. However, since I was about two hours away from Belfast by bus, I didn’t see any affordable way I’d be able to get from Coleraine to the airport on time Friday morning. I figured the best plan of action would be to head into Belfast Thursday night, stay at a hostel, and then head to the airport early in the morning via an Airport Express bus.

This started off well enough. With the directions I printed out, I was able to easily walk from the Belfast bus station to the hostel. I checked in and went to KFC for a quick dinner, then headed back to the hostel Things took a turn for the worst when I was trapped in the hostel bathroom because the door was jammed. I had all of my stuff with me when I went to the bathroom, including the brochure listing the phone number of the hostel’s front desk. I called, and they were able to get the door open. Things didn’t get better from there. 

Edinburgh!

I tried to fall asleep early, but I’m a natural night owl and had a schedule that skewed towards staying up late while I was abroad since my classes didn’t start until noon. I accepted that I probably just wouldn’t be sleeping and decided to hang out in one of the hostel’s lounges until I had to leave for the airport.  Probably because I’m an inexperienced traveler, and also a very cautious person, I was planning on getting to the airport very early by catching a bus that left before 4 a.m. I thought I could stay on my laptop in the lounge until check-out (since check-out was 24 hours), but eventually, the person at the front desk told me I would have to leave the lounge. This wouldn’t have been a problem if, back in my room, I hadn’t dropped the key in the dark (someone had already been sleeping) and thought—quite foolishly—that I didn’t have to bother finding it since I didn’t plan on staying in my room.

I figured the easiest thing to do would be leaving the hostel and taking an earlier bus to the airport. I was making a big assumption that the bus station would still be open at night! When I got to the station, it was closed. If I wanted to take the next Airport Express bus, I would be waiting outside for quite some time, I wasn’t too keen on doing that by myself alone in Belfast.  There were various taxis on the street  where I’d be waiting. A driver offered to take me to the airport. I knew it was going to be expensive, but I ended up accepting the offer.  The thought of waiting at the bus station by myself made me feel too anxious.

By the time I got to the airport (much earlier than I had planned!), I felt completely stressed. I had ended up paying about thirty pounds for a one-way trip by taxi when the bus would’ve been about 14 pounds for both ways. I was also tired. I remember sitting in the airport and writing out a prayer on my laptop about how horrible and overwhelmed I was feeling.  This semester it’s easy to idealize all the time I spent traveling, since I can’t do it now, but traveling alone can be really draining. 

St. Giles Cathedral

Fortunately, I had such a great weekend at Edinburgh that it was worth all the turmoil! After a very short flight from Belfast to Edinburgh (less than 45 minutes), I arrived at the Edinburgh airport. As I left to catch a bus from the airport to the inner city, I passed through doors that said “Haste ye back,” the Scottish equivalent of “Come back soon.”  This was my first trip outside of Ireland, and that small detail helped impress on me the fact that I was in a different country. I wasn’t aware, then, how much this weekend would convince me to “haste… back” to Edinburgh if I could.

I took a bus to the train station where my friends would be arriving. I was so thrilled when I got a first glimpse of them with their bags. I hadn’t seen any of them since May, and it was so nice to see familiar faces in the midst of immersion into a completely new place.

Scott Monument

We were all impressed with the beauty of Edinburgh as we headed to our hostel. I’d personally never heard much about Edinburgh, except that it was the capital of Scotland, so I was surprised it was so gorgeous. That day we ended up seeing a fair amount of sights, such as the Scott Monument and Edinburgh Castle. We walked the Royal Mile which is the big tourist street in Edinburgh. One of my favorite things we saw on the Royal Mile was St. Giles Cathedral.  It was very beautiful, but unfortunately, I couldn’t take pictures inside. We also did some shopping. I have a peplum top that I bought for 8 pounds that will always remind me of Scotland!

Edinburgh Castle

Celtic cross outside Edinbugh Castle

We had told ourselves we were going to stay out late that night, but we were all too exhausted. We went to a pub called The Tron for dinner and had drinks with our meal, but headed back to the hostel pretty early. Most of us fell asleep around 11 p.m.!  I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t sleep at all prior to a trip. It also helped that the room in our hostel was so nice and toasty. We’d been able to get a great deal on a private room, just for the four of us.

Plaque about J.K. Rowling

The next day, we went on a literary tour of Edinburgh. The day before we had seen a sign advertising the tour, which met outside a museum about Scottish writers. All four of us were Creative Writing majors, so this was perfect. Nobody showed up for the tour besides us, but it was still a fun experience. The tour guide, an older Scottish writer, had a colorful personality and led us to parts of Edinburgh we wouldn’t have wandered to on our own, as he pointed out sights s like cafes where J.K. Rowling wrote and the school Arthur Conan Doyle attended. We also checked out the Museum of Childhood that day, which contained a lot of different toys and creepy dolls, and a free history museum.

Museum of Childhood

After much indecisive wandering, we ended up back at the Tron for dinner since we’d liked it the previous night. Afterwards, we intended to find another nearby pub to go to for drinks, but most of the pubs looked really crowded  or were a demographic that just wasn’t right for us. We ended up at the Tron for the third time that weekend. Edinburgh had been very cold while we were there—much colder than I expected—so that didn’t really help motivate us to explore as fully as we could. At one point there were even flurries!

It was sad having to leave the next day. There was definitely still so much to see in Edinburgh that I hadn’t seen, and of course, it was a bummer saying goodbye to my friends again. All in all, though, it was a great weekend and totally worth the stress to get there. Edinburgh made its mark as some place I would love to return to one day.

The Midpoint

When this post goes up, I’ll be home for Spring Break. It’s so strange to think that I’ve been back at Susquehanna for half of a semester already.

In some ways, it’s like I never left, while in others, there was definitely a lot of adjusting to do. For the most part, it’s been pretty easy to transition back into the social setting at Susquehanna. My friends are still my friends, and that wasn’t going to change because we were apart for one semester. Transitioning back into the work load has been a bit more difficult. I’m far from being organized and effective at time management typically, but this semester I’ve felt a bit more frazzled than semesters past. I think this is due to my study abroad semester being very laidback. Though being abroad had its stresses, I think Susquehanna is ultimately more stressful. There’s much more of a sense of this is the real world, and things, to some extent, seem to matter a lot more here. There are more issues to face, relationships to maintain, etc.

I’ve been a bit more nostalgic for my study abroad experience than I expected I would be.  I had a good time abroad but dealt with some home (or Susquehanna) sickness at times. By the time December 15^th, my date of departure, rolled around, I was excited to go home and be reunited with my family. I thought this meant I wouldn’t spend that much time missing Northern Ireland. Whenever I look through photographs, though, or write up a reflection post for this blog, I do want to go back. It’s still so surreal that I got a chance to be in Northern Ireland for a semester and to see everything that I did! It makes me want to travel again—a part of the reason why I’ve been thinking about applying to graduate school fellowships abroad.

For me, though, this nostalgia doesn’t outweigh my enjoyment of being back at Susquehanna with my closest friends. I am glad to be back at this school that I love, even if it wasn’t completely seamless to return to it.

As I go into the next half of the semester, I hope that I can feel a bit more on top-of-things than I have this first half. Even more than that, though, I hope that I can create some valuable memories. This is my last semester before I’m a senior in college! I’m sure next year will bring plenty of its own hectic-ness as I take on a capstone project, a Novel writing course, my senior portfolio, etc.—and oh yeah, trying to determine some sort of post-graduation plan. I am sure senior year will brings its own joys, but I definitely want to make the most of this time I have left in my junior year…and not think about how, when it comes to my Susquehanna education as a whole, I am way past the midpoint.

Rathlin Island

Ferry to Rathlin Island!

One of my favorite parts of studying abroad in Northern Ireland was the scenery. Though I got chances to take in the natural beauty all the time—sometimes simply by looking out my bedroom window—one of the best opportunities was on a day trip to Rathlin Island.

Rathlin Island is an island off of Northern Ireland’s North Antrim coast. Some of my flat-mates had gone on a trip there, and they had beautiful pictures. My two flat-mates from Hong Kong, Vicki and Tiffany, invited me to join them on their own trip to the island. To get there, we took a bus from our town, Coleraine, to the town of Ballycastle. Though I don’t think Coleraine and Ballycastle are all that far from each other, it was a lengthy bus ride. We had to hurry to find the ferry terminal in Ballycastle so we could make the ferry we wanted and have enough time to spend on the island. Riding that ferry reminded me of how much I don’t like boats! We spent about forty minutes on the ferry on the way there, and I felt fairly queasy. I’d taken some motion sickness medicine, though, which I’m sure helped me feel a lot better than I would have otherwise.

I was definitely relieved when we made it ashore! It was cold (most of my semester in Northern Ireland was), but a nice day at first, and the island looked gorgeous. We wandered over towards the tourist center and saw that it was closed for the season. That meant we were on our own to make the most of the day.

We ended up following the signs that pointed towards walking paths. One of us also had snagged a brochure that had a color-coded map of the walking trails. We ended up a bit confused along the way. The trail seemed to stop suddenly and didn't take us where the map said it would, and it took us much longer to reach the lighthouse we’d been heading towards than we had expected. The pathways were also much muddier than anticipated! My jeans and shoes were completely covered after the trip.

Even so, it was a great day of wandering through the island and marveling at nature. Included are a few of the photos from my trip. Hopefully you can see what I mean.

The highlight of the trip was definitely getting to see seals. Rathlin Island is known for its wildlife. It has a variety of wild birds, and if you come during the summer months, you can even see a puffin! Because it was the middle of autumn, though, we didn’t get a chance to see puffins. Seeing seals in the wild was more than enough for me. I hadn’t even been that interested in the seals, compared to my two flat-mates, but when we spotted them, I couldn’t stop myself from being thrilled. We stood by the rocks and watched them for a long time. I am pretty sure they were watching us too.

As we were returning the way we had come on the trail, a downpour started. We decided to cut our trip a bit short since we were getting soaked. Of course, as we made our way to the ferry, that was when the rain stopped. At least that gave us a chance to see a fantastic double rainbow.

Once the ferry dropped us off in Ballycastle, we had a little bit of time before the bus to Coleraine came. I remember being quite cold as we went into a small grocery store. I picked up a box of Ritz crackers to eat on the bus ride back to Coleraine. I was excited to get back to my flat, have dinner, get out of my muddy clothes, and be warm. As much as I was itching to get back to my flat, I was happy that I had made the trip to Rathlin Island. All we really did was walk around for a few hours, but in a place like that, walking around is more than enough.

I would love to be able to spend an extended period of time there, though. A Writer's Chair was erected on Rathlin Island to commemorate all the writers who have visited or spent time on the island. I can definitely see why it would attract writers. The views are inspiring, and it's definitely a get-away from everyday life. A week there to work on writing would be a fabulous retreat! Maybe I can make that a reality one day.

Walking Coleraine

Walking in Coleraine

I’ve written about the university where I studied last semester. I’ve elaborated on a trip to London and weekends in Belfast. What I haven’t spent enough time on is the town I studied itself—Coleraine, Northern Ireland.

It’s a large town near the Northern coast of Northern Ireland.  It’s a fairly wealthy area  and is about twenty minutes or so away from one of the most important Northern Ireland tourist attractions, the Giant’s Causeway. It is near two coastal towns, Portrush and Porstewart, where many students live and which have much more to do in terms of restaurants and night life.

This description is accurate, but not how I remember Coleraine. Perhaps it would be helpful to think back on this town in moments—in walks.

University of Ulster-Coleraine is not right in the town. Rather, there’s a bit of walk from campus to any place you want to go in town. My first foray off campus and into Coleraine was probably the first day I had arrived. My flat-mates and I needed to pick up some food, so we asked our RA where to find a grocery store. She told us the Spar was about a ten or fifteen minute walk. I had been thrown off by “the Spar.” What was a Spar? What kind of Northern Irish slang was that? It turned out to simply be the name of a popular convenience store.I remember now how quiet my flat-mates and I were. We were still getting used to each other, still thrown off by this new university and new country.



House in Coleraine

Thankfully for us, the walk was pretty straightforward—literally. A large part of the walk towards town from my on-campus accommodations was a long, straight road behind our lodgings. On that road, we passed a lot of houses. Something I noticed fairly early was that people hung their clothes to dry, which is still actually pretty shocking considering how often and sporadically it rains in Northern Ireland. Also on that road is the Coleraine Borough Council offices, which I’d visit with the other international students for a reception during International Students Orientation week.

Finally, we reached a large intersection and the Spar. The Spar is located in a little clump of stores (including the Winemark where we purchased  Apple Toffee Cider, the most delicious drink I’ve ever had in my life), but you have to go past it and walk a little longer to really reach the heart of town.  



St. Patrick's Church

The Spar is pretty small, so more intense food shopping required the Tesco, the big grocery store in town. During orientation, my American friend Zoe, my flat-mates from Hong Kong Vicky and Tiffany, and one or two other international students decided to venture to Tesco.We had just finished a tour of campus, so we asked our tour guide for directions. He had spoken quickly and vaguely. It probably didn’t help that we were far from experts on the Northern Irish accents yet. With some idea of where to go, we headed into town in search of the Tesco and had stop multiple times for directions Everyone was very friendly, even if they didn’t give the clearest directions. In typical fashion for Northern Ireland, it began raining on-and-off during our long, twisted trek to Tesco. I easily could classify it as  a miserable experience, but instead, it felt like an adventure. And it certainly felt like an accomplishment when we finally happened upon the Tesco.



Christmas!

Another complicated walk came soon after, when friends and I attempted to find the bus station in town (something we’d easily find later and be astounded that we hadn’t been able to do before). This resulted in a lot of wandering around Coleraine and snapping pictures of our surroundings—of yet another gorgeous church, for instance, or beautiful houses. There’s something very different about the buildings and homes in Northern Ireland. They seem older. Dare I say, cuter…thought  that may be a patronizing designation.

Countless walks followed these early ones. 

Walks to church on Sunday mornings—that beautiful Church of Ireland church towards the center of down, smack dab in the middle of the pedestrian shopping area. Walks back from Tesco, arms loaded with groceries. Walks to the bus station that had once eluded me, perhaps with a black backpack on my back as I headed for adventure. 



Of course, not every memory of the town is a memory of walking.

Mayor + penguin=dancing fun

Zoe and I went to the Christmas tree light-up ceremony in town, for instance. That memory involves lots of standing in the cold, sometimes retreating into stores to get warm. We stumbled upon the Gangam Style dance competition just a little too late, but both felt we would’ve been top contenders for the prize:  a two-night hotel stay in Belfast. We witnessed a short Christmas parade with children in colorful costumes and SpongeBob Squarepants and a man in a penguin costume. Santa Claus gave a short speech, and the Mayor of Coleraine, who we had met at the reception for international students, also spoke. Zoe and I both enjoyed what happened next, and I know I take it with me as one of my favorite mental images from the semester. In front of the stage, the Mayor danced happily to Christmas music with the penguin. After taking a little bit of time to admire the lights and get our picture taken in front of the big Christmas tree, we hurried back to campus with freezing hands. There we go—the memory goes back to those walks again.



River Bann

And now I think about my last walk around Coleraine. I had to go get souvenirs for my dad downtown and didn’t want to wait until it was dark, but camera in hand, I decided to take a little detour on a side street to look at some houses and walk by the River Bann. I was feeling very thoughtful about my study abroad experience, staring out at the river, a large rolling green hill in the distance that struck me as particularly Irish. This contemplative moment was interrupted by the realization I had stepped in dog poop. which was frustrating but struck me as  pretty funny timing.

After that, I proceeded into downtown Coleraine.  I wanted to savor every moment. Even though I was ready to go home by this point (I missed both my family and all my friends at Susquehanna), I still didn’t like the feeling that I might never go back to this place again. After I had finished shopping, I remember taking a photograph of the  town center area, sure some of the passerby thought I was taking their picture.

And then I walked away.

 Last walk through downtown Coleraine, Northern Ireland

That’s how most semester abroad experiences end, I guess. The locations we study are places we walk through and then walk away from. But the "walk away from" is something I can take knowing that I did, indeed, get to "walk through."

Belfast: Part 3



Mural in a Protestant neigh

The longest time I spent in Belfast was on a weekend trip, organized by my study abroad program. This trip was designed mostly with students studying in the Republic of Ireland in mind, so one of our days was spent exploring Northern Ireland through a bus drive along the coastal route and a visit to some of the main attractions on the coast.  

The time we did spend in Belfast, was great, my favorite part being the black taxi tour. The tour, guided by Northern Irish drivers, took us to some sights that illuminated the conflicts of The Troubles and its impact on Belfast. We saw both Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods and different murals and memorials pertaining to the conflicts. We also stopped at the Peace Wall, which was a wall constructed to separate Protestant and Catholic areas. It’s been signed by people all over the world, including celebrities and political figures such as Beyonce and Bill Clinton. Though I was aware of some of Northern Ireland’s tense history, it was still  sobering to hear about it from guides who lived in Belfast during the peak of violence there. Something I noticed that weekend in Belfast, from our black taxi tour guides and the guide who took us along the Northern Ireland coast, was a sense of pride in just how far Belfast has come. It’s now one of the top tourist destination cities in the world.



Memorial in a Catholic neighborhood

Later that same day, the director of IFSA Butler’s Ireland program led us on a bus tour around Belfast. One of the best parts of this tour was getting to stop outside of the Parliament building. It was not in the center of the city, so I doubt it was something I would have seen on my own.

During one of the evenings in Belfast, I went to the Belfast Christmas Market. This market was outside of Belfast City Hall and featured many international vendors. There were a lot of different foods and drinks from around the world. I treated myself to a delicious French baguette and a Belgian waffle and bought a wallet from London for my mom. The night we were there was also the night of the Christmas tree light-up. We weren’t sure what time the tree was being lit, and to our surprise, the lights went on just as we were leaving the market, which was nice to see.



Protestant neighborhood

I also got a bit of experience with Belfast night life that weekend. We went to one pub that I really liked. It was very crowded, but it had a great atmosphere anyway, mostly because of the live music. The singers performed  some songs that I didn’t know that I assume were from Northern Ireland or Ireland, as well as some folksy covers of current hits. There was also such a variety of people there in terms of ages. It felt very much like an authentic Irish pub.

 

Though I had a few other brief Belfast experiences (such as staying in a Belfast hostel before an early morning flight to Edinburgh), these blog entries have covered the main ones. I’ll be honest—Belfast, by appearance and atmosphere, did not capture my fancy with the immediacy that Dublin or Edinburg did, but I still think the city’s going to hold a warm place in my heart. It was my first European city, after all, and the capital of a country that I’ll always remember for being the first place--and a great place, at that--I ventured outside U.S. borders.

Belfast: Part 2

The Writer's Square

In the previous post, I mentioned my orientation in Belfast and how I didn’t exactly get the best taste of the city that I could have. Thankfully, I made another trip to Belfast fairly early on in the semester. Something really great about my schedule last semester was that I designed it so I had Fridays off to make traveling easier. My two flat mates from Hong Kong, Tiffany and Vicki, and my American friend, Zoe, also didn’t have class that Friday. We walked to the bus station in downtown Coleraine and bought tickets for the bus from Coleraine to Belfast.

On the bus, we looked through one of the pamphlets I had taken about Belfast from my first trip there, but we mostly went without any concrete plan. We were just going to see where the day took us! We weren’t even sure where to get off on the bus. I think one of my friends asked the driver who recommended a stop for us. We got out at what looked like a busy street for shopping.

Delicious lunch!

We wandered around for a while in search of someplace to eat lunch. I was so hungry after the long, slightly nauseating bus ride! I’ve come to realize, though, that finding a place everyone wants to eat is one of the most difficult parts of traveling with others. Eventually, we found a café that was appealing to all of us. I got a delicious baked potato with cheese and bacon. In the U.K., a baked potato is often a meal in itself, at least for lunch, whereas here I think it’s generally regarded as a side dish.




St. Anne's Cathedral

We spent a lot of time milling about stores in the big shopping area of Belfast, but we also visited some sights as well, my favorite being St. Anne’s Cathedral (also known as the Belfast Cathedral). Though I went into other cathedrals during my time abroad, I think this one was my favorite. Other cathedrals were very beautiful, but as my friends and I separated, wandering alone to look at these high ceilings, stained glass, crosses, etc., I had a sense of the profound at this one that is very hard to describe without being hokey. . I could have stayed there much longer, and I would have loved to have gone to a service there.



Pedestrian shopping area in Belfast

We kept seeing signs for the Writer’s Square, so we decided we wanted to check that out, especially because I’m a Creative Writing major and my friend Zoe is a poet. The Writer’s Square turned out to be a bit anti-climactic. It was just across from St. Anne’s Cathedral and was basically a square with quotes from writers on the ground. Most of the quotes were describing Belfast. All in all, not particularly exciting—but we were able to get a group picture there, which is probably one of my favorite photographs of the semester! We had a little bit of a funny moment there, as well, when we asked an older gentleman to take the picture. Someone first handed him their iPhone for the photograph. He handed it back asking if the photograph was good. None of our heads were in the picture. It was all from the shoulders down! He helped us out by taking another one for us, though.

Another underwhelming attraction was one of Belfast’s libraries. I had read about it in my Belfast brochure, which was designed for tourists, so we figured it might be interesting to visit. It just seemed like a very ordinary library. While we were there, though, we stopped at the café on the lower level for some drinks to quench our thirst. I got an apple juice box.

I think we may have had one more tourist destination in mind when we happened upon a wonderful used bookstore. The place was overstuffed! It was a bit difficult to go through the books, even, because on each shelf, there would be books behind the first row of books. Nonetheless, I bought two books of poetry there, one an anthology of female poets writing about faith and the other a collection by Lucille Clifton.


Used bookstore called "The Bookstore"

After scrambling to find a bathroom (generally, it seems much more difficult to find bathrooms in the U.K.; a lot of stores that I’d assume would have their own bathrooms don’t, and some you have to pay to use), we made our way back to the bus station and headed back to Coleraine. I was able to read all of the Lucille Clifton collection during that bus ride. Overall, the day served as a much more leisurely (and awake!) taste of Belfast. We hadn’t crammed in a bunch of activities (there are still plenty of things to do in Belfast, following this semester, that I would love to do), but we had been able to walk around and explore the city to some extent. And maybe more importantly, I got to have this adventure with the new friends I was making that semester.

These are a few more pictures of this outing. This was not, however, my last adventure in Belfast. More will be featured soon!