Look Mom I'm in Northern Ireland!

 Hey guys! Our group of thirteen students (plus our professor Don) landed in Dublin, Ireland at 5 am on Tuesday the fourteenth. We were POOPED to say the least, but we were encouraged to stay awake on the bus ride to Belfast. We stayed awake, but at a cost. We arrived at the hotel to drop our bags, then we went to find lunch. One might be frightened to explore a new city with a bunch of hungry, unfamiliar people who hadn't slept in hours. I know I was. But the experience turned out to be a positive because we began to break down those barriers of unfamiliarity by showing our true selves. After lunch, we spent a good two hours fighting sleep in the Etap Hotel lobby. After we reached our 24th hour of being awake, we went ahead and sauntered down the street to our black taxi tour.

    The black taxi tour consisted of multiple stops lead by one man who grew up Protestant and another man who grew up Catholic. The tours covered the troubles, which we learned was mislabeled because it may have been more accurately described as a civil war. We would drive to a location, stop, walk around, and then hear about specific events that occurred in the community between the '60s and the '90s as a part of the troubles. We made a stop at the peace wall and all signed our names and left little notes and drawings. It was odd to behold because the wall was so vibrant and filled with color, and it represented something so dark and tumultuous.

    After the tour, we fought sleep to enjoy our welcome dinner. If I had grown up with Irish stew, that welcome dinner would have been the best thing in the entire world. However, I believe there's a window of time in which comfort food is comforting, and I missed that window by a few years. The stew was nice, but after that long day, all I wanted was my mom's spaghetti. Luckily, the chocolate cake was absolutely scrumptious! We finished eating, and I welcomed sleep in my little top bunk at the Etap.