Study Abroad, Day 7 & 8

Time to catch on my blog! I can only get one photo to attach (our internet is being slow), but I can at least tell you about whats going on! Yesterday we had a lecture by Jon McCourt, who talked about his experience during the Troubles. He lived in Derry where some of the fighting began in the late 60s. He was a student at the time & took part in a peaceful civil rights protest that quickly became violent when the police arrived. This started a long conflict between some Derry citizens & the police. Jon was present for Bloody Sunday, which occurred on….. He actually took us on a walking tour of Derry & showed us where some of the events occurred. Jon then let us look at actual photographs of Bloody Sunday & indicated exactly where it happened in the area. It was very moving to experience. I truly appreciated meeting Jon & being able to listen to him.

After the tour of Derry, we headed to a Catholic church & attended Mass. It was a very different experience for me. At the end of Mass, we walked to a restaurant & ate some dinner. They had vegetarian sausage, which was delicious! After dinner, we stopped by Inch House, & then headed to a pub to listen to some Irish music. It was a lot of fun. We stayed until 12:30am, headed back home, & crashed.

Today we got up, got ready, & hit the bus. Our first stop was Dunluce Castle. It was beautiful. It was perched right on the coast & we were able to walk around it. I took a ton of photos. Next we headed to Giant’s Causeway. It was also amazing! It was a lot of fun to climb on the rocks even though I did trip once. It was really rainy, so they were all very wet. Which, of course, translates to slippery. We spent a bit of time there, & then headed to the Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge. It is a rope bridge built back in the day that fishermen used. It was quite the walk to get to it, & then we walked across it & got a great view of the cliffs.

It was a very long day. It rained pretty lightly all day but when we walked to the bridge, it started raining harder so we were all soaked. That made the bus ride home pretty miserable. We made it to Inch House at about 7pm & ate dinner. I took a shower after that, which was amazing. I feel much better. But it is nearly 11pm, so I best head to bed. We’ve got a bit of an early start tomorrow. Should be another great day!