Bart and the Vikings

Well, classes are in full swing and I’m really excited. I'm not quite in school mode since we're still doing a bit of traveling. I'm enjoying lectures, but not quite focused enough to really get into homework.

Here are the classes I’m taking, (I know you all are curious)

Political Philosophy
Irish Literature
Irish Art and Culture
Christian Life
Cross-cultural Communication (independent study)

We have been exploring towns nearby and Tuesday we made it to Belfast to walk around, do some exploring, and some shopping. A few girls on my team and I went to a restaurant called The Ground Floor Apartment. Our Server there was named Bart. Bart was a Polish guy; I would guess about 27 years old. He's been living in Belfast for 3 years now, studying to learn English. He started to share about the conflict in Northern Ireland when he discovered we were Americans. It was good to have a non-bias insiders view on the whole issue. He kept looking around like he was telling us a secret and when people would walk by he acted like he was taking our order. He said people don’t like it when we talk about the conflict. He was saying that he lives in a protestant neighborhood but since he’s polish people automatically assume he’s catholic. Even though he’s not. He said that he knew someone that got hit by a car on the Shankill Rd. (the main road of the protestants during the conflict) and broke his leg, and when people came by to help but then found out he was catholic they beat him up instead. He said this happened last week and as much as people claim there’s peace, there’s really not. He said it was much more of a "not-so-obvious" war. Bart broke my heart for the people of Ireland. It reminds me of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet because Bart said that if you ask a Catholic why they hate Protestants they would answer you, “Because I do.” And as cheesy as it is to compare Shakespeare to Irish History, the Capulet’s and Montague’s hated each other for generations and had no idea what the conflict was. Here, the conflict was based off national borders, but yet now it is so much deeper than that. The conflict is based off long-term hurts and wounds. It’s so sad to see a country that is missing so much the thing they need: They need to know the freedom of Forgiveness.

On Saturday we went to a Viking festival. It was hilarious. It reminded me of a renaissance festival, but of course with Vikings and a much smaller scale. There was one Viking names Andy who said he’s been doing this for 14 years for the love of it. The view from the park where the festival was held was absolutely beautiful! I think I spent more time looking at the view than at the “Viking fight.” After the Viking festival we came back and got cleaned up and went out for dinner to an Italian restaurant.

More places we’ve seen this week include: the Inch Abbey, a beautiful Abbey of ruins that we spent some time taking some pictures and such, Saul Church, St. Patrick’s memorial church the first Christian church in Ireland built around 432 AD. Tolleymore Forest a beautiful forest that we went hiking in for quite some time.

So, that’s a brief rundown and what’s going on right now. We’re headed to our houses on Monday and are continuing class daily along with fieldtrips to different sites occasionally. Hope all is going well at home and I’ll update more in a few days!


P.S. Here is a site you can check out some of my favorite pictures at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/andrasphotos/Ireland?pli=1#