as of lately...

As of lately, we've been pretty busy.

Midsummer Nights Dream in the park was good. It wasn't too cold, which was good. It was interactive, and I ended up with an Actor on my lap, and men fencing about 2 feet in front of me. I've never seen it done quite like this before...in fact, our group decided that the director may have just been on drugs when directing this film, it was quite "unique"...and i'll leave it at that.

The Fireworks Saturday night were beautiful!! Since I was out of the country on the 4th of July, it's been awhile since i've seen fireworks. The show went on for a while, and there was a beautiful cool breeze. It was one of those moments where you think to yourself, "wow, i'm in belfast, northern ireland watching fireworks on halloween!" Seemed almost surreal.

The Belfast Giant's game was SO much fun!! I posted pictures of it on my website. We were in the thrid row, behind the opposing team. The atmosphere was so fun and everyone was singing Irish Hockey songs. Even though we lost, it was a very fun experience. Maybe i'll become a big hockey fan...maybe not... we'll see. :)

Sunday we decided to go to night church, so we took that day to work on a paper. These next three weeks i'll write over 60 pages in different papers. It'll be a little stressful, but I haven't had a whole lot of stress so far this semester, so I suppose it's about my turn for some. Church was great! probably one of the better ones i've been too in a while. Our prof. Hadden preached on pain, and how Christ's power is made perfect in our weakness. After church he and his wife fed us dinner, and then sat around and taught us Irish folk songs. So we sat around for a few hours singing and laughing. He told us to laugh more, and stress less. I like that way of thinking.

Oh here's a funny story...So Monday we had a free day after class, and we have 7 books to share between 16 of us for this huge art paper. So a few of us who wanted to get out of the house, and find our own books, headed off to take a bus to Belfast, to find some works in the Queens University Library. Well, after spending an hour on the bus, we got to Queens and spend about 2 hours walking up and down stairs trying to find the books we needed. then up and elevator to floor 8 then realizing it was wrong, and then back to floor 2 to take stairs to floor one to find again where we needed to be...and it went like that for quite some time. After failing at our endeavor, we took a long walk back to the bus station, to spend another hour on the bus back to Dundrum. It was a failed attempt, however it was fun to say we've explored the Queens library.

Tuesday we had Irish Lit. class, where we read Dancing at Lughnasa, a play set in Ireland in 1936. That evening we went to a famous Irish Journalist's house. He was one of the mail journalists during the time of the terrorism in Ireland, and was incredibly interested in our politics. The reason we went to his house, was because he had over 5 million pounds (8-10 million american dollars) of famous Irish art. He had art EVERYWHERE. Hung on every wall, propped against chairs, against his desk, Stacked up on the floor. I mean this man had more art than he knew where to put it all. it was crazy. But the art was beautiful and he was a really interesting character. He asked us a lot of questions about christianity, and JBU, and our prof.'s and everything.

Yesterday we went to C.S. Lewis' church, and saw a stained glass window he had purchased and dedicated to his father that was housed in the church. The stained glass window was by one of the artists I'm writing about in my paper, so i really enjoying getting to see one of his works. Then we ate at McDonalds...(which made me feel quite at home) and went to see a statue of the wardrobe. AFter taking pictures by the wardrobe, we got to drive by his Childhood home. (Called Little Lea). Then we headed home, where I went and bought some Belfast Telegraphs that covered the election.

It's been a pretty busy, but very fun week. We're headed to a castle this afternoon, and I'm sure I'll have more stories come early next week. Hope all is well with you all...

P.S. I've uploaded more pictures if you're interested...
-Blessings. -AP <><