On Sunday, I woke up to the most beautiful Irish day I've had yet. It was so warm and bright and it just called for a walk. So I took my usual route down by the sea, but stopped by Isobel and Deryk's to pick up a map they had offered me (and I forgot) when I was at their place for supper last. Isobel was at church, but I had a really nice coffee with Deryk. Back at the house, everyone except Lennart (because his Dad was here from Germany for a visit) got ready to leave for a CASA Social. These are events where all the little CASA groups come together for a big get-together which involves Mass, eating, and dancing...who could ask for more, really? They are held in hotel conference rooms and all of the members in attendance (about 50 of them at this one) are paired up with people who volunteer with the CASA organisation. It was a really fun afternoon where I met a lot of people, forgot a lot of names, and danced for a very long time. Claire, Erin, Kaitlyn and I went into Dublin city centre after the social and listened to some traditional Irish bands at 2 of their favorite pubs. It was fun, and good to get out.
On Monday , Lisa, Claire and I got on a bus for Belfast. It was great to get out of the city and see the countryside on the way up to Belfast. We went on a Black Cab Tour of the city where we were shown the murals and places of political and religious importance from the Troubles, where the peak of the violence occured in the 70's and 80's. I was particularly interested in the actions Catholic prisoners took to rally for obtaining 'political prisoner' status. All prisoners were required to wear prison clothes, but in an effort to act against this, Catholic prisoners wore only the blanket from their cells. They took more actions of protest during their time in prison, but it eventually led to hunger strikes where many political prisoners died as a result of this. Our cab driver was very obviously Catholic and still harbored resentment for the way Catholics were treated by the Protestants/British which in turn gave us quite a one-sided depiction of the major events of the time. But it was interesting to see how deep that anger was and understandable that having something like religion (that is more of a culture/identity here) threatened would lead you to hold onto it, all the more. Below is a picture of the Peace Wall the we signed.
That first night was spent walking around, seeing some sights, having a drink at the oldest pub in Belfast (we questioned the validity of that claim) and returning to the hostel to watch a movie.
On Tuesday, Claire and I went on a *free* bus tour that our hostel organizes that took us to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, Giant's Causeway, and Derry. The Giant's Causeway was for sure a highlight. It was incredibly gorgeous and just very 'Irish.'
The rope bridge was nice, but the scenery was much nicer. Claire and I chose to forego the fee to actually walk on the bridge, and instead just took pictures of our walk down to it.
Derry is a completely walled city, but we stopped there at the end of the day and so Claire and I took a picture of it to prove we had in fact been there and then retreated to warmer surroundings (a mall) to kill time. There was a couple that was also on the van ride with us who got engaged at the Causeway which was exciting and really cute to see them on the ride back to Belfast all lovey...
That evening we went to the opening night of 'Stomp' which at first, I was not that excited about, but agreed to go because we got incredibly cheap tickets and I pretty much had nothing better to do. It was really cool, and worth the 10 pounds we paid to go.
We woke up to rain on Wednesday, met Lisa at the Botanic Gardens, walked around the Ulster Museum for a while and decided to get on a bus to head back to Dublin. Lisa stayed because she had some more things she wanted to see. All in all, the trip was really great. It was nice to come home early though and have the house to ourselves for a bit.
We had group prep on Thursday and then the members arrived on Friday. I was paired with a really delightful lady named Julie. She had a very similar nature to Jane, my favorite ADV camper of all time. She was very unassuming, gentle, kind, sweet and affectionate. Julie has an intellectual disability and was in a wheelchair but could transfer semi-independently. We went out to the movies and shopping on Saturday and I loved spending that one-on-one time with her. She never really spends money on herself; instead she usually buys things for her many nieces and nephews. But we talked about it and decided to buy a few things for just her. We were trying on shirts in the changeroom, and she was so happy. I think she felt really special and I loved that I could be there to see that happiness. We had the big reveal back at the house where she donned her two new shirts for dinner and recieved many compliments for how great she looked. Julie also loved to sing (with some cajoling) and we were treated to hearing 'Blanket on the Ground' by Tammy Wynette which is a pretty scandalous song for this little lady to be singing! It was a great weekend and I felt so lucky to have gotten to know Julie.
I hope you are all doing well. Keep in touch!
Kate
