the lowdown.

Hello from Ireland.
I really need to get better at this whole "keeping up with the blog" jazz, but here is the low down, the 411, the happenins of the past few days. ENJOY (:

DAY 8-DAY 10

This week I had to remind myself of the definition of class. Having no classes from May 4-September 11 might be a big part of the issue. How classes work here is a little different than at home. Here, I only have classes Monday-Thursday. I only have one class everyday but one day I have two (5 classes/15 hours total). I am taking Irish Art and Culture, Philosophy, Theology, Capstone: Christian Life, as well as Irish Economics. I really enjoyed all of them with the exception of Economics. I don't think I could have been much more bored to be honest. Our classes our three hours long since we only have them once a week. Three hours is a long time... thank goodness for tea and Digestive breaks halfway through each class! Digestives are popular cookies here... so good. Other than constantly eating and responding to the side effects of drinking an abundance of tea, time this week was spent watching movies, playing games, and having dances parties... oh and of course doing a "wee" bit of homework.

DAY 11.

Each Friday, we get to visit a site in Ireland that has something to do with what we are talking about in one of our classes. This week we went to both the Catholic and Protestant St. Patricks Cathedrals as well as Navan Fort. St. Patricks was very impressive both inside and out. The details were fascinating. It almost felt as if no minor detail had gone without extreme thought and conversation. It is so cool to see how God's house can look so different throughout the world as well as for different denominations.

After visiting St Patricks (Catholic) we went to St Patricks (Protestant) which wasn't as big, but was older. The architecture was mostly original which I thought was really cool. One of the highlights of my day came from being in this Cathedral... the aisle. The architect who designed the Cathedral purposefully built the aisle crocked. The reason behind this was to put emphasis on Jesus' head falling to the side when he was dying on the cross. It really was a great reminder of the pain and blood that Christ shed so that we could have forgiveness and faith in Him. What a cool reminder of His sacrifice!!

The last place we went on Friday was the Navan Fort. The whole idea behind the place was to give tourists an idea of what life would have been like if we would have lived in Ireland years ago. Sounds cool right?! Well, here's the thing... it sounds better than it actually is. The whole time I was there I felt like I was gradually shriveling up from boredom. Dramatic I know. You know a place is bad when Rick Steves, king  of travel, doesn't even include the place in his book. It wasn't even in the "if you have extra time and you absolutely need something else to do" section... Not promising. What made the experience worse was the video about war gods at the end of the "learning experience." The only good thing that came out of the experience was a fantastic view of the Irish countryside. I guess it wasn't completely a waste of time but it was pretty dang close. Moral of the story: if Rick Steves doesn't put something in his book, there is probably a good reason.

DAY 12.

Saturday was a beautiful day... Not only did we get to sleep in and be lazy, but we spent part of our morning watching classic Disney movies. It was fantastic. Honestly, as much as I would like to say that it was a super eventful day, it just wasn't.

DAY 13.

Church this week was fantastic. I really appreciated and enjoyed everything about the way the service was conducted. The sermon was good and to the point, the music was a great combination of both hymns as well as contemporary music, and the church just had a cool feel all together. It is such a great feeling to be welcomed into different churches each week by these congregations! After church, we went to Hadden's (he is one of our professors as well as principle-like figure here) church where his wife had prepared a great lunch for us! When we got to the manor, my roomies and I had "roomie nap" time and after dinner the whole house watched She's the Man. It was a good day.

DAY 14-DAY 16

During these days I mainly went to class and hung out in the manor. We have been watching movies almost every night and have been playing lots of games. We have been joking that it is basically a three month long sleepover. Haha! Last night we all (even the boys) spent the night figuring out our life's through games of M.A.S.H. I have been really enjoying each and every person on the trip. We have such a great group of people! It has been so fun to see how 25 completely different personalities can blend together in such a cool way... It is defiantly such a God thing! We moved the tables to be connected into one, we have dance parties in the kitchen as we wash dishes, and we constantly have pointless conversations until we all look at the clock and force ourselves to go to bed... It is almost like we are a big family. It is such a blessing that I have been given the opportunity to get to know each and every one of these people wonderful people and I cant wait to get to know them even better these next few months! Oh and this week was also our second week of classes... I forgot about those. Haha.

We have been trying out Irish restaurants lately... Nando's is definitely a new favorite. Today, we tried White's Tavern which is the oldest tavern in Belfast. They had traditional Irish food. It was absolutely fantastic. I left with a happy tummy!

Well that is enough of me blabbering for now... Hope everyone is having a great week! Miss you all!

P.S. I have been adding pictures on Facebook that y'all should check out and if you find yourself bored at any point I love receiving letters (: