Blogs from Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 68

I can't believe my semester here is almost over! I can't say it's gone by quickly because I've done quite a lot, but I don't think I'm ready to leave just yet! I am very much looking forward to seeing my family and friends again-- you don't realize just how much you've really missed them until you realize you'll soon have the chance to see them again-- but I also realize I will miss the friends I have made here! So, I think it will be hard to say good-bye and go back to a life where I can't hop on a plane and go to Copenhagen for the weekend, and it will be hard to leave some of these people knowing quite likely I'll never see some of them again. However, life goes on, and ... read more

Okay, so maybe I didn't really visit with him. But he (Seamus Heaney, the Nobel-Prize winning poet laureate of Ireland) had a poetry reading at a branch of UL in town yesterday, and I went to see him! He was so cool-- I'm really glad I went! Seeing him was particularly exciting because I'm taking a class on him and WB Yeats right now and have become quite familiar with his work. And how often do you get to see the literary greats you read about and study and write papers on? I mean, really! So, yesterday was quite an exciting and fulfilling day! I've also had a fairly eventful week, for me. Not that I've done anything particularly exciting, but it's been enjoyable. Sunday, Chris and I made dinner together (we've decided our meals are ... read more

25th April 2005 Dublin, Ireland. Yesterday was ideal. I've been a bit homesick since seeing those splendid, soaring coastlines in Portrush last weekend, and so after a bit of wandering and window-shopping I decided to go and check out Dublin's nearest equivalent, the cliffs of Howth. Here I should mention Dublin's public bus system, which is an absolute travesty for the tourist. The locals seem to have all route's memorised (no mean feat, and by which I'm impressed) but it is near impossible to get a bus route map from anywhere save the bus company's outlet's, which seem to be closed a lot. The bus driver's themselves do not have route maps, the stores they tell you to buy your bus tickets/route maps from do not have them, and so you wander around trying to find ... read more

23rd April 2005 Dublin, Ireland. Impetuosity won. I gathered my things, told the bank to stuff it (okay, I didn't, but if it's not sorted by Monday, when I return.....), and boarded a bus to Dublin. The countryside was lovely, just as I'd expected Irish countrysides to be. After a while little country lanes even started to appear, just like in UK shows like 'Heartbeat', where the road is edged in rock or thick hedge walls and is barely wide enough to accommodate one vehicle - and if another should appear, then it's a matter of one reversing until the other can get reach the end... Adorably impractical and entirely what I was hoping for. The closer we got to Dublin, the more the signposts, etc, began to appear in gaelic as well as english, which ... read more

April 16th 2005 Portrush, Northern Ireland. Well, would you believe it, but your Little Miss Organised can be startlingly impulsive, after all. Less than a week into my supposed Live-and-Work-Belfast plan, and my feet were unbearably itchy, ready for the next adventure. I'm not sure if it was because the city had felt too small, or that after one too many setbacks I'd gotten cranky and fed up with the job hunt, or if it was an honest-to-god unsullied desire to simply continue my travels, but I saw a mini-van with a business ad on the side promoting it for 'only £4.99/day' and couldn't get the resulting ideas out of my head. Bargain!, I'd thought, even I can afford that. So I had been toying with the idea of renting it and taking off for Northern ... read more