Céad míle fáilte
Belfast Week 1
Céad míle fáilte is an Irish saying meaning "the land of a thousand welcomes" and what a welcome we have had from this great city.
As many of you probably know by now, I am studying abroad in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A city known for its history, friendly people and unique Irish-English culture.
Let me start by saying, I am SO lucky to have had my mom come with me because I would be at a loss without her. Hurdle after hurdle, road block after road block, Ca pushed through, solved the problems and managed to get me perfectly settled in, so lucky to have you Ca Babes.
The trip to Belfast started with Sarah dropping us off at Logan Airport, hugging us goodbye and leaving us with her well wishes for our journey. We walked through security, grabbed some drinks and parked ourselves at our terminal. Within about 10 minuets the lights start flashing and a siren sounds. Ca and I exchange a look of confusion and slight fear but everyone else looks pretty settled, so we stay seated. Within seconds the airport intercom announces, "there has been an emergency reported in your building, stay put for further information", siren sounds again. What the heck!? Ca and I plan our escape route, put our coats on and grab our passports, ready to make a run out the terminal emergency exit in case any danger comes our way. Eventually, after about an hour of waiting patiently in our terminal the alarm stops and the intercom comes on saying, "the fire department has come and there was a problem with the electrical wires". Ca and I share a sigh of relief and confirm that, yes, we will be drinking on this plane ride!!
Well, we dodged that bullet, thank God! We get on the plane, and mom spills her full soda all over the carpet of the plane. Still settling from our stress, about the alarm, a nice man comes to her aid with paper towels. Thank God someone helped because Ca was about to clean up a whole lot of mistakes in the UK!
Finally, we land in Heathrow and only have an hour flight to Belfast. Well, poor little Mom and I were misguided and ended up standing in a boiling hot room for about an hour waiting to get our passports stamped. We arrive at the booth and the nice Englishman says, "oh darling, you don't need to be here, you need to be over there". We peer over to another long security line. Ugh. We can't catch a break, BUT we are determined to make the best of it so we share a bit of a chuckle in our sleepy state and proceed to take off our shoes and make it through security.
Alright, BELFAST HERE WE COME! We land, grab our suitcases, catch the bus to city center and the driver drops us off on a street. He gestures to this building about a mile away, saying: "Yep, that yours". Ready to conquer Belfast, we grab our luggage and hit the road. About half a mile in Ca looks at me and goes, "What is that awful noise?". I look down at her bright blue suitcase and realize she has lost a wheel!! HAHA she is the one who has been making the awful noise! What else can we do besides laugh at her unfortunate situation? I take the carry-on luggage and she pulls the 40+ lb suitcase to our hotel, God love her.
Next stop, my new dorm! We take the taxi to the new dorms and the cab driver tells us that to get from my dorm to my school I will have to take two busses and it should take about 45 minuets. Hmm seems odd? We get to the gate of the school and it is gorgeous, literally looks like a mini Buckingham palace. The security guard gives us directions to the hall. About a mile later we arrive at my dorm and meet with the international office. She explains breakfast and dinner are only served for an hour in the morning and evening. This is slightly unfortunate because I am going to school about 45 minuets away, so will only be able to be there for 10 minutes, at most. She explains that since I have allergies I have been assigned an aid and she will sit with me and stick me with my epipen if something happens....HUH? WHAT? I have a lady following me around with an epipen? HAHA I'm literally holding in my laughter. I don't know why this has struck me so funny but all I can imagine is a lady in a yellow vest following me around inspecting what I'm eating with the epipen ready to stab my thigh! I'm 20 years old, I can handle it without a yellow vest lady. Alright, I can handle a 45 minute bus ride, a bus exchange, an epipen lady and about a mile walk every morning and night to my bus up a hill. (For my SVC folks it's like walking from the traffic lights before the new SVC sign all the way up to bonny and for my NDA crowd it's like walking from Sullivan's all the way through the iron gates and up past the building to the track gates). We get the keys, walk into my new room and it is pretty small. Okay, really small. If I extended my arms the whole way out they would touch wall to wall. When in the bathroom, if I sat on the toilet my feet were in the shower. Every room on campus was a single so it seemed to be a bit difficult to socialize. My favorite part was that I had to walk outside of my dorm and about half a mile to the laundry machines. HAHA not ideal. Man do I feel lucky to live third floor Gerry where my laundry was right in my building! Finally, we came to the decision that this place wasn't the best so we began to search for new accommodations.
Slight stress began to set in but Ca and I kept our spirits high and tried to be optimistic! The next day we headed to my school to meet with the international office team to set up my school accounts and get a feel for the campus. The campus is really modern and pretty, everyone is super friendly and I am starting to get a bit less stressed. Funny enough we bump into my program tutor and he offers to discuss class and other info with us. Ready to finish our meeting he says, "so we're all set, you know your start date and everything" and with a big smile I say "yep, I'll see you Monday!". He looks at me puzzled and says, "not this Monday? Next" I drop my jaw and look confused. Yep, needless to say the international office gave me the wrong start dates of my program HAHA! They told me I was starting Jan 28, but my program doesn't start until Feb 4! Oh my goodness, have we had some mix ups. Nice enough though because we had a lot to figure out.
Ready to settle down and figure out what we needed to accomplish, we decided to get coffee. All excited we order our lattes! Within a matter of 5 minutes the restaurant fire alarm starts blaring through the place. ARE YOU KIDDING?! ARE WE ON PUNKED? WHERE'S THE HOST!! Again, nobody is worried so we block out the sirens and sip our coffee and share quite the belly laugh.
We've had a few other issues: Ca's credit card getting shut off because the bank thought it was fraud, inability to open up a UK bank account because of switching my address, challenges getting a phone plan because I don't have a UK bank account and a few other blips here and there but we have managed to laugh through them all.
We finally figured out my housing, phone, bank account, Ca's credit card and started sightseeing! After our long day of adventures, we are exhausted so crash relatively early and get up fairly late. Yesterday morning we're sitting here in the hotel room just chatting about what the day's adventures will be and, yet again, the alarm sounds and the intercom comes across saying, "a fire has been reported, evacuate now!" Ca starts yelling "CRAP, CRAP, CRAP, CRAP, CRAP" frantically and I yell back equally as frantic, "ITS OKAY!! WE'RE ONLY ON THE SECOND FLOOR!!" Ca, in her snowflake jammies, and me, in my athletic shorts and high heel boots, go sprinting down the stairs and I burst through the hotel fire exit door. WE ARE OUTSIDE, AMEN! But...alone?? We peer inside and see the hotel receptionists happily sitting at their computers typing away. What the heck? Ca ventures inside and they tell us, "oh yep...just a test". OH MY WORD. WHAT ELSE IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO US!
Belfast, you have given me quite the welcome but I am so excited for you to be my home these next six months!!
Stay tuned for more craziness & adventures.
V excited for Caroline to visit this great city this weekend!
Until then
PQTH,
HAN