Carrickfergus Castle on Valentine's Day

Yesterday, Valentine's Day, I went to see a couple local castles, one being Belfast Castle - where a wedding was going on that day - and the other being Carrickfergus Castle. Sadly, I had forgotten to charge my camera, so I will post what pictures I was able to take before it died, but there will hopefully be more to come once I still others' photos off of facebook. :)

The tour started at Belfast Castle, which was very quaint and pretty. I kept noticing all these pictures/statues of cats around the grounds. (I took a few photos of them). Apparently there were nine cats that we were supposed to have found. I still don't know the story behind it, though. It was very random. One of the guys from IFA (the International Friends Association, who were hosting the day for us) was really funny because we were told to ask him if we had any questions, and even though he is a local, he had never been to either of the places we were going. Needless to say he wasn't much of a guide, but he was definitely fun company. His name is Chris and guess what he is studying.... math! Yay for math people - haha!

Anywho, after lunch we went for a tour in Carrickfergus, including Carrickfergus Castle. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! Ok, I do have to say that according to most of the Europeans, it was a pretty boring castle compared to all the amazing ones they have seen. However, as it was my first castle experience ever, I was enthralled! It felt so crazy to be standing in a place where people from centuries and centuries ago also stood. For example, the tour guide mentioned that King John (as in the King John from Robin Hood stories) came and stayed at the castle for about 10 days. Can you believe it?! Insane. Completel insane!

Inside the castle there were various rooms, but the most exciting was at the top, where the guy in charge stayed. There were banners hung all around the room of the various people Carrickfergus castle had hosted, including King John's. I took photos of a few. We also saw the genuine latrines still in tact. Apparently the people of Carrickfergus claim to have the first method of flushing toilets, as their latrines dumped outside the castle, and the tide came in twice a day to wash everything away. (At that time in history, the castle was surrounded on 3 sides by water. Today, there is a parking lot on one of the sides, as the water line has receded.) From the murder whole, to the trip step, I found the castle absolutely fascinating!!

That evening, I went out with a group of girls to supper. A few of us, including myself, got a little dressed up, just because we had an excuse to. We ended up going to a pizza place, though, which is kind of funny. It's the same place - Cafe Renoir - that I visited with Ally, Jen, and Sydney a couple weeks ago. Jen and I split a BBQ chicken pizza - yummmm!

After that there was a party in one of the houses on Mt. Charles, so we went to that for a bit. I had not realized there would be a party afterwards, and I was still in my dress and heels, feeling rather cold and uncomfortable. Ally let me borrow some pants, boots, and a sweater, tho, so then I felt much better.

I didn't stay very long at the party because I was growing tired of it. Jen and I went back to Ally's room, where we were planning to watch a movie. It turned into a slumber party of sorts, and we just sat around talking, laughing, and watching The Office. It was fun! Ally let me sleep in her bed.

This morning, we were preparing to go walk along some river, but I really wanted to go home and get some contacts (as I'd thrown mine away the night before to sleep) and brush my teeth and such. (I was feeling pretty gross). By the time I'd made it all the way back to Elm's Village, tho, I was realizing a few things that I really needed to do - such as laundry and homework - so I told them to go without me. I haven't started my homework, yet, but I want to clean my room first. It's getting a little out of control. Doing the laundry helped a lot, but there's still some tidying to do.

That's that for now. Here are some pictures from yesterday:






Laurent, Nikolas, and Clarissa at Carrickfergus Castle










Valerie! :)




Clarissa! :)






The plastic figure in green on the window is the Viking princess who lived here for a while. I don't remember all the details of the story, though.



A plastic archer man


Chris and Melissa standing over the well.


the well for the castle. the ring, anyone??


they had a lot of tacky plastic models around. Here's a guard dog




The red line indicates the trick step. It is about 2 or 3 inches longer than the rest. The idea was that invaders would be running up the stairs, all of which are the same height. They would be getting a good rhythm going until they came upon this step, where they'd trip and tumble down to the bottom, taking everyone else with them. Also, if you notice, the staircase winds downwards to the left so that soldiers defending the castle can swing the swords around the way without problem, but invaders cannot.






Nikolas (Belgian), Clarissa (German), and Laurent (Belgian) in the top room.


This archway was added some time after the castle was built. They had to take parts of the wall down to set it up properly, and in the process they discovered a human skeleton. They figured it was someone who had worked on the original room, and had been buried in the walls as an honor when he'd died. They carefully relocated the bones to the inside of another wall so that they would still be within the structure and the archway could be finished.


Someone's banner


top room in castle


some game on the floor in the top room


huge chess game on the floor in the top room. It reminded me of Harry Potter, so I had to take a photo! :)


view out one of the windows


more banners/ the top room


View from a window at the top of the castle


King John's banner. (Yes, the King John from Robin Hood. I took this just for you, Steve)


Um, I forget whose banner this was


Some guys in ancient armor. Chris is in the middle.











Cat on fountain at Belfast Castle


Belfast Castle (There's Chris in front)


One cat embedded in the ground




Another cat


Smoke rising off of the hills


View from Belfast Castle


fountain at Belfast Castle


Belfast Castle



Oh, uh, a couple random pics of my room. Above is a map of Belfast, my one lonely decoration for quite some time. Below is the view from window on a particularly snowy day. Isn't it beautiful? Sigh. :)

Ho Hum, there's more to come!

Let's see, last you heard from me, I was in bed, feeling like death, yes? Well, thankfully I am almost completely over the cold, now. Besides that, I've been out and about just a bit since Sunday.

Monday I just had class in the morning. I went grocery shopping after that. I have learned my lesson: when one has to carry one's own groceries a couple blocks home from the store, one must not stock up on everything as one would normally do when shopping in America.... with one's car... yeah. So, I needed some more bread and milk as well as a few things I still had not purchased, such as laundry detergent. I also bought a few very specific ingredients because I had decided that since there was a bit of free time on my schedule that day, I would try my hand at cooking an actual meal, like from a recipe and all. I used one of the recipe cards my mom made me for Christmas - so thoughtful!! - and started cooking at like 2:00 in the afternoon. I, of course, was not planning on eating that early/late (depending on whether you'd consider it supper or lunch), but I knew that the kitchen would be empty, for the most part, and I didn't want to have an audience in case I made some horrible mistake. Haha! The soup turned out alright. I followed the directions as best I could, but of course it wasn't as good as Mom makes it; I don't think it ever could be!

I discovered that my friend Iris likes one of the TV shows I watch, so I invited her over to watch last week's episode with me. (Since TV is different over here - different channels, different times, etc. - we had to watch it online). We just sat on my bed and got caught up. It was so nice to have a friend to watch with, again! It made me happy, but it also made me miss my roomies back home, too. (To Heather and Danny and Laura and Arvella and whoever else watched Grey's with us at some point or another, this means you!!)

That night I had a few people over to my room to watch Bewitched. There may have been a bit too many in my small bedroom, but we made it work. Ally, Jen, me, Melissa, and Linda all squeezed on my bed, and Arne and Cathrine sat on my blanket on the ground as we all crowded around my little laptop screen to watch the movie.

Whilst the film was playing, a notice appeared on my screen that I was receiving a Skype call from my brother's computer. Not wanting to interrupt the others' movie-watching experience, I just ignored it, planning to call back later. Another notice popped up. And another. And another (or so it seemed, anyway). My guests said they didn't mind waiting a bit, so I answered. It was my dear mother, holding the love of my life - my puppy Theodore - up to the camera so that I could wish him a happy 1st birthday! He was so cute, and it made me so happy to see him! I would call out his name, his head would do that adorable little cock to the side, and all the girls in the room would go, "Awwwww!" Hehe! Now they can understand why I'm so in love with that dog. :)

Let's see... Tuesday I had my first tutorial. The way classes work over here are a bit different than in the States. Because Northern Ireland is part of the UK, it has more of a British system. We take three "modules" (classes/subjects in general). Each module contains its own set of classes, though. Some have seminars, but I don't really know what those are, as I don't have any like that. Two of my modules each have lectures a few times a week and then a tutorial once a week. (My third module only has lectures). I believe the tutorials are kind of like a more intimate setting where students can ask questions and go over problems and such, but it's also where the homework is handed out and turned in, as well. For my modules, lectures started last week and tutorials this week.

So, back to my first tutorial: Theory of Numbers. This is the class I have at 9:00 in the morning, and it's rather boring because so far it has all been stuff I've already done in other math classes. I often find myself doing the head-bob where I start to fall asleep and then jerk awake, afterward casually glancing around to see if anyone noticed. The tutorial is also at 9:00 am, but it is much easier to stay alert through, as we work in groups on the homework problems. Since we had to work in groups, I actually made some friends in a math class - who knew that was possible!! They are three Irish girls who all seem very nice but also quite capable when it comes to math, so that's good. We worked through the four problems together, making sure all our steps were correct, etc. I found that one of the girls is actually in my other math class, as well - Mathematical Investigations (the one I have with Arne). We talked about the problem in that class, too, for a bit.

I then ventured off to my Accounting lecture, head-bobbing a lot of the way through... as usual. My professor's name is Iqbal something-or-other, and he is from India. I find I have a hard time understanding what he is saying a great deal of the time, so it's hard to stay focused. Thank goodness the classes are only 50 minutes each. (I think I'm going to have a hard time adjusting back to the hour-and-fifteen-minute-long classes at CCU).

That afternoon I ran a few errands. For example, I went to the Post Office to exchange some more American cash into pounds (because I had run out of cash). I also stopped by the convenient store called Spar (in the BP gas station) to "top up" my phone. (I have a pay-as-you-go phone here, and I was getting really low, so I put 10 more pounds on it so I could talk and text more). Oh, I also had to pick up some ketchup because Matthieu has converted me to his favorite sandwich: ham and cheese with ketchup. I know, it sounded bizarre to me, too, but it's actually quite good! Matthieu likes to grill his bread, too, but I'm too impatient for that. Haha!

I tried to work on homework a bit, but then I read some more Sense and Sensibility, and then I took a much-needed nap. When I woke up, I grabbed something to eat, and Melissa and I headed down to Mt. Charles, where there was supposed to be some sort of shin-dig that night. We did the typical sit around/talk/drink/dance/play wii type thing that usually goes one at parties here, but then some people wanted to go to a club. Others of us had early classes the next day, and did not want to stay out too late, so we just went to a pub to hang out and chat for a bit before heading home. It was fun! We talked about a whole bunch of different stuff. I know that's really vague, but I'm getting a little tired of relaying EVERY detail here. No offense... ;)

Let's see... Wednesday. I had class and a tutorial, yadda yadda yadda. At 4:00 a few people were getting together at Jen's and Ally's place for a little art time. Since I'm not really artsy, I wanted to bake cookies instead. It ended up being one huge cookie loaf, if you will. It was so funny. Ally made it with me (actually, she did most of the work, I just provided the recipe, from which we strayed quite a bit). It ended up having a very brownie feel to it, but it still tasted like a chocolate chip cookie. We kept trying to come up with names for it, like whitey, tanny, beigey, etc. Hahaha! It was so funny. You probably had to be there.

We were supposed to go to the gym and play volleyball that night, but upon arrival, we discovered that you cannot get in at that time of night unless you have a membership. There are times when you can come and pay just for one day, but apparantly we were too late for that. Instead, we decided to watch Princess Bride. I had been telling my friend Simon (he's French, though, so it's pronounced "See-moan") that he needed to see it. Even if he ended up hating the film, I explained that it was so much a part of American culture, and that there are always so many references to it, that he just had to see it, just for the sake of knowing what people are talking about. So, it was Simon, Melissa, Jen, me, and Sydney. We put French subtitles on for Simon. (I don't think they even had German for Melissa). They said they actually liked it, although Melissa did say that it was very, very strange. Haha!

Today I got to sleep in - woo hoo! It's my only day during the week that I don't have class at 9 in the morning. My only class all day, in fact, was at 11. After that, I stopped by Mt. Charles to say hi to Ally, and we ended up spending the whole day together, walking downtown to the City Centre and shopping. I hadn't planned on spending money that day, but oh well. I'm happy with my purchases. :)

I cannot remember if I've explained who Ally is or not, but for those who may have forgotten, I'll do a brief run-through. She is a grad student, working on her PhD through Queen's. She has studied linguistics and is writing her discertation on the effects of media in people's every day language and culture. It's really interesting! She's also crazy, but in a good way. She's about 26 years old, has travelled/lived so many places (during conversations, she'll casually drop things like, "Oh yeah, when I was travelling through the Amazon," or, "Oh yeah, I lived in Paris for a while," etc.), already has 2 masters, is working on her PhD, and - something I just recently discovered - speaks Japanese. (She also speaks French, and probably 5 other languages I have yet to hear about). She's pretty much amazing! And the best part is that she is so down to earth. I absolutely love hanging out with her!

I'm going on a trip to see Carrickfergus Castle this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some good pictures for you all in the days to come. Until next time...

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