Ballycastle Weekend

Hello! Sorry it's been so long-it's been somewhat of a hectic week. I returned from Spring Break less than completely enthused to return to work. I was pleased, however, to find out my opportunities to work for the week extended outside the office and gave me the chance to spend this weekend up in Ballycastle doing an extremely interesting array of things.

On Friday, I got a lift up to the North Coast with my co-workers Bernie and Astrid, where we had a hectic day of setting up and hosting an event at the Corrymeela Centre in Ballycastle. The day included serving lunch, entertaining/making small talks with guests (I'm Karen. "Kier-en?" No, it's Karen. "Ohh! Kah-ren!" Sigh...yes.), and meeting the PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, yes that's right, Mary McAleese. She's a Belfast native, speaks fluent Irish, and was extremely nice. Yay, Mary.

Corrymeela Centre-Ballycastle:

It's right on the ocean. Lucky Justin gets his internship placement here.

Friday was only the beginning of the work, as I had committed to volunteer at the Centre for the weekend as one of the leaders of a youth cross-community programme. The job titles included a 8:00 a.m.-12:30 a.m. (I'm not kidding) work day of setting up for, leading, and cleaning up various activities, serving and cleaning up all meals, leading discussions, and making sure everyone was safe and having fun the entire time. The group that myself alongside two other girls were in charge of were 14-16 year olds from Glasgow, Scotland. What an experience! Scottish are a breed of their own, I tell you. I haven't heard that much swearing in a long time, I haven't met as many girls who spend 3 hours on their hair and makeup just to do arts-and-crafts, and I was just a little taken aback when their leaders let them take smoke breaks. Ah, it's a different world over here. It was really fun and extremely interesting spending the weekend with these kids, but I have discovered I enjoy working with the wee ones rather than the preteens, so I do.
We did get a short break on Saturday afternoon when we were given the option to accompany the group to Giant's Causeway for a field trip or stay back. Since I'd already been there, I opted to stay back at the Centre and ended up watching "Twilight" in a room with a few other volunteers on break. It was part way into the movie that I realized, "I'm sitting in Ballycastle, N. Ireland watching Twilight with a German, an El Salvadorian, a Brit, and Justin." Paints somewhat of a unique picture.

Arts and Crafts on Sunday morning



Anyway, not much is new in the world of the Belfastians. I arrived back to my flat tonight, made a veggie burger for dinner, and now am going to start working on one of my big papers. Woo hoo.

kah-ren