MN? Is that you?

I dislike waking up to this:




And more to come apparently! Booo.

lovely rose of clare

when asked if i had any irish blood by the nearing 60 traditional irish music singer at the pub last night and responding with "yes, from clare", i afterwards got serenaded with this:



so lovely. ha ha.

galway & connemara

And so has ended my first trip to the west!

I left with just a wee backpack early on Tuesday morning, and despite having many dreams Monday night about missing buses and ending up stranded somewhere, I successfully navigated myself in a taxi to the Ballycastle bus stop, switching in Coleraine, switching in Derry, and finally onward 5.3 hours to Galway city. I think I may have spent more time on a bus this week than actually in my destination, but it was well worth it.

Galway was described to me as a charming "bohemian melting pot", which I couldn't say was false. It was an old merchant town at one point and somehow never quite lost its constant influx of international visitors. I've never seen so many foreign people in one place in Ireland before...
The first night was rather strange as I had booked a spot in an 8-bed dormer in a hostel and was the only one in the room. Lonely! I decided to get myself a coffee and a pastry, read some of my book, and call it an early night. Lucky for me, since my refreshed self was able to get myself out of bed early on Wednesday morning and walk all around the city, grab a wee cuppa, and finally give in and visit the tourist office. As much as I didn't want to do something super touristy, I decided I would see the most for the cheapest by doing an all day bus tour of Connemara...embarassing, yes, but SO worth it. The tours are normally 25 pounds, but in the off season (aka february!) it was just 7.50 to be driven around one of the most beautiful regions in Ireland for 8 hours with a knowledgeable guide. I got to see Galway, Spiddle, an abandoned famine village, Screeb, Kylemore, Leenaun, Maam's Cross, and many other breathtaking places. I think I took about 100 photos, and once again it's easier to put them all on flickr so if you're curious:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mo_chroi/

There yeh are! Some of my favourites, although, include:





Traveling alone sadly means limited pictures of myself...but I came out with two nice ones after persuading other people (all French, naturally) on my tour bus to take some of me!



More later! My break is about to end, then a couple more hours of a Belfast teenage group and I'll be off til tomorrow morning.

-Karen

monsters?

So this group is leaving in less than an hour, and it REALLY can't come soon enough.

Friday was nice as Kristin and I got to take care of the babies, but naturally their parents wanted them to be included in the big kids group all day Saturday and today. Let's just say if I could choose one word to sum up this group of 5-8 year olds, it would be N-I-G-H-T-M-A-R-E. Or perhaps M-O-N-S-T-E-R-S.

I'm not sure if their parents never heard of the word "discipline" or "responsibility" or any of that hodge podge, but even if not, you'd think they'd have the common sense not to let them all keep their gameboys with them for the weekend up here. Or maybe take away their toy gun before coming to a peace and reconciliation centre? Just saying...

babies

Kristin and I are on "creche" for the weekend, which is the British English term for nursery or daycare, I guess. Anyway! As much as small children can frighten me, working with little baby Ceilan and Siona is pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen. Both are little quirky blue eyed Irish toddlers and immediately took a liking to us. Ceilan and I made up a song about tea and toast and Kristin and Siona helped facilitate musical chairs for the older kids. SO CUTE.

Busy but exciting days

Hello :)

It has been a busy week with various tasks-housekeeping, a day group on Wednesday, reception, etc. Unfortunately it'll be a busy weekend as well! There is a very large group of about 40 people arriving this evening and staying until Sunday afternoon. Myself and four other volunteers will be responsible for creating their program, supervising and facilitating it, organizing everything for them, etc. It should be an interesting group though...I believe it is a group of a mix of Somalian refugees and asylum seekers as well as their host families. There is going to be babies, kids, teens, adults, the whole lot. Whew.

Something very exciting is on the horizon after the busy weekend, however! I have the midweek off next Tuesday-Friday afternoon, so I've decided to endure some very long bus rides and spend two nights on the west coast of Ireland. I believe I'm going to spend one night in Galway and one in Connemara, which is about an hour north and also where the beautiful Kylemore Abbey is located :) Something I am very excited to see! Should look something like this:


He he :) So hopefully everything works out and I don't miss any buses or get mugged, as I am traveling alone. A little scary but semi empowering!

Karen

my life has arrived

FINALLY MY COMPUTER CAME!!
I can now skype.
And upload photos.
And reconnect with my life.
For just a 77 pound delivery charge...How convenient. Not.

Anyway, I added some pics to my Flickr if you want to check it out:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mo_chroi/

For now...


View from Corrymeela towards Fairhead :) And you can see Scotland in the background...

all the best,
karen

Back to Belfast

Hello! After finishing out the week volunteering at Corrymeela, I was trying to decide what to do with my weekend when my friend Tom informed me of a Pearl Jam Tribute band playing in Belfast Friday evening. I'm not exactly the biggest Pearl Jam fan you'll ever meet, but the opportunity to get to Belfast for the night was one I decided to take advantage of. And I'm SO glad I did. Tom's friend goes to Queens University and let me, Tom, and Tom's friend Fergal stay at his place for the night. His flat was only about a ten minute walk from the show, so it worked out well. We stopped at Subway on the way to grab a sandwich, and it was only natural I ran into one of the students who was up with his class at Corrymeela this week for a session and that I worked with. You can't go ANYWHERE or meet anyone here without realizing you have mutual friends or that your brother in law's best friend's sister is actually your neighbor, or something. It's a little ridiculous.

Despite not liking Pearl Jam, the show was actually pretty good and I am excited to say I checked something off the list of things to do before I die....ready?

Yep..I definitely crowd surfed. Ha ha! So grand.

The combination of crowd surfing, the show, good company, free lodgings=brilliant evening. I've just arrived back in Ballycastle now, and I think I'm going to relax for the rest of the day/evening!

6 Nations Rugby match tonight!!! Go Ireland! :)

energy research & swedes

Hiya!

It is my 3rd official day here volunteering, and things are going quite well. There's a rotation schedule that allows each volunteer to spend time working with groups, helping with reception and housekeeping, helping cook meals, and get a chance to do various other tasks around the centre. This Tuesday-Thursday I am on "Centre Support", which can mean basically any odd job a fellow called Shane comes up with. Yesterday he gave me the project to do research on the centre's energy consumption and come up with a report to share with the volunteers, simple tricks to reduce energy consumption, and whatever else I could think of.

I compiled a list of easy tips to saving energy and also made a fun sheet of "Interesting ways to think about Energy". On my sheet, I compared the loss of energy caused by small things (i.e. leaving a laptop plugged in overnight, leaving the lights on when you aren't in your room, etc.) to bigger activities. For example, leaving a PC moniter on all night wastes enough energy to microwave 6 dinners. Then I added a little personal story to each scenario such as, "Ethan had to eat six cold spaghetti dinners because someone left their PC moniter on all night". Sort of fun! Anyway, the staff members absolutely loved it. Snaps for me. Little did they know, it really didn't take a lot of work as Shane let me take 2hours off yesterday to walk into town :) He he. More research today, though!

Also, there's a Swedish group here for a couple days. I'm not working with them, but I talked to a couple of the leaders at lunchtime yesterday. They said they have a couple of students with them named "Karen" and asked where I was from. I had no idea the general population of Sweden knew of Minnesota, but they were ecstatic when I told them I was from Minneapolis and knew it was a major place for Swedish immigrants.

Cheers,
Karen

Hoodlums

I know this is awful, but I have to share it since...well..it's gotta take some creative mind to come up with this.
The town I stayed in with Tom my first two nights in Northern Ireland is called Kilrea. It's a very small town about 10 miles south of Coleraine. Basically everyone knows everyone, and its only made up of two main streets intersecting and in the middle having a sort of "town square" area, if you will and in the middle of that is "Kilrea Town Hall". Take a look at the defacement of the town hall's signage:



I had to laugh because, wow. How do you even think of that?

-Karen

Ballycastle

I'm settling into my first day here in Ballycastle, Co. Antrim and I've already met a ton of lovely people :) Mondays are pretty quiet here at the centre and consist of a lot of meetings, which weren't really that exciting, but it gave me a chance to meet most of the staff and volunteers. There are volunteers from all over the world here including a couple more from America, and very very strangely there is a 24 year old girl named Allie, who resides from....dun dun dunn....EAGAN, MN. SO WEIRD. Why is it wherever I go on the planet there always seems to be someone from a Mpls/St Paul suburb? I don't get it.

Unfortunately it's raining out this afternoon (gasp), so I can't go for the walk I had planned on and appreciate where I am. Corrymeela is perched up on top of a cliff and looking out over the town of Ballycastle and about a thousand miles of ocean. Also, on clear days you can see Rathlin Island (it has puffins!) a few miles out, and on very clear days you can even see Scotland across the water. So beautiful!

THANK GOODNESS my boxes were quietly awaiting me when I arrived here yesterday. I guess most people bring all of their things along with them, because apparently the hot topic for a week or so around the centre was the mystery volunteer who sent half her life across the world with her. Word is there were even bets going about how much they weighed and how much it must've cost to post them. This place has gossip like a small town, I tell you. Hence, whenever I met anyone today the response was "You're the one with the packages!!" Sigh. Yep.

I feel bad mooching off my roommates computer as mine is still living in Minnesota (hopefully I'll have it in a few weeks!). So ta for now.

all the best
karen