A LegenDERRY Weekend--Part I

Last weekend I took a trip with the International Students' Society (ISS) up to Northern Ireland, specifically to the city of Londonderry, or as it is better known, Derry. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, so it's technically not part of Ireland at all. There's a good mix of Nationalists (pro-Ireland) and Unionists (pro-England), some more radical than others. But either way, the accent is odd and hard to understand, the roads go over rolling hills, it's freezing cold and very windy, and it is an absolutely gorgeous place to visit.

My trip was over the course of three days, and in those three days we did SO MUCH, if I put it all in one blog post, it would take four hours to read. So I will split it all into a series of LegenDERRY posts (hehe wordplay) and I hope you'll keep coming back to read more!

The first day, we got up bright and early to get to the bus for 8:30am. And we drove. We were partnering with Paddywagon tours, so we had a nice comfy bus and a super cool bus driver who shot interesting facts and stories at us now and then. (I highly recommend Paddywagon Tours if you come to Ireland.) We stopped in a city called Monaghan just below the "border" (there's not much of a formal border) to visit a cute little museum and eat lunch. I had met some girls on the way up, and we decided to get some lunch at a lovely little pub across the street from the museum.

The pub was called O'Hara's, and we were the only ones in there when we went. The manager and the waitress were so kind to us. They gave us two plates of seasoned chips with tartar sauce (first time ever trying tartar sauce--LOVED IT) for free (you know how I love free things) and brought everything to us promptly, making small talk with us and all that. It was a really good time, and I'd totally recommend it if you are ever in Monaghan.

We re-boarded the bus and kept on driving until we finally arrived in Derry around 4:00. We had a couple of hours to walk around the city on our own before we had to be back at the hostel for pizza at 6. 

I, of course, took more pictures, but these are some of my favorites. Derry is kind of in a valley, or at least the part we were in, and so there are lots of hills, and the buildings are modified to be on hills. The architecture of the city is very interesting. Especially considering this bottom picture is the city hall, and has always been the city hall, and has never been a church or cathedral, contrary to my initial belief.

We walked around the city centre and poked into some shoppes and boutiques, only to end up in, of course, a Halloween store. Lucky we did though, since there was a Halloween fashion show that night, and I still needed a wig.

The fashion show was an absolute blast. I helped my friends come up with costumes (we helped each other) and they convinced me to buy this AMAZING cave girl wig, which ended up being perfect for my costume. We saw some beautiful outfits by local designers, some of us got to walk the catwalk (myself included--so much fun), and afterwards we went to a pub and had a craic time! I even ran into some people from my home university, how weird is that!!

And that was just Friday. Stay tuned for more to come!

Pumpkins, Movies, and Great Craic!

A couple weeks ago, my friends all gathered for some serious Halloween craic. We went to my friend Kelsey's apartment to carve some pumpkins, watch some Halloween movies, and just have a fun night together! We got a few pizzas and plowed through those in a few minutes. Kelsey bakes, so she made us some banana-chocolate muffins, which were AMAZING and I think I ate five or six. We then set out to carve our pumpkins, which I haven't done in a few years, so I was ready. 

I loved getting messy and watching everyone's creativity flow. We had some seriously creative stuff going on, and all kinds of skills flying around. Some of the people in our group had never celebrated Halloween before, so we Americans had to show them how it's done. ;) They all turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself!

We separated the seeds from the goop and roasted them with some olive oil and salt, and it was quite a lovely snack to accompany "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and "Hocus Pocus," the Halloween movies of our childhoods. It was such a fun night, and I was so glad we were able to all get together and share a fun American holiday with our friends :) Much more Halloween craic to come this week!