Funny Little Things

 This is Kinsley and I at our Halloween Party planned by Levi, one of the students here. We decided to be Faith and Learning because we enjoy both and it also happens to be Taylor University's motto. We also had little to work with here people. It was such a funny night, we had people dresses up as Mitt Romney all the way to Bob Marley. We carved pumpkins and Faith and Learning went head-to-head in a bobbing for apples competition. Of course, faith prevailed.

 This building is where we eat all of our meals, watch the news, play games, read books in the library, watch movies, and just hang out Red Room.

This is the Red Room. It is called that even though the only thing that is red are the curtains. This is main hang out place. It gets so crowded and I think everyone has a love/hate relationship with it.

Northern Ireland - A Divided Land

Northern Ireland is actually not a part of the country of Ireland. It is a colony of the United Kingdom with Great Britain and Scotland. Our bus driver, Brian King, grew up during the "troubles" in the North. Walls were built, gates were shut, neighbors violent against neighbors. The troubles were the Irish Protestant Loyalists fighting against their own Irish Catholic Nationalist brothers. Our first day we spent in Derry, a city that is divided in half by a peace wall. On one side there is the Union Jack flying and painted on every sidewalk and on the other is the tricolored Irish Republic flag. Murals and memorial gardens cover the city. Both sides still blaming the other under the surface. "The walls will come down only when the people want them to come down." The violence has decreased but the underlying tension was evident. 

Our second day was more of a run around free day. We went to the castle you see below us and also to a World Heritage Sight- The Giant's Causeway. The third day were in Belfast and heard three different sides to the divided Ireland. We got tours from our bus driver (a nationalist who was involved in the IRA-Irish Republican Army), a man named Noel (a loyalist who was in prison for 16 years for being involved in murders of leading IRA members), and from a man from America who has lived in Northern Ireland for about 30 years.

This was my favorite trip out of all of them. I loved the place we stayed and the tours and the Counties up North were very thought provoking. The stats in the North right now are 52% Unionist, meaning they want to stay united with Great Britain, and 48% Nationalist, wanting to become one nation with Ireland. The issue is still very real and prevalent today.

 The Giants Causeway

 Down Hill Hostel by the beach

 The living room in the hostel where we played games and whatnot.

 A mural in Derry- a city divided in half by Unionists and Nationalists.