Getting my bearings

The last few days have been exhausting because I have probably walked or ran throughout the entire city of Derry. Yesterday, (Sunday) morning we went to the American Folk Museum about an hour bus ride outside the city. Our student leaders had not previously been to the museum, so we had no idea what to expect. Once we got there, we got a pamphlet from the visitor's center, but no instructions. The pamphlet had a bunch of numbered descriptions on it, so we decided to figure out what those were for. We walked their "outdoor museum" section, and understood what the descriptions were for. There were 29 numbered stops, each one with an authentically dressed actor or actress giving information about Irish history. The cool thing was most stops were old houses that were taken apart and re-erected inside this park. Many were homes of famous American/Irish immigrants. The first house we came to was a stone house with a thatched roof that represented a typical house of the working class in society. It was very small, very bare and very cold. Next we saw a blacksmith that had a real fire going and he showed us some of the old metalworking techniques of the time. Also on this walking tour, there was a church, schoolhouse, and a mini village with a mock post office and printer's shop. But, the coolest part was a large room with about half a ship in it. It was a mock port and ship where you could go down to the belly of the ship and see how Irish emigrants traveled to America. There were tiny wooden bunks, and a whole family would only get one bunk. They had poop buckets and essentially no extra room. It was very interesting, and a little creepy to be down in the ship. Once you "got off" the ship, you entered an American village which was the conclusion of the tour.

Yesterday afternoon was a little boring. I went for a run around the city, loaded pictures onto the Internet, and caught up with some friends via Facebook. I made myself dinner, "Spaghetti Loops," which are essentially Spaghetti O's, except the tomato sauce was much sweeter. Almost everything over here is sweeter rather than salty. And EVERYTHING is fried. Then, I accompanied a group to dinner, mostly for the company and something to do. We met up with the rest of our group after dinner at a pub that was holding a karaoke night! A few of us got up the courage to sing, including me! I sang "Evil Woman" by ELO. (Any surprise, family?) Karaoke was a blast, but we headed in pretty early so that we could get up in the morning!

This morning was our campus orientation. It was given by our Irish professor/coordinator, Rory. We ate breakfast on campus, then went to a lecture hall where we went over our schedule for the next few weeks and asked Rory questions. Many people were confused by or curious about a few things in Irish culture and education system. We asked Rory about their tipping procedures at restaurants (they typically don't leave tips for restaurant servers or service providers), and about the specific programs at the University of Ulster where we are studying. Then, we went on a walking tour of the campus. It is very small, with only about 3 classroom buildings, a student union, library and recreation center. It only takes up about 2 city blocks, and is very close to the student village where we are living.

I came back to the dorms to take a 30 minute nap, and then went exploring with some of my friends. There are some large hills behind our student housing that we really want to hike up that have ancient ruins at the top, and a great view of the city. However, the foot of the hills are about 5 miles away, so we wanted to find transportation to the bottom of the hill. So, we walked all over town trying to find out how to get to the hills. We asked the workers at an outdoors store, figuring they must hike up there all the time. Turns out, they only work the retail store and don't necessarily do the activities that require the gear they are selling. But, they were able to tell us what bus we needed to take, they just didn't know the bus times or pickup spot. So, we walked across town to the main bus hub. We got all the bus information, but by this time it was too late to get out there and then catch the last bus home. So, we went to the city's visitor's center to get information about our upcoming weekend trip to Dublin. We got tons of pamphlets that will surely help us plan for our trip. I perused their gift shop and found coasters with Irish family crests on them. Sure, enough they had the McHugh crest. I studied it, to find the same symbol as on the flag of Northern Ireland. So, the McHugh family must originally be from Ulster (which means Norther Ireland). I am going to do some research to see if I can figure out where our family originally came from. Maybe I can even visit places in Ireland where my family is from!