"The ways we were and the ways we may yet choose to be."

Last weekend was relaxing as we all tried to get as much rest as possible before the busy-ness began. Which it did right away on Monday. The HECUA group traveled to Corrymeela Knocklayd near Ballycastle, where we spent 2 days at the housing arrangements there. Corrymeela is an organization that works on peace reconciliation with in certain community groups around Northern Ireland and the world. Knocklayd is the smaller of the locations and they also have a location in Belfast and Ballycastle. We went to the Ballycastle location on Monday night, got a tour, and talked with the volunteers and workers there. On Tuesday, we spent pretty much the whole day talking about the details of each internship organization that we all will be working with. In the afternoon than we spent the time deciding on who gets to go to which internship. With that, I will be working at a place called AWARE-defeat depression. Here is the website to check it out: http://www.aware-ni.org/ It is located in Belfast and I will begin this new journey on March 1st.

On Wednesday we had a very touristy day. It began by going to the Giants Causeway, then continued on to the Buschmills Distillery, and than lastly the Dunluce Castle. All beautiful places!

Yesterday(Thursday) we were working on our Curriculum Vitae's and cover letters. After that Erin and Abby and I participated in the social scene here at the University of Ulster by doing their 3 legged pub crawl which was apart of their RAG week where the money went to Haiti. Except since there was 3 of us, it was a 4 legged pub crawl! :D I was stuck in the middle since I'm the tallest, and only lasted till 930 because our wallets would not allow anymore!
Today we had a brief overview about Irish history, and than an exercise about whether or not the conflict was religious or not. It was all very interesting and really the first time we've had time to talk as a group about some of the issues surrounding the conflict.

Tomorrow there is a rugby game against France which we will enjoy, and we may make a stop out to Kelly's which is a bar/nightclub in Portrush. More to come...