Belfast is beautiful! The architecture is truly old and beautiful, something you would only find in this side of the world. The grass and trees here seem greener than the ones back home. People complain about all of the cloudy days but I think the gray sky makes a perfect backdrop. It goes well with all of the brown buildings and deep greens. It is true though that the weather isn’t the cheeriest. It is chilly and windy and rains almost every day. I love it. Although, I am sure I will be sick of it in about a month. The people here seem to fit their reputation of being very friendly. They don’t wave and say good morning to everyone walking by like people say haha but they do always seem to be willing to help and have a chat. Everything and everyone seems to be very relaxed here. I asked a man why that is and he said he thinks it is because everything was so tense during the troubles and now that it is over they feel they can breathe and want to enjoy life.

They also fit the reputation of drinking (of course not everyone, but it lives up to what you would expect). We did a “pub crawl” as an orientation event haha. It was pretty cool to see the different types of pubs here and it was a good time for everyone. In one pub there were older gentlemen in a corner playing instruments. You could tell they were not paid, they just were enjoying themselves. It was nice to see an atmosphere like that in a bar. Only on two days were there a lot of mandatory orientation events scheduled, and even still it was not too bad. It was very different than Carlow’s orientation. You had more time to mingle at the events and you did not feel as if you were being babysat.  Plus it was nice to have time to get stuff done. Being that we all need to open bank accounts, get food to cook, get cell phones, etc., it was important that we had some free time to do those things. The best part of orientation week was the people I met. I have made some awesome friends. They are so much fun. My floor is almost all international students (14 out of 16). We all got along right away and a lot of us became very close. At orientation we met new people and they joined us too. Our group of friends keeps growing. I love it. They are so much fun. I have been learning a lot since I am the only person from America and one of the only native English speakers. I have learned a lot about politics in Spain and Germany. I have learned a lot of new Spanish words as well. I am trying to learn more German words but it is tough. I have given up on trying learning French. The sounds are too difficult to make haha. Anyways, that was my favorite part of orientation: meeting people from different countries and learning about them. There are easily 1,000 new international students here from all over the world. Every night I have a conversation with a new person and I absolutely love it. I love seeing people from so many different countries getting along and sharing similar interests. It makes me realize how united we all are as humans. I am so glad I am able to have this experience. It is amazing so far and I have only been here a week! I cannot wait to see what else is in store!