Mmmmmm

In Belfast they eat the same time as we do in the United States (breakfast before work/school, lunch around noon, and dinner around 6). However, since everyone I live with is from France, Spain and Italy I eat according to their meal time, which is the same for them all, because we like to cook together. It is more fun. We eat lunch around 2 or 3 (which actually kind of happens naturally anyways because of classes) and then have dinner around 9. I only went out to eat once and the portion sizes were actually the same as at home. I thought they would be a lot smaller. However, one time I got food from a little restaurant in a grocery store and got the chicken strips and chips (French Fries) meal deal. I saw chicken strips that were the same as the ones you get in Frannies and figured that was the chicken strips, but nope, they were four strips the size of my finger.  Hahah.  So maybe at some places the portion sizes are smaller. I never go out to eat though so I do not know. I myself eat a lot though so most portion sizes seem small to me personally, even in the United States. I can out eat a lot of people, especially my friends from Spain and France. So I really hope I do not go to a restaurant and find out that in fact the portion sizes are smaller here and I just got lucky at the pub I ate at. I'll be sad hahaha.  For the next 20 days I am staying with a family in Spain whom I found online. They wanted someone to help them learn English and watch the children. Since it is the Christmas holidays I will be trying a lot of new food from here. I am so excited! 

2 in 1 (oops)

Oops! I was so caught up in midterms that I missed two blog entries! 

Question 1, Transportation stuff: Since I live in a city it is really easy to get everywhere. I usually walk places. The furthest we travel on a regular basis is to the city centre and it is only a 30 minute-or-so walk. There are city buses, of course, but I love walking and I would rather spend my money on other things. Anywhere farther than that is typically a great deal farther so then we bus. The transportation here is awesome though, which is to be expected since it is Europe haha. Yesterday we went to Mourne Mountains. It is about an 1.5 hours away and there is basically nothing on the way there, but the city bus still takes you out there. It’s amazing. That isn’t even plausible in the USA (from what I have seen at least). The other day we went to Dublin and it only cost 20 pounds round trip, and that is without getting the discount for buying them ahead of time (we decided last minute that we wanted to go). I love it. Since the US dollar is worth nothing and since I want to travel while I am here, I am very glad that I can do so cheaply. I am also glad that I live in a city so I don’t have to use transportation to get to the stores and such. It’s healthy for the body and the budget ;)

Question 2, Support staff and professors: I haven’t really used the support staff here. I guess that means I am pretty fortunate. I have yet to have any problems I could not deal with myself. As for the question about who is my most interesting professor, it is really difficult to answer that. They are all really different. My economics teacher is pretty serious but when he wants to be funny he is hilarious. The stuff he says is just so great. I love the British sense of humour. My international relations teacher is really laid back. He is good for making jokes with about topics in class, and he is amazing at explaining things we don’t understand and forcing us to think critically. He is a great professor (they all are though). My most interesting/favourite though is my professor for my Welfare Theory class. It may have partly to do with the fact that she reminds me of Dr. Chung, one of my favourite professors at Carlow. She’s just really silly and curious. She is always sharing stories about studies she has done herself or read in order to help us understand what we are teaching in class. She also is always interested in hearing our views.  We always have such good conversations in that class…maybe that is another reason why I like her the most. We have group discussions in every class (unlike the other ones where we only speak in the tutorial) so we all are close. I am going to miss her. She is so funny and sweet. I don’t have her class this week but my friend and I are going to visit her tomorrow to say goodbye. Overall I am lucky because all of my professors are pretty interesting. They’re quite a lovely bunch J