July 14th, 2008 (Odeas Gael - Week 1 Day 1)

-Kenton
This morning in class we learned numbers and how to tell time. We also learned some more greetings and went over some verbs. In the middle of each morning and afternoon session we have tea. Tea is great! it always seems to come just at the right time as my brain is turning into jelly. We go down to the main building and all the other classes are gathered. You can have tea or coffee, I've been having tea with some cream and sugar. Then they set out cookies and you can talk with and meet new people or just practice Irish with your classmates and other advanced students.
For lunch I went into town to a small cafe and had chips and beans. Basically baked beans ontop of fries. it was pretty good. Later I was talking to professor Gleeson and he said that was a kid's meal. After the afternoon session of class I ate at the restaurant next to the school, An Cristin (The Kitchen). They have an earlybird special for student from the school. It was mashed potatoes topped with ham, turkey, stuffing, and gravy. It was real good.
That night they had singing at the school....It is really, and I emphasize, REALLY hard to sing in Irish if you don't know irish. Then I went back into town and saw Professor Gleason outside Biddy's having a pint and joined him for a bit. It was then that I met James, The owner of Biddy's. He was a great guy, he showed me upsairs where he has an old statue of Jesus from one of the chapels in town and if you make a wish on it's supposed to come true. I'm not sure if it works though because Noel hasn't showed up in town yet.
Afterwards I walked around a bit more and took in some of the countryside. But it wasn't long before I was back in Biddy's later that night with everyone else. This night I happened to meet a wonderfully interesting couple. Since I've been here in Ireland I've been really interested with Northern Ireland and the recent history they've had. We always tend to here the bad things about the conflicts and I wanted to go and see Belfast for myself and learn more about those recent times and if it really is resolved. Well I met a couple tonight named Liam O'Carso and Lynn Corken from Belfast "Beal Feaste". Liam works for the Gas company and Lynn work for the tourist information center at Queen's College. We talked about many things: being on holiday, the local area, work, weather, everything...tons of the great stuff you get to talk about when you first meet someone. Then we talked about being married, They had together for 27 years, I found that kind of hard to believe because they didn't hardly look old enough. But then I found out that one was Catholic and teh other Protestant, truly a love across battle lines story. A real Romeo and Juliet ad never throughout the conflict did it effect their feeling for each other. I just wanted to make sure I meantioned them because they were such a truly nice couple and it was such a pleasure to meet them. They left me their names and some saying in Irish on this Coaster. They mean ??????