Friday evening was spent in Londonderry, a small town to the west of Coleraine and Portstewart. It is the site of Bloody Sunday and heavily influenced the Troubles. The drive there took about an hour and was filled with tons of pictures of the countryside along with making more friendships with students on the bus. Once we arrived, all of the students were given a culture tour of the area. We learned all about Bloody Sunday and the events that happened between Protestants and Catholics at the time. There was a whole museum that just opened dedicated to the people that were murdered right outside during Bloody Sunday. The area eventually was named Free Derry. There was also information about how America and other countries were affected at the time. Most of the tour was surrounded by this topic along with walking around the city for sightseeing and seeing the wall that separated the Catholics (they lived in the Bogside) and the Protestants. The troubles and past events still effect people today.
After the tour, people started to split off into groups to do their own thing until we took the bus back at 9:30. Almost everyone went to grab something to eat because none of us had eaten since lunch and it was almost 8. My group headed out to find a bar and restaurant so we could have actual food and not bar food. It took a couple tries but we eventually found a nice place with live music and enjoyed some burgers. The rest of the night was filled with laughter and building closer relationships. So far, I am happy with how my study abroad experience is turning out. It has only been a couple weeks and I am already building close relationships with students from all over the world! I hope to continue this through the semester and have strong connections where I can one day revisit the same friends. 🙂 Here is to my long semester ahead of me!
Taking on Ireland 