Come Dance With Me In Ireland...: She said she didn’t believe it could happen to me…..

November 14, 2010

She said she didn’t believe it could happen to me…..

After my adventures to Norway and Italy I was ready to be back in Dublin for a relaxing week. What was I thinking? I am not sure I can remember the last time I had a truly relaxing week. My life has become on large adventure. And I love every minute of it.

The binging of the week proved to be a reality check that I was back at school and back to my internship. My traveling is temporarily on hold. It was a rude awakening to realize that I actually had two papers due soon and a lot of work to do at my internship. If I can be honest with you for a minute, I have not really done very much school work since I have been here. School is structured so different here. It is not better; it is not worse just very different. So when I feel like I am not doing anything, it is just that students here do not have as many assignments or as frequent tests. This adds up to my grade depending mostly on one assignment rather than averaged from several grades. All this to say, it is time to buckle down and do work.

My most exciting day of the week and probably one of the best days so far in Ireland was Thursday. Like I mentioned before Thursday I had the opportunity to meet the president of Ireland. Why in the world would I get to meet the president of Ireland? Well, YSI (the organization I work with here) has a group of students whose social justice project “wins” and those students get to meet the president and tell her about their project. Stacie and I, as interns, were invited to join this year. The president of Ireland is different than the president of the U.S. The president here, Mary McAleese, has more of ceremonial roles than our president. She is still very important but quite like our president. I am by no means an expert on what she does but this is what I am told.

Thursday was a very rainy and blustery day, regardless nothing was going to ruin meeting the president for me. We went into the house and all stood in somewhat of a semi-circle, and were told what to do when the president walked in and how to address her. When she walked in she literally almost glowed. She was very graceful. We all applauded and she greeted us and started to make her way around the room to allow everyone to introduce themselves and shake her hand. She met all the students and when she came to Stacie and I a fellow YSI worker told her we were the American interns. Which to my surprise led here to shake our hands and stop and talk to us for a few minutes about why we were in Ireland, what we were studying and so on. As soon as she walked away, I thought, “Oh my gosh! Did the president of Ireland really just stop and talk to me personally?” The answer was yes, yes she did. We then had tea and took some pictures. I will post the ones I have but the photographer there took some of us actually talking to her and I am going to try and get my hands on those. I know that the president has met so many people and that she probably will not remember me but I felt very honored and very excited about the whole day.

Jackie’s parents were also in town this weekend. I have loved getting to spend time with them. It is so great to meet them after all that Jackie has told me of them. Saturday we took them back to Howth. Howth was one of the first places I traveled outside of Dublin. We walked around a little then had lunch at the place with the best pancakes in the world, again. It was a fairly short trip but still a great one. Then today Jackie wanted to take her parents to Cork, which is in southern Ireland and I tagged along. It was about a two and a half hour train trip there. It was a beautiful day (i.e. no rain) and it was really fun to see a new city and to explore. I really enjoyed pub hopping and seeing the sites of Cork. It was a lot of fun. This weekend was a very good one; I love Mr. and Mrs. Carlin and thank them for a great weekend.

Generally speaking this was a good week. However, a friend of mine past away from cancer. It was heartbreaking to get the news. I felt so far removed from home and from being able to be there with my family and his. It has been a hard couple of days but has also been a time for me to grow and be challenged. I have had to rely on God a lot and know that He was the only way to make the terrible situation any sort of better. I have also been reminded of how few our days are on Earth. I am so grateful for my life and the opportunities I have had, especially in the last two months. I have really been reminded to cherish every day and not to take anything for granted. He was a wonderful person and friend and he will be very much missed.

This week brings a trip to Belfast in the North of Ireland…..Very exciting.

Oh yes, and this week my wonderful mom got my plane ticket to South Africa, so it is official I am going!

I hope you all have a great week!

Until next time,

Keely