Today was a go go go day and that made me really thankful for my down day yesterday. Started off early with a little orientation and walking around campus buildings to try to find things for my flat mates and their registration stuff. (Mostly walking around...only went to orientation to sign up for tomorrow's field trip...yes terrible I know). This is when I met one of my flat mates other friends that is through the same program as Renee and Rachel and her name is LP (Stands for Lauren Patrick). LP is pretty funny...she was telling us about how people always look at her funny when she says certain things because growing up her dad made up funny names for everything. One she told us was that he calls pajamas wammer faddles hahaha. Anyways...after we found the rooms they needed to go to really quick we went to the campus gym and signed up for memberships for the time that we will be here. We had to do an induction to learn the gym and what there is and how to use the machines. They have really cool machines!!
After we went and did all that up on campus we came back down to our flat to pretty much get ready for Arthur's Day. For those of you who don't know what that is...Arthur Guinness is who created Guinness and in honor of him on the 22nd of September at 5:59pm everyone raises their guinness pints to him. A lot of the Irish were calling it Alcoholics Day lol...
But anyway...since you celebrate at 5:59pm and we planned on going into Belfast to celebrate (there aren't really any good places to go in Newtownabbey) we planned to leave our flat at 4 and got back from campus at about 1:30. I ran to the Abbey Centre (and by ran I meant got a taxi) to get a blow dryer, straightener and a nice shirt and boots. While I was sitting waiting for my taxi to get there to bring me back home I realized that, even though the accents of the people here are very cool, it is incredibly adorable to hear that accent on the little kids! By the time I got back I had just enough time to get ready and we headed out. It was me, Renee, Rachel, Jessi, Jessi's friend from here who's name is Ashleigh and LP.
We started off at a pub called The Botanic Inn and that is where we celebrated at 5:59. We each had a pint of guinness, cheersed to Arthur, danced a bit and that was about it for The Botanic Inn. The DJ was giving away free pints of guinness to people who would do different random things. He kept asking, "Anyone fancy a free pint?!" The way that he chose one girl and told who was to come up was by stating, "the girl with the nice cleavage and blonde hair," hahaha. Arthur Guinness was even at the pub we were in! ;)
Alright...so maybe a guy with a white wig was in every pub we went to...maybe...
When we left that pub you realized really fast just how incredibly loud the music was inside. Walking out of the pub and down the street my ears felt like I was under water. We decided we were hungry so we went to this little place just across the street from the pub. I got a cheese burger and fries (I know...a bit American). It wasn't anything fancy at all...but we were starving and didn't care. After we got some food into us we headed to another pub called The Ye Old Eglantine Inn where we had some vodbull's (Vodka and Redbull) because we were already wimping out on getting tired... This pub was a bit on the boring side so we didn't stick around long before heading off to the Odyssey to go to a club called Box. We had a couple more drinks at Box...I had a thing called a Granny Smith...Ashleigh who is from here recommended it so that's what I had and it was very good! We did some dancing and then decided we were pretty much done for the night and here I am back in my room and done for the day.
Some things I've realized today...
1) Riding in a car makes my heart want to stop sometimes...still not used to the other side of the road.
2) I love that Northern Ireland is not like a lot of Europe where smoking is a huge thing. It isn't as much here and it's illegal to smoke in a public place...even a pub. LOVE that!
3) Learned a knew word...here they call khakis...chincos!
Tomorrow is when I finally get to enroll and register and all that good stuff. I have an appointment with my studies advisor at 10:00am when I will CALL to her office. ;) Eating some toast and drinking some tea before I call it quits. :)
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