Saturday in Northern Ireland

This weekend was our trip to Belfast, and it may be the treasured time I will have in Europe. This post will be long, and if you can't stick with it all the way I recommend beginning with the end. My evening was one of the best so far whilst in Europe.

We woke up at 4:30am on Saturday to get to the airport...  

Our flight was at 7:00, and we were all plenty bleary eyed and delirious by the time we landed in Ireland. While waiting for the bus to the airport, I ran into Dev. Catherine and I went to the airport with her and we chatted about all sorts of things before boarding the plane. She told us about her research in South Africa, the bullshit of some new-wave feminism (Sheryl Sandberg we’re looking at you), and her unfettered love for sugar. We also talked about the patriarchy, great times.

Before arriving in Belfast we made some beautiful nature stops, but our first stop may have been the most important. At 10:00 am, a bunch of college students, their professor, and an Irish tour guide, all stopped having eaten little breakfast and having slept not at all. The solution (in true Irish fashion) to our delirium was—of course—alcohol. We toured a whiskey distillery and stopped for a classic morning drink. It was there that I learned Dev has not always loved whiskey as she does now. When she first started drinking it, she confessed, she thought it was the “devil’s juice” and “tasted like asphalt.”

Giant’s Causeway and the Rope Bridge

We then traveled to the Giant’s Causeway, which was one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen yet. I don’t know quite how to explain just what it was like. I think I’ll settle for a jumble of pictures. You can probably see--it’s like nothing else in the world.

After that we grabbed some lunch in town before heading for the Rope Bridge. This bridge is a part of the mountainous terrain of Ireland, and it connects one of the enormous mountain formations to the other. Just when I thought it couldn’t get more beautiful, it did.

By the time we got on the bus, there was much exhaustion. We had essentially been moving for twelve hours, with little sleep the night before. Luckily, we were able to nap for the rest of the drive to Belfast, which took about an hour.

THEN…the evening

Upon arrival at our hostel, Vagabonds, students split off in all different directions. I ended up eating a burrito and drinking some coffee with friends before coming back. Most bars closed at 10, since it was Easter weekend. This was actually a wonderful obstacle, because it brought everyone back together in our very hip hostel.

When I got back from eating out, I saw that half of the students from my program were chilling in the common space at our hostel. People were drinking wine from the bottle and talking about all sorts of things. I squeezed onto the corner of the enormous table, and that’s how I got talking to Adrien. He was a Frenchman on vacation in Ireland for a few weeks. He spoke with hesitant English, but chatted with me quite a bit none the same. Adrien was very kind. We discussed his time in Mon Pierre and the job that he doesn’t like, but pays the bills. He does photography and graphic-making in his free-time. Rather than listing off his “hobbies”, he referred to these pass times as “distractions”, an interesting linguistic accident. He hopes to travel the world, but is still saving the money to do so.

I asked him about the National Front in France, an extreme nationalist party with some alarming thoughts on immigration. He did not know the name for the party in English, but recognized the name when I mentioned the family that runs it, the Le Pen family. Initially I was uncertain of bringing up the National Front, knowing that it might be a sensitive topic. Adrien was wonderfully open about it all. He commented that he was impressed I knew the family, since many Americans don’t know the name of the President, much less the Le Pens. This was a dark insight on my behalf, knowing just how shallow my knowledge of French politics is. Even so, I understood a lot of Adrien’s hatred for the party. He spoke about the intolerance it spreads, and the protest he participated in when he was 14 against the party’s politics.

Adrien also explained his dislike for Obama, despite appreciating his “character.” Not closing Guantanamo, habitual drone strikes, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan, numbered among his concerns. He wondered about the wars in the US and asked me about my response to 9/11. The question surprised me, though I suppose no less than my inquiries about the National Front and burka-banning in France.

Later in the evening I walked out onto our hostel’s patio, where many people were shouting, laughing, and drinking more wine. I sat with a group of students from my program, along with others who worked and stayed in Vagabonds. Many of the Carleton students drifted to bed rather early, we were a sleepy bunch. By the time everyone else was in bed, it was just me, two Spanish men named Javi and Ignacio, and an Irishman named Oisin (pronounced: Ocean). Javi was by far the most boisterous, he would laugh and shout about most anything, while Oisin and Ignacio were slightly more quiet. Ignacio in particular, a bald and kind young man, was quite soft-spoken. He would often begin his comments with an apology for his impeccable English.

So then I brought up the gitanos (gypsies) of Spain…

Javi looked at me in astonishment. How did I know about them? It’s certainly an important social issue, the separation and discrimination against the gitanos of Spain. He prefaced his statements about the population with “Shit, I don’t want to sound like an asshole” and “it’s a difficult topic.” That’s because in Spain, along with most European countries, the Roma, the gitanos, are one of the few groups that faces consistent and blatant discrimination. As an oppressed people, the community faces significant struggles with issues of addiction and crime. We discussed the ambiguity of how to respect the rights and needs of this community, while avoiding stereotypes and ongoing oppression.

The unrest in Spain is really fucked up

As some of you know, there is deep economic turmoil within Spain. Coming from the Northeastern part of Spain, Javi and Ignacio has experienced this instability first-hand. The growing poverty and unemployment is maddening, especially in the context of what they viewed as widespread governmental corruption. Javi spoke of this with deep passion and sadness. He told a story of seeing men and women live in tents near the trains because they had nowhere left to go. These people, he said, were just like us. They had lives, jobs, houses, but the economic crisis had swept all of it away.

It was in the midst of this story that the quiet comments of Ignacio began to grow. “That is why violence is necessary.” With each new frustration communicated by Javi, Ignacio would reply with clear resolve that the only solution was violence. This bubbled into a louder argument about whether violence was an effective method to affect change. Ignacio, quiet and kind, shouted his anger. When I asked who the violence should be directed against, he said simply: “the politicians.” He cited parts of the Arab Spring as examples, of the necessity to rid a people of corruption and oppression. Javi was unconvinced, though noted he was one of the “hippies” of Spain, and certainly in the minority opinion on how to confront the government. I asked Ignacio about how the violence would be controlled, and the concerns about state-building if the protesters were to succeed. Egypt is a strong example of this, and I recommended a documentary, “The Square”, to gain foresight in modern revolution-making. Ignacio said that he could be President if the government were to fall. Oisin and I agreed to be members of his cabinet.

I regret to tell you all, but at this time I decided to go to bed. I thought it was later than it actually was, and figured I should get some sleep for the craziness of the next day. But I didn’t go without farewells from all of the guys. Javi repeated that he was impressed with my knowledge, especially of Spanish politics. He thanked me for my input and confessed he was surprised. He said there was a stereotype about Americans. “That we don’t know geography?” I asked. “That we know nothing of other countries and their struggles?” “Worse.” He said. “That you don’t care.” It meant a lot to meet an American girl who knew about these issues, to which I reminded him that there are a lot more of us than he might believe. 

I lied awake in bed for a long time, just thinking of everything that we had discussed. It’s true what they say about being abroad--the best education comes from the random people you meet along the way.