My sister is finally here! She arrived in London on Saturday, where we spent the the weekend, and now we are in Belfast! I thought our stay in London would be pretty similar to my previous weekend there, but they were actually quite different! We did go to some of the places I went last time, such as the Big Ben, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, and the Tower Bridge. However, this trip was incredibly different given the people I spent it with. Last time I was there I mostly did the touristy stuff on my own. I walked around 23-24k steps per day and went to every famous touristy spot and even found time to do more. This time was a lot more relaxed. We went to some of my favourite places from last time and we got a little bit of the local atmosphere experience. Both my sister and the other friend who is visiting me had not seen one of their high school friends for around four years. He is now living in London, so we met with him and some of his friends for dinner in Chinatown. We walked around Piccadilly Circus and Soho, and then went to his house and talked. We finished the day by watching Trevor Noah’s new stand-up. I am a little obsessed with him, so I can’t complain about how the night ended.
Yesterday started off really early. We woke up before five in the morning, made it to the airport before seven, and were in Belfast by 10. I barely made it to my 11:15 class. We decided to rent a car to make it easier to see the cool spots there are to see in the island of Ireland. We headed up to Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge yesterday between my two lectures, and we are going down to the Republic of Ireland to see the Cliffs of Moher, Galway, and maybe also Dublin. My sister and friend visited on the perfect week. It is Saint Patrick’s Day this coming Friday, so some of my lectures and tutorials were cancelled. I only have classes on Monday and Tuesday, so we are taking the rest of the week to make the longer trips and soak in some Irish culture.
This week marks the beginning of the second half of the semester. It is weird because I am technically here for another two and a half months, but a whole month out of that are Easter holidays, during which I will be travelling around Southern Europe. That month doesn’t really count. I will be sending a suitcase back with my sister. This will mark the beginning of my move back to the States, and I don’t know how to feel! I love it here. I will miss it dearly, and I imagine the cultural shock will be sharper when I am back in the States than it was when I got here. However, I am looking forward to my job this summer. The housing form is due this Wednesday, which is yet another step back towards the States. I am shooting for a single in Tower, but I want to live near a friend who doesn’t have a great lottery number, so we will probably end up in McAfee. I guess I will know soon enough.
Until next time~