A Walk In The Park, And Also Food — Sunday 18 December to Wednesday 21 December

Before I get into the post, I have a blog post from a kindred spirit, at least as regards my crepe stand plan. I can't find the post where I detailed my plans to open a crepe stand if the whole scientist thing falls through, but I think it was pretty detailed. If anyone has information on where I talked about that, please let me know. It's bugging me.
Sunday, I went back to Barnes Park. I think I've mentioned it to at least one person who reads this, but I'm not sure. I didn't have my camera the first time I went here, so I kind of had to go back.

This is the big grassy area before the park. Good for dogs, kites, frisbee games, and football games.
The lensflare/glory rays were completely accidental. I wasn't even looking at the screen at the time, due to the sun being really bright. 

Some of the toys, which were all at the front of the park.

This was to show off the snow behind the gate. I don't know what the big, flat depressions are. They have stairs, so they might be for sports... It was also really icy; this walk in the park was no walk in the park.

That turned out to be something called a "stumpery", for the purpose of growing ferns like the victorians did. I think this whole park has been restored to something resembling its presumably victorian glory days.

The lake has a set of stairs leading down from it. I don't know why.

Frozen lake. I tossed a rock, and it bounced.

Ducks!

Okay, this tree bothers me. I see them around, but I don't know what they are or why people like them. They resemble pines from a distance, but up close...

It looks like something that should have been extinct for a really long time.

Do not like.

I was going to walk by the gazebo, but I think I would have ended up with a broken something, or maybe some more bruised cartilage.

Up there is the large grassy area from the beginning of the post. It goes very up, and this part of the park also goes a little down.

I brightened up the picture to make the cool bridge in the middle less invisible, but I might be able to see it just because I know it's there.

I love this funky little structure. If I'd had more battery, I'd have taken more pictures. Alas... 

Prettiness! In Sunderland, even!

I had planned to go further, but with the battery issue and the fact that it was really friggin' cold, I decided to go hunt down the cafe that I'd seen signs for at the park entrance and see what they had in the way of hot drinks. What I found was more of a small kitchen behind a candy-and-crisps counter. Fortunately, the kitchen contained a coffee pot, a hot water pot, possibly a microwave, and a friendly local. It had been a while since anyone commented on my accent, and I soon found myself chatting with a stranger (not for the last time) about my Christmas plans. I got a cup of hot chocolate with a generous portion of whipped cream on top, and it was pretty good, even if it did get grainy at the bottom and didn't do much for my hands freezing off. It was tiny, but cheaper and rather better than anything I'd get at starbucks, and also whipped cream.
That night, after my hands thawed out, I made plans to get up early and Do Things on monday. My christmas plans took form, from an abstract list to a firm idea of what I needed.

Monday, I got up before 9 AM and Did Things. I walked down Pallion, the startling street behind Clanny, and found cash, chestnuts, and a sweet shop in the style of Badger Canyon Herbs and Tea. I got some weird candy, in lieu of candy canes, my main objective. I realised that, although I'd planned to get fruit and soup makings monday, it would be a week before I'd end up using them. So, I ended up getting candy and nuts. I also went to the area outside the Bridges (mall just down the road from the university) and hunted for a tacky Christmas sweater, but they didn't have anything. I mean, there was plenty of tacky, but no Christmas.
I was disappointed, but I headed for the bookstore across the bridge. I'd seen it, but couldn't remember the name. I could, however, remember that it is on the road that the bridge is on, so I walked across the bridge with some chips from a fish and chip place outside the bridges.
I cursed myself for forgetting my camera as I walked across the Wearmouth bridge, which I've been wanting to photograph, and also saw the gorgeous-looking park thing underneath the bridge (I've made plans to go back, initially on tuesday, although that got scrapped when I woke up sick, but more on that later).
The store was closed. I almost got killed by cars three times trying to get to it, and it was closed.
Unbelievable.
Well. Maybe it was just closed for lunch... I began my hunt for the St. Peter's campus, a place I'd been exactly twice, and one of those was on a bus. The other time was when we skipped the treasure hunt during orientation and got lost on our way there before coming at it from the kind of opposite direction (almost exactly four months ago; it doesn't seem like that long ago that I didn't know some of my favourite people). I ended up getting slightly lost in a residential area, but kept following the sidewalk in hopes that I wouldn't have to turn around and go all the way back.  Luck was with me, and the sidewalk dumped me out by a sign that said University.
St. Peter's is a lot prettier than City Campus. The libraries aren't much different, although the view is better from St Peter's. I looked up the "Bridge Books and Music" store, which doesn't have a proper website, and decided to try again after the lunch hour, as it's supposedly open all weekdays.
However, unless the lunch hour is really long, Bridge Books and Music is closed for the holidays, so I'll give it another shot after new years, probably. I'm a little sad that I can't find any second-hand bookstores, and the only bookstores I can find are large chains, which are invariably expensive.
I walked home, which entailed the following: almost dying three times in roundabouts, checking the charity shop for a sweater, and getting a library card to check out Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.
The library on Kayll Road (it collides with Pallion, the street of the fruiterer and three pizza places within twenty meters of each other, and I don't know why the changed the names, but whatever) is pretty limited, but they do have Terry Pratchett. It was here that I had my second discussion with a stranger over my Christmas plans; the librarian was quite friendly.

Tuesday, I woke up sick. I blame the fact that I walked, quite literally, all over Sunderland in the rain and cold. The bus wasn't there when I was, okay? Don't judge. I slept in until... late... and then dragged my sorry behind out of bed only to go downstairs and see that there was nothing I wanted to eat. I put a load of laundry in, after forgetting my detergent, and went to the supermarket that seems the least sketchy for crepe mix. I wasn't really up to making the (admittedly not labour-intensive) batter on my own.
Conclusion: I like mine better, but it was fun making the batter in a bottle.
I spent the rest of tuesday sleeping through movies, getting bored with them when I was awake, planning Christmas, and craving soup.
I drifted downstairs sometime in the evening and decided to make soup happen. Micha left gobs of pasta, and we have a bunch of leftover vegetable bouillon from various and sundry theme nights, and Josie left lots of frozen vegetables...
It was pretty good. While chicken noodle soup was kind of out of the equation, vegetable noodle soup was pretty darn good. I think it was the noodles in hot broth thing that did it for me.
Today, Jessi redeemed herself for every time she was a horrible, insensitive, ranting b-word. She was nice to me when I was sick, and that makes up for every argument I've had to lose to preserve the lack of hostility in my room. She's lent me quite a bit of money over the course of Ireland and me not having change for laundry a few times, too. I was in a good enough mood, also triumphant after making soup, to play go fish and lose at egyptian rat race twice (blasted sandwich rule; I cursed it even when I remembered it). Jessi's not a very good winner or loser, but she was very nice when I was sick...

Wednesday, I would have stayed in bed forever, but we were supposed to have a fire alarm test, which means the incredibly loud alarm going off for three to six seconds over five to fifty second intervals for one hour. It's the most miserable time to be trying to be lazy. I decided to do my mall shopping: I got a santa hat to make up for my lack of a sweater, some mince pies that I'm hiding from Jessi until after christmas, at which point she can finish them, some fancy cheese, crackers/biscuits, lentils, sparkling white grape and peach juice (non-alcoholic; I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find any non-alcoholic cider, so I went with the first sparkling thing that reminds me of christmas that I could find), a whole lot of tomatoes, and a strange melon that I've never attempted to eat, to my knowledge.
I should explain the tomatoes. I've taken to reading food blogs; not sure how that happened. I think I was looking for a spiced cider recipe when we planned out Christmas Night, and ran across Accidental Hedonist, who had a guest writer a while ago who writes a blog called Tomato Kumato.
As I read through Tomato Kumato's archives, I find myself resonating with Emily, who's lived all over the world. No, I've never lived in or even been to New York, Toronto, or Paris, but I do know how it is to have so many "homes" that it gets a bit confusing. I know how it is to wish that you could stay in your new home, with your new friends, new cultural norms, and new habits. I know how it is to want to make your own place in a big world. I've been forcing myself to stop looking eagerly at "to let" signs that pepper Sunderland.
Of course, Tomato Kumato is a food blog. Emily posts a lot of recipes (including one for garlicky tomato soup), and I'm almost quivering with anticipation for cooking my Christmas food. Then I got sick, and felt like a master chef when I managed to scrape together tuesday night's soup. I decided that I could make a garlicky tomato soup from scratch, especially after reading about someone who's been cooking with fresh vegetables. I've always been one to jump on a bandwagon, so two pounds of tomatoes came home with me.
Unfortunately, I have no food processors at all. Josie took her potato masher with her when she moved out, and we certainly don't have any kind of blender. Of course, I was far too excited to bother with this, figuring that I don't mind a few chunks of tomato or some tomato skins in my soup.
I'll just skip to the end... It wasn't the texture that got me, it was the salt. I think I got my salt requirements for the week out of that soup, even though I tried putting potatoes in it. It was okay if I dipped some bread in it.
So, note to self: Don't try roasting tomatoes for soup until you have food processing equipment. Also, the garlic would have been garlickier if you hadn't roasted it. Since the point of the dish was to clear your distressingly clogged sinuses with a blast of garlic...
In any case, I don't feel sicker. Actually, I think I'm doing a lot better. I'm on quite a culinary trip. I made latkes while waiting for the soup, something I've wanted to try since I read the story "Latkes for Dixie" in Highlights (Dixie was the family dog, a collie, if the illustrations were to be believed). I finally pulled it off, although I have no idea if they tasted right, never having had any before. In any case, they were the success that the soup was not, and I enjoyed them with leftover apple sauce from Christmas Night.

Oh, Christmas plans... I wouldn't normally share the details beyond "watching some christmas movies and generally relaxing while my roommate's off with her family, and I'll be skyping with the family sometime and eating delicious food" except I'm getting really excited about this, in spite of the fact that I can't find candy canes anywhere.
Friday the 23rd, I'll be reading Hogfather and then judging the movie.
Christmas Eve, I'll be watching Polar Express before midnight and trying not to finish the whole bottle of sparkling grape juice. I'm torn between ordering chinese and just eating some cheese (I have a lot of cheese), bread, and apples. I'll have mince pies and cookies, in any case.
Christmas morning, I'm making the berry strudel that's been in my freezer drawer for a few months for breakfast before heading to St Gabriel's (Anglican church just down Kayll Road) for the 10:30 service.
Lunchtime will be leftover strudel and the cheese combination. I'll probably watch more Christmas movies, and I will put on my hat.
At some point in the day, I'll be skyping with my family.
Dinner will be a grand soup. I'm getting so excited about this soup. It will have everything. Lentils, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, hopefully courgettes (british for zucchini; I kind of wish Americans had picked up on the french version instead of the italian one), mushrooms, garlic... And more!
And bread. I just need to find some and hope that the place I get it from is open the day before Christmas eve. I'm thinking I'll get some not-all-the-way-cooked baguettes from aldi Thursday, just in case. I'll eat it eventually, I'm sure.
Then... I haven't planned. The great soup might be before the skyping; it might be after. For all that I've laid this all out, I'm not sure what goes in the middle of the things I'm doing.

I've got batteries, so I'll be putting up more Christmas pictures soon. And, with any luck, I'll be feeling like I can go outside without needed to wear all my clothes even though it's not that cold out (so much for all that "worst winter on record" stuff, unless "worst" is actually defined as "most disappointing").

Christmas; Joy and Sadness — Tuesday 13 December to Saturday 17 December

So, on Tuesday I found out that I had my history exam a month earlier than expected, and most of my day was consumed by revising (studying) for that off the back of the how-to-revise lecture (luckily, I had already procured and wrapped my secret santa present). It was a two-question essay exam, so I needed to look up some basics on three or four topics and the details on some primary sources (historical documents we've looked at in class) so that I would be prepared for anything the exam threw at me. For a study break, I made crepes in a wok that I bought against the possibility that all the good skillets would be gone. I felt pretty good about the wok: it only cost £2, doesn't burn the crepes, and only tilts a little bit when empty (unlike the other skillets that I got for £2, which tip over when empty because the pan is lighter than the handle). I accidentally stayed up late, but I managed to wake up on time to make the 10 AM exam time on Wednesday.

My professor, however, missed her metro and was 10 minutes late, which sent me into a pre-exam panic. I always have these panics, but this one was forestalled by the fact that I didn't know about it until the day before. The main topics that my brain freaks out about are:
1. Is it really today?
2. Am I in the right room?
3. Was it really scheduled for this time?
4. Oh, God, I should have checked my email before I came!
Usually, my freakouts are ended by the presence of the other students and/or the proctor of the exam being in the room at the time that I show up. This time, I was the only student in the room, and the proctor wasn't there.
PANIC!
Fortunately, she showed up and I sat the exam with no panicky blank stare moments.
After this, I prepared for Christmas night. I snuck my present downstairs, and waited around for Adam to come and take Josie and I shopping for food.
He took a while.
We finally got to Asda and had a great time navigating the awkward store set-up with crazed christmas shoppers filling the aisles.
When we got home with £70 of loot, Josie hurriedly put the 3 kg (~6 lb) pork roast with a thick layer of crackling fat into the oven, since it was going to take 3 hours to cook and it was almost 17:00. Bad Adam. Then we all kind of had to knock around for a few hours until the squash, yams/sweet potatoes, and potatoes were ready to go in, and I had to wait until 10 minutes before everything was done to heat up the quorn lamb things that I got for Felicity and myself.
Before Felicity came over, we had the gift exchange. Here's a picture of all the presents looking very nice around the £5 tree:

Josie got the redeem code for the X-Factor winner's single on iTunes from Conor, Conor got a Daft Punk CD from Flo, I got a book and a "Tea Deck" of cards with info about tea from Jessi, Adam got a bunch of CDs that Josie thought he would like as well the Coldplay album with his new favourite song on it, Jessi got a bright, fluffy scarf and irish coffee from me, and Flo got an "insult-a-day" calendar from Adam. I'd call the presents a success. I was impressed that Jessi and I managed to draw each other and then keep it a secret.
Here's the Christmas decorations that we put a ton of money into (nothing cost more than £5):

The rest of the tree. It has lights, but the batteries went out.

The tinsel garland looks cooler from this angle, trust me.

This was supposed to be another garland, but instead it's an awkward little tree that sits in the back of the kitchen.

Fairy lights around the board, and the tree.

Three things in this photo... Let it snow!, the Christmas moose that faces the window. and fairy lights held up with sticky tac. And the tail end of Merry Christmas on the other window.

One of the stars that Jessi's mom sent.

Jessi's advent calendar. The bags have dates on them and candies inside them.

The other star is in the window. We get some cool shadows from that.

That was the Joy part of the post.

Thursday, I slept in until 2 because my lectures were cancelled, then went and hung around Sunderland with Freya, who is slightly devastated by the fact that I'm leaving in a month. I'm impressed, since I'm a terrible conversationalist...
When I got back in, I knocked around the flat a little, then went to have another boring night of trying to update the blog and watching movies until the wee hours.
I got a text at 19:30 that Grandpa had passed on two hours before, and I spent the rest of the night trying to come to grips with the situation. It's really weird for me, being over here. I don't have the close connection with family that facilitates mourning, and I'm not really one to sob and scream when I'm upset. So I watched sad movies that would let me cry and wondered why I felt so disconnected. I didn't really tell anyone, unless they brought it up, since I don't know how to broach the subject. It's not much of a conversation-starter, and I'm not looking for people to tell me how sorry they are that a man they never knew isn't there anymore, even if I do appreciate the sentiment. I know that I'm sorry on behalf of others when people close to them that I never knew pass on, but I always feel awkward when that comes up. I think this is part of the disconnect.

I thought about canceling with Freya for Friday, since she wanted to hang out again and do "stuff" but decided against it. I needed to get out of the flat. I did have a good time; had some good pizza, saw some cute rabbits and a cute puppy, laughed... I felt a little like a traitor to Grandpa's memory, but I made up for it by looking up the stages of grief and analysing my feelings later that night. And don't worry, Mom and Dad, I'm not going to let this ruin the whole trip, I promise. I'm not going to just bury my feelings (NOT healthy, I know, I've tried it before), but I'm going to let myself have a good time when the opportunities present themselves and have some sad times when I need them.

Saturday, Josie moved to Leicester (pronounced "Lester"), which was like the end of freshman year at whitworth on a more permanent level. I sat around making little sad puppy noises, like the weird little alien from Star Trek (2009) makes when Scotty and Kirk beam onto the enterprise. Josie's kind of the fun one in the group, but I guess I'll be visiting her in Leicester (I cannot write that without pronouncing all the parts: Lie-sest-er) in January, maybe for new years, maybe later. But still... It's like the end of things. Also, the flat will be pretty empty during break. Conor is in Germany, Adam's going to be home for most of it, Josie's in Bedford (where James' home is), Micha's going home on Tuesday, Thomas is probably in Ireland, Florian's in Germany, and Jessi's going to be staying with her parents when they come to visit. Okay, that last part makes me happy, but everyone else being gone is kind of sad.

In other news, I didn't get dressed today. By the time I woke up, it was going to be dark in two hours anyway, and the library trip can wait for tomorrow. I did get up, eat breakfast, go outside, drink three or four cups of tea, and I'm going to eat proper dinner, but my purple plaid flannel pyjama pants and tank top are perfectly decent for knocking around the flat on a saturday.

Northern Ireland — Friday 9 December to Monday 12 December

Friday started for me at 4 AM; at 4:30 for Conor, Josie, and James, and at 4:49 for Adam. For Jessi, Thursday never really ended. We all had varying levels of exhaustion, but I think James summed it all up when, as Josie told it, he plaintively said "please stop..." to her alarm when he couldn't figure out how to turn it off. However, Jessi was able to overcome her exhaustion by being really, really excited about ireland. I think she giggled and said "We're going to Ireland!" about once every five minutes on the forty minute drive to the airport. Thank God we weren't on the metro (same trip is over an hour)...
I love flying. There's something about it. I hate airports, at least the getting into them part, and I dislike the boarding processes, but once I've got my luggage stowed overhead and underseat and myself tucked into a seat, be it next to strangers, friends, or no one, I start getting really giddy. I stare out the window for everything, including the taxi to and from the runway. While I do get a little nervous during bad turbulence, I'm definitely not afraid of flying. Taking this into consideration, I've decided that I have a few backup plans for careers. If the whole scientist thing falls through, I'll try opening a crepe stand (one of those portable things, like hot dog stands: it'd be cheaper than a store, and if I have the money for that, I'm doing my tea/yarn/book store, not food), and if that doesn't work out, either, I'll be a stewardess. I'd get to fly all the time. Even if I don't get to look out windows and I have to put up with far too many upset babies and stupid passengers who try to sneak check-sized bags into the plane and stuff like that, I'd still be flying and even going to potentially cool places. I think it'd be worth it.

Still pretty, even in the dark.

Of course, I didn't get to see a whole lot, given that the sun comes up at about 8:30 and our plane left sometime after 7, but definitely before 8, but still. Flying.
Also, every time I fly, I think of that Weird Al song Albuquerque. The part I think of is 2:00-2:30 minutes, and you don't need to watch the rest unless you're a big Weird Al fan. It's a weird song.
We landed successfully, not too much turbulence, and got slightly lost in Belfast International. Eventually, we caught the Belfast International Express bus to Belfast and decided not to knock around Belfast with all our bags and less than 20 hours of sleep among six people. We managed to catch the sort-of express to Kilkeel just in time, and had a crazy bus ride south (although I had somehow convinced myself that it was north). My internal compass gave up its fight a long time ago, and I've kind of decided that my window is north. Ish. It's probably wrong.
In any case, we bought some groceries (as always, slightly impractical ones; we always mean to get useful staples and end up with pizza, crisps, and muffins) and ordered a taxi to 76 Brackenagh East Road, which I thought was spelled Brackney.
Also, I was completely wrong about my internal compass. My window faces almost due east, but we're north enough and it's winter enough that I think the sun never hits high noon, and lurks off in the south, making it pretty much impossible for me to figure out where it is. Also, too much city-stuff for me to see it setting, and heaven forbid I see it rising. Based on my rather belated walk a few weeks ago, the pretty part of a sunset around here is in the southeast (according to the google maps compass), so whatever. And Clanny House is oriented completely differently versus the coastline than I had thought. Gah... Now I'm going to get a headache whenever I think too hard about it.
Anyway.
We had to take two taxis because they didn't have a van around, so Josie, James, and I waited around for the second one. Our driver was an interesting character who's been all over the world driving taxis and trucks. I've discovered that the northern irish accent is way easier to understand than the southern (like Thomas's... It's like listening to the Swedish Chef from muppets (turn on the youtube captions for that video; it's not vital, but it's funny). I know he's saying words, and I'm pretty sure they're English, but for the life of me I cannot understand him. I don't get why Jessi thought his accent was attractive, because I personally am attracted to being able to understand people.).
The house is adorable. Adam described it as a "Nana house" and it really is, inside and out. It's adorable outside, and it's a little too small and filled with trinkets from long-ago travels as well as more recent trips and pictures of family. The area is what you'd kind of expect from Ireland. It's very green, full of sheep and cool little walls.

Classic.

It turns out that Ireland isn't green because of the native fauna, but because almost every arable patch of land has been turned into pasture or field.

Walls. This is part of the gate to the house.

Pretty good vantage of the countryside. I think that's the Irish Sea on the horizon.

Fields. Walls. I was pretty happy.

Sheep! Or, as Jessi always tries to call them, sheeps. My history prof succeeds at this because no one corrects her in the middle of class, plus it livens up the lecture.

More, um, sheeps. You can't help thinking that it's cuter after a few repetitions. It wasn't fun explaining moose and deer to Jessi, either.

The walls all have huge gaps in them, as seen in the background — no, that's not a hedge — and the left foreground. Our taxi driver said it was to keep the wind from knocking them over. They're new walls made of old rocks.

A ruined building, my guess is a barn, on Brackenagh Rd.

A nicely-lit view of Bingian, I think. 

 Within two hours of getting to the house, we had made pizza and tea and set up the TV. Er... We were also walked in on by a neighbour lady who was just "making the rounds, you know, checking that all the doors are locked" while Conor's grandmother wasn't there, and "didn't know anyone was there" (that's a laugh. She probably saw the taxi drive up, and she also probably knew that someone was coming for the weekend through the neighbourhood grapevine.)
As a flat, we hope to be like Josie's nan, who owns and runs a pub on the truck route in Australia, and who ran after a snake in the road and shot it at age 87, rather than creeping on the neighbours to keep ourselves busy. But probably, we'll end up watching TV all day.
Dinner was pretty slapdash. Since we can't really survive on toast, Josie wanted to make pasta with the tomato puree and the Quorn mince that she found, but she had to get creative on the pasta. There was a little penne and a pack of lasagna sheets, so she cooked the lasagna sheets to a little harder than al dente and cut them into strips, then combined them with the penne.
We tried to watch The Two Towers that night, but in spite of the epic battle to get the TV to recognise James' hard drive that ended in hooking my USB stick (yay IT day!) and James' hard drive to Adam's computer and putting the one of the three parts of the extended version (I was expecting two) onto the stick every time we finished one part, pretty much everyone fell asleep before the end. Conor and I managed to stay up, but I suspect that we may have had the most sleep.

Saturday, it was Josie's birthday. I did my best to sleep through the visit from Conor's distant relative. I'm terrible at visiting. Apparently, though, I missed her waltzing into the guest house where James and Josie were rooming before they got up. Again, with the not knocking thing. But she did leave us a steak and ale (or some kind of booze, I forget the exact word) pie, a dish of cheesy potato things, and a pack of four mini mince pies, which are delicious, by the way.
Adam, James, Josie, and I went dinner shopping, and prayed for deliverance on the taxi ride to the store. I mean, daaaang, these people are crazy drivers.
Ireland does not believe in vegetarians. Luckily, there was some Quorn chicken at the house, or I'd have been one protein-deprived vegetarian. After the store, everyone bundled up in preparation to climb what may have been "Bingian" or possibly "Binian", a mountain-y hill just north of the house. And it is north, I checked.
To get to the hill, we had to cross what appeared to be a field but was in actual fact a marsh. Everyone's shoes got pretty well soaked, Jessi went in up to her midcalf, Adam went in up to his knee, I did a hasty faceplant (the brunt was on my shins and my left glove; no facial or even torso contact with the ground), and Josie went in up to just above her ankle.
It was still a good time, and I have some great pictures.

View from the fence after we climbed up a path for about ten minutes. I don't think that the Irish Sea is in the background, but I could be wrong. I can't remember which way I was facing...

I liked the lone little shrub on the hill of grass and heather. And marsh.

We decided to aim for the dip, given that we started very late and the taller bit was completely covered with a cloud.

Adam and Jessi trying to avoid the stream.

Jessi got mad at me for that one, but it's not my fault she was in the frame... She was running to keep her feet from sinking into the ground.

Adam (back) and James (facing the camera) wore vans. The canvas kind. They did say that they don't have any hiking boots anyway, but still. 

All the white bits are water. The wet kind, not the snow kind that they look like in the picture.

James and Adam slogging. I think about twenty different routes to the base of the mountain were taken by the six of us over the half hour that it took to get from the gate to somewhere on the mountain.

Jessi in blue, Josie in pink, and I think that's Conor next to Josie.

The heather in the marsh was orange. I was impressed.

Heather over stream.

I thought that was a spring, and that it was all dry past that. Wrong! It was still pretty, though.

The red bits are soaking, the green bits are full of puddles, and the cream bits sink. Can't win. 

I guess it is pretty emerald under the scrub. Also, walls!

I always wonder what piles of rocks came from. I think I read too many westerns.

We were higher than we thought. I can see the house from here, but I don't know which speck it is.

I think this was of the big protrusion that I photographed earlier, when I wondered about big piles of rocks.

Looking up... fog.

Also up: Adam being a zen master. In Jessi's picture, he's got his thumbs up.

Why two? Cause it's pretty.

We had mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and peas, and steak pie and chicken-ish pie for everyone but me, and quorn chicken in a vegetable gravy that I found in the cupboard for me. We also watched the (UK) X Factor (the cousin of American Idol and the older sibling of the american X Factor, and probably a relative of [Country]'s Got Talent) all day because it was Josie's birthday and the first round of the finals was on that night. Spoiler: for her birthday, her favourites both got through, and for the day after her birthday, her favourite favourite won.
Confession: I enjoyed watching and was excited when Little Mix became the first group to ever win X Factor, and the first girl group to ever be a serious competitor even though I haven't followed it at all and won't after this.
The only downside to the day, aside from widespread puddlefoot, was Jessi. I'm going to try not to go into detail, since I've already complained to pretty much everyone (sorry!), but she managed to be insulting to almost everyone and pick stupid arguments with everyone else. I do try to give her grace, since she's doing something that I have never done by going into a culture where no one speaks her native language, but it gets hard to stand down. I'm not the most graceful loser, and to end an argument with Jessi over opinion-based statements is pretty much to lose it, or at least have her feel that she's won. Which, of course, is chalked up by my brain as a loss, leading me to resent the fact that she doesn't seem to notice that she's doing this. She always laughs while she's telling you that what you would rather do in a totally hypothetical situation is flat-out wrong, and it tends to make me feel aggressive, which makes me nervous about having an honest-to-blog fight with her, because we do have a month and a half to go, and I don't want hostility. Besides, she's probably harbouring her own pet peeves about living with me, so I'll keep a lid on my irritation if she does.
Hey, lookit that! My "not going into detail" managed to be the longest paragraph in the whole post!
Josie and James had to leave the next morning, but Adam, Jessi, Conor, and I watched TV late into the night.

Sunday, Conor, Jessi, Adam, and I went to the Silent Valley park, which is apparently where the water in Belfast comes from. It was beautiful enough to overcome my frustrations with Jessi, and I was even in a good enough mood by the end of the loop to make a joke about her rhetorical question that I know the answer to without answering it and irritating her. I may turn into Sheldon from Big Bang Theory when people ask idle questions about science, but I'm working on not answering them if people don't request an answer. At least around Jessi, since she does it enough to annoy Conor, and I don't think my answering does anything to improve relations. Something about that glazed-over, vaguely annoyed look she gives me when I finish... (Was that sarcasm? It was?! I'm on fire tonight!)
Enough about Jessi. Here's pretty pictures!

The Bingian elementary school. Not a lot of kids in this area...

OMG Pwnies!

The walls were busy being built, I think. Either that or they were busy falling down.

Scrub.

Cool silhouette at Silent Valley.

It reminded me a lot of Muir Woods. The trees were smaller, but there was even a stream with a plaque on salmon spawning.

I took a water picture that turned out pretty!

It was prettier in real life... but this is pretty awesome, too. 

After we got back, we watched the final X Factor final while Conor and I made miscellany for dinner. We ended up having baked beans on baked potatoes, the potato and cheese thing that Conor's relative brought over, and the rest of the quorn chicken with peas and green curry sauce. It was pretty good, to my surprise (even though I made it. I don't trust curry, as a rule). Then we had mince pies for dessert, and they were incredible. I always suspected mincemeat of being full of meat (mince is british for ground meat), but it's actually all fruit. I even found a jar of mincemeat at Aldi, and it's got "suitable for vegetarians" on the label. I've got to say, that is one of my favourite things about this country. Vegetarians know what's what. Either that, or the government is tricking vegetarians into eating meat-based products for kicks. ...I still check ingredient lists, by the way.

Monday, we cleaned, made the beds, hid the TV, and headed to Belfast. We caught the bus just in time, and it was another double decker. Yes!
What I saw of Belfast was pretty nice. We ambled through a christmas market, which smelled amazing, didn't buy anything, lost Jessi, found Jessi, lost Conor, found Conor, lost Conor again, decided to leave, and found Conor. We were heading to St. Anne's Cathedral when Jessi got distracted by some fairy lights (which sounds way cooler than christmas lights) and we headed down a little shopping hallway. We were instantly drawn into a pub, where Adam and Conor worked on pints of Guinness for a while because it's supposed to taste better in Ireland. By the time we left, it had started raining hard, and we were hungry, so we ended up sitting in a cafe for a while longer. We had to get our bags from the welcome centre at 17:30, so we headed back there around 17:00, grabbed our bags, and headed to the bus station to catch the Belfast International Express (same one we took from the airport) by 18:00 so that we could catch our 20:25 flight. I was pretty bummed that we hadn't explored more city, and that it felt like we had spent more time sitting around than seeing Ireland, but it was okay.
Adam held us up through security. Tssk. He'd actually been expecting it, since his mild, quiet, unassuming, inoffensive demeanor tends to set off red flags for security at airports. He wasn't expecting his bag to be unpacked, but it seems that Newcastle airport has pretty lax security as far as liquids and aerosol cans go.
I did look out the window for this flight, but it was pretty boring since the sun was all the way down. I tried to doze, but I think the jet stream was in our favour, since the seatbelt sign was off just long enough for the drink cart to go around before we started our descent.
We took the metro home and waited on the train for about half an hour before it started, and I slept for a little while. I think we went straight to bed when we got home. It was a long trip, but a very good one.

I'm Going to Ireland!

And nothing else matters. 

Except that I did pretty well on my lit assignment and finished my history assignment. 

Anyway, I'm going to leave my computer here because it's heavy and I don't know if there will be internet at Conor's family's house in Northern Ireland, so forgive me for ignoring your texts.