The Cost of Fresher's Week

Northern Ireland likes me so much, it’s paying me to live here.

I’m being serious. Every day Hannah and I find pennies on the ground, or 2p or even 5p. This morning Hannah found a 50p coin, and last night I found 5 pounds in the middle of the street.

Why are we so lucky? I like to think that Northern Ireland is just showing its support, but there are two other reasons for my sudden pay raise. The first is the staggering amount of drunk freshers walking around campus and abandoning their money on the wayside, and the second is that only Americans are greedy and grubby enough to actually pick change up off of the street. Every time I bend over to pick up a penny, Hannah says, “What’d you find?” while Mel, my Chinese friend, cries, “Are you all right?!”

“Did you drop something?” Anam, the British student, asks.

“Penny,” I say, holding it up for inspection. Hannah nods, and the others look at me as if I’m a lunatic.

Usually the streets of Belfast are pristine, but because this is Fresher’s Week, the streets have become littered with glass (from shattered beer bottles), beer bottles, glasses, soggy leaflets advertising everything from 2 pound admission and 2 pound drinks to Condescending Wonka memes, and, my very favorite, money. When I first arrived in Belfast, the streets were amazingly beautiful, probably because there is an 80 pound fine for littering here. Now they are a mess, and it’s not just inanimate objects ruining the view.

To get to the Student Union, or to classes, or anywhere, really, first you have to wade through a mass of people. On Monday a group of scantily clad girls in high heels with black boxes on their heads scared me half to death, on Tuesday it was a man dressed like a skeleton, and today there are Gingerbread Men and what looks like Whoopee Cushions wandering around, offering us flyers, free entry bracelets and necklaces, and bars promoting their “American Style Menu” (at very un-American prices!). Hannah was given a leaflet about a local LGBT bar, given to her by what she claims was a man in drag—it looked like a girl to me.

If this is what big colleges are like, I am very glad I chose to go to a little college.

Because this is the mess called Fresher’s Week, Hannah and I and some of our friends have been trying to avoid campus as much as possible. We have visited every bookstore in a five mile radius, walked all the way to Cathedral Quarter so I could apply for a library card, and went to a Movie House to watch Anna Karenina.

The second or third night we arrived in Belfast, the Treehouse (or local gathering space here at Elms Village) had a movie night, and they showed an Irish movie about a Catholic boy and a Protestant boy growing up during the Troubles. They become friends, and together obsess over the American movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, so that the movie becomes their existence. It was a hilarious, spunky, heartfelt little movie, and while watching it I found myself doubled over with laughter, Hannah and Mehgan roaring beside me. However, everyone else in the Treehouse was silent; only a few people cracked a grin at all.

“Maybe it’s only funny if you’ve seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Hannah said when I brought it up later.

I have never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. All I know is that William Goldman, who wrote the script, went on about it for an awfully long time in The Princess Bride when he should have been getting to the good stuff. Namely, Buttercup and Westley.

The same was true of Anna Karenina. I went with Hannah and Victoria, and they would whisper to each other, laugh with each other; at one point I had to refrain from shouting at Alexey Karenin.

The rest of the theatre was silent.

So far it seems that only Americans indulge in laughter, tears, or talking during whilst watching movies.

But Fresher’s Week is half over. On Monday classes start, and I am signed up for Creative Writing (which I am retaking because A) they do not offer any other writing classes this semester, and B) Ireland. Creative Writing. Hello.), Anthropology, and Eighteenth-Century Romantics. I was supposed to take a different class, but my adviser and I decided to try the Romantics out for a week and see what I think. I am upset about this and have been pouting all day, but Hannah and Victoria dragged me to the Ulster Museum, because I really can’t pout when I’m yelling at the BBC man for disregarding the Permian-Triassic Extinction in favor of the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs and ogling over the hair on an Egyptian mummy’s head. And tonight we’re going to go to iCafe again.

iCafe has been introducing us slowly to the world of Irish foods, culture, and life. They’ve feed us potato bread, soda bread, Wheaton bread, and lots of puddings (which here means ‘dessert’ and not ‘pudding’; the U.K. does not seem to understand the concept of pudding as a real, serious, identifiable food source, or care that my feelings get hurt every time I am promised pudding and receive meat bread or pie.). We talk about religion, laugh, and listen to music. Last night Mel made a flower out of her napkin, and I wore it for the rest of the night; the night before, we learned a few Irish Gaelic words, which I promptly forgot. Each night we leave and there is a line of Freshers in small dresses and high heels queuing up to enter the Speakeasy, the local bar. The amount of liquor these people are consuming is frightening. They drink there, in the streets (even though there are signs specifically telling people not to drink in public) and in the common room of Holly Grove, all whilst dressed in miniskirts. I don’t understand how they can do this. The weather has been cold and windy for the last few days; today we actually had a proper rainfall, followed by a rainbow. I’m wearing fuzzy socks to bed because I’m so cold.

But, so long as they don’t me up, I suppose it’s none of my business. Besides, I’m profiting from them.

Anyway, I’m off to tonight’s iCafe. It’s Acoustic Night, so I’m looking forward to some good guitar playing—and maybe some food!