Ceilidh Dance

 I'm going to try something different with this blog post. This one is in third person, and I want it to be like that so it feels as if you were really here at the ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) dance with me tonight. Try and guess who's who, you might win a prize! 

What amazes me most about tonight was how it was a mixing bowl--I learned so much about Chinese and French culture! 

Whitla Hall been made for special occasions, and the architect had taken that into consideration. Whether it was for graduations, award ceremonies, or even a band, Whitla Hall would meet every function with grace. And so it had been made with pale wooden floors and rounded white pillars, a large gathering space looking directly up to the ceiling and the wide rectangular windows, red velvet curtains neatly brushed to the side. A stage rested at the far end of the Hall, where one could spot the balcony.

“How do we get up there?” one student, an American, asked. Her hand was on her necklace, and her gaze faraway.

That night Whitla Hall was being used for a dance, but the band had not yet arrived. A crowd of at least a hundred people sat on the ground, plates of foods in their laps, as if they were at a picnic.

The other considered, brushing her hair out of her face. “There are doors at each end of the stage,” she mused, pushing around mounds of yellow rice with her fork.

Of the hundred people in attendance, most were split into groups of five or six, each circled around each other as if they were at a picnic, and not indoors on a chilly Belfast evening. Professional looking waiter and waitresses stepped over the bodies, picking up empty plates and cleaning away abandoned drinking glasses. From the stage came the faint sound of recorded music, which made its way to the two Americans.

“That reminds me of a song,” she continued, abandoning her plate. “You know, Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, dormez vous…”

“Oh! We have that song, in my language,” another girl said, this one Chinese.

By the back wall were a group of Germans, looking easily but with restrained nervousness at the large crowd. Another, rowdier group of Germans had congregated around the water pitchers, as if hoping that something stronger would soon be served.

Up on the stage, motion had begun. An accordion player had arrived and was softly tuning his instrument, and he looked up in time to see a man picking his way through the crowd, a small drum tucked under his arm.

“Liang zhi lao hu

Liang zhi lao hu

Pao de kuai

Pao de kuai,” came a Chinese voice.

An Iranian nearby tucked her jacket more tightly over her shoulders. A French girl raised her head. Everywhere was the sound of gentle murmurs, hums, the clicking of the women’s boots.

“Yi zhi mei you yan jing,” the song continued, this time picked up by one of the American girls. “Yi zhi mei you yan jing…”

The waitresses and waiters had finished their rounds and were busily folding up the tables and moving the steaming hot plates into the back. An Irish girl, dressed in the black HELLO t-shirts that all of the guides wore was running around, directing the transition from picnic to dance.

“Yi zhi mei you wei ba,” the song went on, now sung by French voices too, “Zhen qi guai, zhen qi guai.”

A smattering of applause met the end of the song, and the girls bowed, beaming.

Soon everyone was standing. The quiet Germans were still leaning against the back wall, wary. The more daring Finns and the even more daring Norwegians had pressed their way forward. The Americans hung in the middle, the French moved here and there, and the Asians were everywhere; behind you, in front of you, to the left and the right. The food was gone, the water pitchers had all been emptied, and the show was about to begin. The violinist, late, ran across the packed hall, his violin tuned and ready to go under his arm.

“Volunteers!” an Irishman cried. “Two boys, and two girls!”

From the crowd came one American, smiling broadly; the crowd applauded for both girls, but louder for the men, who had to be dragged out into the middle of the dance floor. The Irishman called out the moves, demonstrating with his guinea pigs, shouting instructions. “Left! Right! Loop! Ghalaway ghalaway ghalawaaay!”

“What does that mean?” asked the American, her hand still on her necklace.

“I have no idea.”

The couples spun round, their skirts flaring. Across the hall was Giant, dressed in a tux and tie, his arm around the waist of a girl dressed up in high heels and dresses.

The dances began. The room was a blur of humans; yellow dresses, black tights and leggings, velvet pirate shoes and thin ballerina slippers, trainers and high heels. The accordion whistles out the tune, and above all of the noise was the Irishman, shouting, “Left! Up! Down! Around!”

“Do you want to dance?” A Finn asked the American girl with the necklace, his hands burrowed into his white hoodie. Nerves? The other wondered vaguely.

“Sure.” She walked off, smiling shyly, but honestly. She had an honest, graceful face, easily approachable.

Liang zhi lao hu, liang zhi lao hu…the American left hummed under her breath.

On the windowsill sat a Californian, in the same brown sweater he had been wearing all week. Nearby sat a girl from Florida, watching, taking pictures.

“Dance with me!” the Chinese girls cried, grabbing the hands of the women closest. The men had hidden in shadows. One of the rowdier German boys was biting his cup so that he looked like a muzzled dog.

“Ghalaway!”

There are two tigers…

The Giant and the girl he had his arm around watched impassively, but did not dance. The song ended, and the dance changed; the Finn still with the American, the Chinese girls scrambling for new partners, shouting the names of boys they knew.

“Dance with me!” one cried to the American.

“Next song,” she promised.

“No, now!”

Pao de kuai…

The world spun. The floor vibrated beneath their feet; every stomp was felt. The air was alive with electricity and the warmth of human bodies, as full and thick and sweet as honey. The air smelled of humans, in all their glory: perfume, cologne, excitement.

You had better run…

Half of the crowd dancing could not tell their right hand from their left. “Right!” the Irishman would call, and they would run to the left. The few who did know the different would pull, and laugh.

So much laughter. No one knew what they were doing, or who they were doing it with; some hands were cold, others warm. Some dancers broke apart to just laugh, openly and freely. Even the lookers-on grinned.

“Ghalaway!”

The American with the necklace finally stepped away for water. One of the rowdier Germans had started to dance. The Giant was nowhere to be seen. Most of the Americans had gone, as well as over half of the men.

Yi zhi mei you yan jing…

Standing by the water table was still the quiet group of Germans. The American’s eyes kept flickering over there, watching the tall one with the red hair and beard, and kind blue eyes.

“This is so much fun!”

“It’s like Jane Austen was born Irish.”

“Ghalaway!”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means, Spin! Spin! Spin!”

The dancers made a wave of their hands and bodies, each smiling broadly, their eyes narrowed in concentration. Did anyone even know their partner?

The hunters will take your ear…

“They should bring back the dance cards.” The American fiddled again with her hair, then her shirt.

“But that was for marriage. We’re not going to marry anybody here.”

Flick: eyes to the German with red hair. Flick back. “No, we won’t marry anybody here.” She sighed. “American boys might be the best, after all.”

Yi zhi mei you wei ba…

Spinning around. More dances, breathless laughter, missed stepped, stubbed toes. Everywhere, shoes. Girls in gothic clothes, one whose khaki coat was coming undone, hair slipping out of ponytails, a pair of orange sunglasses. The Irish. The Chinese. The Germans. The Americans. Boys in scuffed trainers and short hair, one with dreadlocks. The American in the brown sweater still sat on the windowsill.

The hunters will take your eye…

“Last dance!” the Irishman called. “Last ceilidh dance!”

“He’s gone home,” the American noticed, looking for the German with soft eyes.

“This isn’t his scene. He was taking pictures, though.”

“No, you’re right. This isn’t his scene. Are we going to dance this one?”

“Of course!”

“Ghalaway!”

“Make the wave!”

Zhen qi guai…

The American with the necklace had a rip in her sleeve. The other’s sleeve was falling off of her shoulder, her face red and bright. Almost everyone had gone, but the few that had remained were all there for the last dance. The ball was ending, the Jane Austen dream was over, and the musicians stopped playing.

All made for the exit. The air was cool on their warm skin. None of them bothered with jackets. The Americans had started to sing “Call Me Maybe.” At every stop, more and more people filed into the pubs, until just four girls walked into Elms Village, lighter than air, their minds dancing still.

They’ve already got them.

Settling into Belfast

Good morning, everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write sooner. I burned out a fuse or something similar in my room using my hair dryer, so I can’t use my laptop in my room anymore, and finding the time or energy to leave it hasn’t been easy so far. Come this weekend, I expect to find the time to catch you all up on Belfast life.

I also plan to put up a dictionary of Irish slang that I’ve been picking up recently, so you can all get a flavour of the language—although, to be honest, I don’t hear the Irish accent as much as I would like. We are still in International Week here at Queen’s, and so most of the Irish I talk to are much older than I am, or telling me how to get to City Hall while lost in the streets of the City Center. One of my favorite locals so far is Aran, a fabricator who adopted (there is no other word for it, really) Hannah and I two nights ago when he caught me scrounging for pizza. He’s outgoing and has an opinion on everything, and he also knows lots of random trivia. Most of the things I know about Ireland, I know from him!

I am starting to settle into Belfast a little bit more. My stomach has awoken with a vengeance, and I’m starting to feel tired and alert at the proper times. Tomorrow will be the first day all week I will be able to sleep in—and am I looking forward to it!

There are a lot of Americans here at Queen’s, and I think Hannah and I have met almost all of them. There are also a lot of Germans and Frenchwomen, as well as a multitude of Asian students. I’m starting to feel as if we Americans have created our own little America here in Belfast, especially since we were all crowded around the television yesterday watching news of the American embassy attacked in Yemen and the Egyptian protests. (Seriously, guys, Hannah and I have been gone five days, and already there’s drama?)

We are starting to fit in our surroundings a little bit more, though. Hannah is a whiz with being social, and Mehgan knows everything and everyone, so she is an enormous help. It’s thanks to her that we have mobiles, so now we can hand out our contact numbers to people who ask. This makes staying in touch easier. I’m still a little culture shocked, and surprised at myself—I had been waiting to go overseas so long I never would have expected to feel like a beaten cat. I miss Madonna and all of my Madonna friends so much—I even miss Sudexho food. No one in Holly House has yet figured the kitchen out, and the fridge stopped working, so there’s no way to store food here for long periods of time. This means that we can’t cook proper meals—although it’s not like we have time for it, the way Queen’s keeps us running around.

I was able to visit the Ulster Museum for the first time yesterday, and that has probably been the highlight of my week. We also found a used bookstore, which made me feel right at home. All I need now is a café that sells good tea and I will be all settled in here at Belfast! I’m still the same old Rebekah, more interested in libraries and ancient rocks than in going from pub to pub.

Queen’s did host a pub crawl last night, which was one of the more popular events. So many people showed up that on our trek to each pub, we stopped traffic, irritating many drivers. Hannah had her heart set on going, and I think that she enjoyed herself—although we both agree that it’s best not to go to pubs when there are at least thirty international students crowding up the place. Pubs are smaller than I imagined they would be, and not as grand. I’ll admit to being fairly uncomfortable there until Aran showed up and took my mind off of things.

Tonight is the Irish stew and ceilidh dance (pronounced kay-lee), which I am looking forward to, despite the fact that it will be crowded. The crowds still confuse and overwhelm me, especially because it’s hard to hear the others when they talk. I haven’t made many friends yet outside of Mel (my hallmate) and Mehgan, and that just makes me miss Madonna all the more.

I’m currently sitting in the kitchen, watching the workers paint outside, and watching the clock. It’s about time for me to go to the next set of lectures about Queen’s, so I had better get my backpack. I’ll write soon, and in more detail. I love you all!

I Arrive in Belfast; All is Not As I Presumed it to Be; A Thorough Description of Airports and My Bedroom

  "yes, i have come. i have had a safe journey, although my fears had mounted against me. there were many mountains of my own making and valleys of days without vision." -Saul Williams, "She".

Good morning! It’s 8:30 a.m. here in Belfast, and about 3:30 a.m. back home in Michigan. I’m in my room waiting for Hannah to officially come and wake me up, and then we’ve got a busy day ahead of us.

Yesterday afternoon, I got an e-mail from United Airlines, informing me that our flight to Newark had been delayed by two hours. This was not good, because it arrived at the same time our second flight to Belfast was supposed to be leaving. I called the airport, and a half hour later, my family was driving to the airport.

We did get to the Detroit Metro in good time, but I did not get a good amount of time to say good-bye (which is probably a good thing, because it means mom didn’t cry.) From Detroit Hannah and I flew to Chicago, where we waited for our next flight for a few hours, and then we flew an overnight to London Heathrow. I slept fairly well, although my ears popped, no matter how much gum I chewed, and the landing made me want to cry. Eight hours in a plane sandwiched between two people is not good on your ears, and being subjected to sea-level pressure again made me feel as if fire ants had invaded my skull and made my brain their new home. However, multiple supplications to God and a lot of steady breathing, and we landed intact in London Heathrow.

I will admit that, upon arriving at Heathrow, all I could think about was Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, the two stars of my favorite BBC series, “Sherlock”. However, I soon noticed that an airport supposed to be full, busy, and huge, was strangely…ghostly…empty.

It was about eight in the morning in London time, and four in the morning in Michigan, but I knew this couldn’t be right. I looked around tentatively, wondering if we were still in that little tunnel leading from the plane to the airport, but we had definitely in the airport—the glass doors, toilets, and Olympics promotions proved that. I gripped my suitcase, bumping up against the back of my leg, even tighter, and adjusted my backpack, which was digging heavily into my shoulder.

“Shouldn’t there be…people?” I asked Hannah tentatively.

“I like it quiet,” she said, nervously, as if my words would suddenly summon hordes of people with incomprehensible accents.

We turned a corner, and there was a queue.

The British are, it appears, singularly good at queuing (all other attempts beforehand had resulted in a mad dash of Americans running to the plane and, after we landed, from it, while Hannah and I sat patiently in our seats) and fairly efficient. We got to the front of the line in no time—but there we were forced to separate.

I went to a man at table 22, reminded again of the irony of going to my good luck/bad luck number. Would I have good luck? Or bad luck?

He was a short, balding old man, and tired as I was, with my ears still sore, I found it hard to understand him. But at last he stamped my passport and let me through, and I hurried to the spot Hannah and I had chosen as our meeting place. No one was there. This worried me, and I scoured the crowd for Hannah. Had she gone ahead? Had she been pulled aside?

As I stood there nervously, a woman in a blue work uniform appeared, her blonde ponytail swinging behind her. “Are you the friend?” she asked (ah yu thuh freend?) and I blinked at her, in relief.

“Yes,” I gasped, “I’m the friend,” and she proceeded to tell me that we had to go to Departures, and that to get there I had to go down one flight of stairs, across a gate, and up another flight of stairs. Then, she said something I didn’t catch, and when I blinked, she mimed pulling on a pair of shoes and said, “Boot.”

But I had one word, Departures, that I could repeat until I got blue in the face, if necessary, and so I nodded comprehension, thanked her, and headed off. I took the escalator, juggling my coats, messenger bag, and suitcase, and managed to get down the escalator without falling off (or watching my suitcase tumble down, which might have been worse). There I found myself confronted by a bunch of business men in suits, holding up signs that I didn’t bother to read. “Departures?” I asked a pair of women in uniform, with name tags, and they blinked at me and pointed at what looked like a maze at the other end of the large room. I set off, navigated the maze, and soon found the other escalator. Some tricky maneouvering later, I found myself in an even larger room, this was excessively crowded, and no sign of Hannah.

I had to ask three people for help, but I finally talked to a man who gave me a new ticket (for reasons I did not, and never will, understand) and sent me through security again. I could understand him perfectly, and underneath my worry, I felt smug: Mom was wrong. The accents would be nothing, once I wasn’t so tired, and my ears didn’t ache. I headed off towards security again, bumbled around a bit (angering other, more experienced travelers) and then found myself in front of a security guard. He was also older, and therefore, more difficult to understand; but he had a nice smile, and he soon communicated to me that he wanted me to stand on the yellow footprints on the ground, with my suitcase and back to the side, and look at a thin black spike, which was gleaming with red and green lights.

I had no idea what it was, except something that might be found in a James Bond film for reading eyeballs, but I looked determinedly at it, intent upon passing this next test. He must have found my expression funny, because he said, “We’re going to hypnotize you, love,” and I must have pretended to laugh. My heart certainly melted a bit under the fear. Where was Hannah? She had never flown before. Was she scared? So long as she was all right.

Had she passed this way?

“May I ask you a question?” I asked the man, once he had told me I was good, and he nodded. “Have you seen a girl in a blue checkered shirt, with curly brown hair?”

“No, sorry, but she’ll pass this way sooner or later; and you’ll meet at your gate. All right?”

There was wisdom in this, but wisdom a tired, lost American worried about her friend could only just grasp. I thanked him, and went on through a white hallway, and then I found myself in a mall.

There was a group of green chairs directly in front of me, and behind them rows of fancy shops, full of clothes, phones, electronics, books, mementos; on the walls to either side of me were more shops, with chocolates inside. My eyes skated over the seats, but I saw no one. I sat, reminding myself that Hannah and I would soon find each other; but I couldn’t rest. I got up, and saw a restaurant called Boots.

Boots. Duh. She wasn’t just a crazy British lady obsessed with footwear. She was telling me where to meet Hannah. I had come the right way, after all!

Only…there was no Hannah sitting in Boots. Maybe I was the crazy one. Maybe all Brits had a thing for boots, and she had been telling me to go buy some before I was left out of the trend. Obviously, my brand-new white sneakers were winning no awards in the fashion department.

My feet hurt, too, now that I thought about it. I sat down and pulled out a book and willed my heart rate to slow down before it gave me high blood pressure, or something equally disastrous. Like a heart attack.  The book couldn’t keep my attention. My eyes kept skittering off the page, eyeing all of the people in wheelchairs (when was the paraolympics, again?) the man with two prosthetic, hooked legs, the veiled women, the white men who at first I thought might be English but spoke, only to reveal that they were not.

And then, there, was Hannah.

“Hannah!” I cried, and she looked around, startled (who’s calling my name, no one knows me here) and then she saw me. My heart rate when back to normal.

And we discovered that we were ravenously hungry--or, at least, that we should be. Our stomachs had been left back in Michigan. We had not eaten since five o’clock the night before, lots of hours had passed, and all I had had to eat was a glass of orange juice and lots and lots of watermelon gum. We found a nice place called the Giraffe, and I spent what was my most peaceful moment in all of two days there, eating eggs, toast, and uncooked salmon, and drinking tea.

Then we waited.

Our flight left at 3:15. Between the twenty-four hour time and the fact that our gate number was not disclosed until ten minutes before boarding, I almost had another heart attack trying to find it, but we did. My ears were starting to ache again—not from pressure, but from switching so abruptly from American accents, to British ones, to the Irish one.

Another flight. Another painful experience to my ears, now firmly upset with me. And then, at long last, the plane landed. It was raining outside, and cold, at 12 degrees Celsius.

I had finally landed in Belfast.

Queen’s University Belfast met us outside of the luggage carousel, along with other students flying with us: Mehgan, Tanje, Rob. They led us out to a bus, dashing in the rain (does no one get used to rain?) and we boarded. From the window I could see a gorgeous mountain, almost a plateau, green with trees and craggy with bare rock faces. It called, and I turned to Hannah and said, “I’m going to climb that thing,” and she laughed. I’m not a climber; I have only ever read books about climbing, about summiting Everest and what sunrises look from on top of Kilimanjaro.

The airport was very much out of the way, surrounded by fields and sheep and cows. In fact, when we were landing, I couldn’t see any of the tarmac; I worried that we were landing on a poor farmer’s field. Queen’s was, the guides told us, thirty minutes away; traffic willing. I settled back and listed to Tanje and Rob speak about skiing. Rob, like us, was American, and sociable; Tanje was Norwegian, and just as much so.

The roads in and to Belfast are much different from the U.S. There are no sharp turns, full stops and then swerving; there are only gentle turns, curving, swaying quietly, the peel of an apple and the shape of the Earth. Red rocks gleamed in the street, and there was a half-road to each side, where cars pulled up to stop and, I suppose, rest awhile.

Then we were in Belfast.

If I were to build a city—if I had that kind of knowledge—I would build one just like Belfast. It is not a city like New York is a city, where people have choked out and destroyed nature; the world is green and red. New buildings mix with the old, and from atop some buildings are green statues of men, heroes of the past; hats in hand, or riding a rearing stallion, swords drawn for battle. It was a history I knew nothing about, but it sung, and I heard it.

We arrived at Queen’s, and began the long job of checking-in. I will post pictures later, but suffice it for now to say that Holly Grove 4 is fairly out of the way, at the top of a gentle hill. Hannah and I are on the ground floor, but in different halls. We do share a kitchen, however, and a common room.

My room is—ugly. After a long day, it was disheartening to return to a place that is not your home, and may never be; where there is only one toilet that lacks hand wash and towels to wipe your hands, and that there is only one shower for eight girls to share. My room had a desk, and a sink, and fuses that burnt out this morning when I tried to use the blow dryer (as a result, I went all natural with my hair. I must have looked like an American freakshow). The bedding I had bought from Queen’s took forever to figure out; Hannah and Tanje had to help me with it. It is a garish pink stripped mess that barely covers the bed, and between my cover and my mattress is only one thin white sheet. I doubt it will survive a month. Worst of all, though, was that I was alone—alone—alone—

I put what I could of my things away, and tacked up a Madonna poster, the Nyah cat Brooke gave me, and a favorite poem. I turned on my iPod to lull me to sleep, listening to Sarah’s Scandal in Belfast soundtrack, and turned off the lights.

I had expected to be terrified when the lights when out and I found myself standing in a strange room, for all of the night terrors and fears that I had as a child to come back. I half-expected Pharaoh Ramses’ mummy to burst in through the window, and zombies come from the closet, with the sound of the Headless Horseman’s horse beating up and down the hallway.  But instead, I was met with a surprise—for the student that had lived in my room before me had left something precious, something that redeemed everything about the room and Holly Grove and my situation and my mood.

The ceiling above my head shone with stars.