I Capture the Castle

Before the alarm clock rang, I was ready. Sunlight was beginning to creep into the room through the slits in my curtain, and when I opened my eyes, I knew it was time. I threw the peppermint covers off of me and began my morning ritual. By nine I was in the kitchen, nursing a mug of oolong tea and eating CocoPops and watching the other international students in Holly Grove wander in and out as they, too, got ready for Castle Dunluce and Giant’s Causeway.

Hannah and I had bought our tickets our second night in Belfast, and I’d been looking forward to it since then. Cosmin, who runs these trips for us out of Fisherwick Church, had been reminding us daily at iCafe meetings that this was an amazing opportunity, fiscally sound, and fun; he hadn’t had to tell me twice. And today was finally Saturday. I was leaving Belfast for the first time in two weeks and going up to Atrium, at the top of Northern Ireland. For me, it was the top of the world. I had never gone so far north before.

We met at the Treehouse at 9.30. Cosmin was running around in a t-shirt outside, directing buses and volunteers and the international students as we filed in. Hannah and I watched him, agape. Even in the Treehouse, snug in my favorite white sweater and red windbreaker, I was shivering, and when Mehgan met us there she showed off her many layers: purple sweater, warm winter jacket, scarf. Yet Cosmin seemed unaware that there was a chill in the air, or that we were going north, to the seaside, where the world was even colder.

Cosmin is a short, Romanian man, with short, curly black hair, brown eyes, and glasses. He was one of the first people I met upon arriving in Belfast, as well as the kindest, making sure I knew when there would be food, and where it would be, cracking jokes, and helping Hannah set up her bank account by getting in touch with bank representatives. He also got us to IKEA and directed us to Tesco, making sure we ate and had other valuable necessaries. And there he was, running about in a cold that even I, born, bred, and raised in Michigan, would rather avoid.

Psycho.

After driving through a strangely Carleton-esque countryside for about an hour and getting very bored with the sheep and cows, we made it to Castle Dunluce. I stumbled out of the bus and gaped. There was the sea, dark gray and beautiful, the crumbling castle at the edge of the cliff.

 

Castle Dunluce has been falling bit by bit into the sea for years, and when I am dead, it will still be crumbling into the sea, breaking off bit by bit until it is no longer there. But it was my first castle, even if it was a wrecked ruin, and I do not believe one forgets their first castle, even if one knows next to nothing about who lived there.

It could easily have been a grand place, one upon a time. What remained of the floor was intricate and pattered, there was a fireplace in the great hall about as tall as I was, and windows that once would have been glorious. But now there were parts of the floor missing, and a bridge had to connect the two parts of the castle.

“I’m going to kill myself,” I remarked when I slipped by the side of the bridge and nearly stumbled into the freezing water below.

“Please don’t,” Hannah said.

“It wouldn’t be intentional,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure I’m going to kill myself today. On accident.”

“Rebekah,” Mehgan said rationally, “You’re here sixteen weeks. Please try to pace yourself. You have four months to go about killing yourself. Don’t do it all in a day.”

I laughed, and bounded ahead into the great hall, blowing on my fingers.

Hannah, Mehgan, and I climbed a tower, and gazed out at the sea, and from one vantage point I saw what looked like a cave. “I have to go down there,” I said, which sparked a conversation about spelunking and Mammoth Cave, but all I knew was that I had to go down the cave, and see it for myself.

The cave turned out to be a letdown, as it was only a mouth to the sea, but there was a large hill next to it that people were climbing. I scrambled up its face, my purse banging at my side.

“We only have ten minutes,” Hannah said below, watching me.

I climbed back down again, disappointed; and I think I will regret not climbing that little hill for the rest of my days.

 

We went next to Giant’s Causeway. Cosmin looked worried now, presumably because he had about twenty or so suicidals in the group, myself included, who seemed determined to get themselves killed one way or another. Even our tour guides were eyeing us carefully and reminding us that the water was icy, and we would freeze.

“Just to remind you,” Mehgan told me pleasantly, pushing her orange sunglasses up on top of her head, “I’m not coming in after you if you fall in.”

Giant’s Causeway reminded me of Michigan, but in a good way, and not a homesick way. We walked downhill, on a path right next to what I should probably term a cliff but was more like the green face of a very large hill. On our left was the sea, splashing up against the rock, smelling of salt and beaches and home. The world had warmed up since we left Castle Dunluce, and I was starting to wish I hadn’t bothered with a coat at all.

Giant’s Causeway was named thus because the early inhabitants of Eire believed a giant had made the peculiar rock formations that rest there. The story is that a giant named Finn McCool lived on the coast, and that he had a throne and a house, and a camel, and when smoke came from a group of rocks that looked like a chimney, he was at home.

One day Finn decided to make war with the Scottish giant across the sea. So he picked up a group of hexagonal rocks and made a bridge all the way to Scotland, and then he ran across them. But when he made it to the other side, he saw that the Scottish giant was—gulp!—even bigger than he was! Finn ran back to Ireland, losing his shoe in the process, but was spotted by the Scottish giant, who followed him.

Like a smart man, Finn told his wife of his troubles, and Oomagh laughed. “Quick, dress like a baby and lie in the bed,” she ordered. “I will put the kettle on.”

Finn did as she ordered, and did his best to be quiet. There came a knock at the door, and Oomagh opened it and invited the Scottish giant in for tea. Because the Scottish giant was no fool, and very polite, he sat down and made small talk. Oomagh said she was sorry that her husband was not home, and he should be coming along shortly, and did the Scottish giant know she had recently had a baby boy?

When she said this, she gestured towards the bed, where Finn lay disguised as a baby. The Scottish giant grew pale, and he turned and ran, for he knew that any man who had had a hand in creating a baby so big and monstrous must be a bigger giant than he. And he ran back across the bridge, breaking it apart, but parts of the stones still lie in Ireland, and on the corresponding Scottish side. 

 

I got to see Finn’s camel, as well as the bridge, and Finn’s shoe. Mel and I scrambled heroically all over the stepping stones, with Hannah and Mehgan following sedately in our wake. I was never satisfied until I had reached the lip of the sea, watching it crash onto the rocks, or taking the more difficult route to a higher location. Mel outshone me in courage, though; she would not be satisfied until we had mounted the highest point.

There was also some really hideous German art just beyond the Causeway that consisted of two sided poster boards, one side red and one yellow, that had been put up on the cliffs for the London Olympics. I really hate modern art, but those flags took all of the beauty of the mountains away.

On the way back I put my camera away, and took in the beauty without looking at it secondhand through lenses, or through the eyes of my friends back home. I heard the rushing of the sea, and felt the wind on my cheek, and the sun’s warmth in my hair, and marveled that I was actually in Ireland. I had never expected to come here. Ireland had never been my dream, as it had been for others that I knew, and while their dreams had fallen apart at the seams, I was now living it.

So much of today was rooted in history and geology, and I thought back to last summer, when I had taken Earth Science at the community college and fallen in love with history in a new way. There I was in Ireland, simultaneously in awe over Finn McCool’s story and the history of this planet, that through storms and lava, hell and death and destruction, such beautiful things could come. Even though Ireland might never have been my dream, I feel as if my life has been leading up to this. This is where I need to be, where I want to be. Sometimes it seems as if God has been leading me here, and every time I asked Him what was to become of me, and He answered in a way I didn’t understand, all led ultimately to this.

I feel very much ashamed of myself for wanting to give up so soon after I had arrived, and giving in so much to homesickness and culture shock. This place is so beautiful, and I am so honoured and glad to be here.  

And I am changing, slowly; evolving to my role here. Tonight I ate spaghetti for the first time since elementary school. Those of you who went to AuthorQuest remember the day I tried to eat it there, and couldn’t; but I ate it today. Hannah and I went out to the 24 hour gas station and bought salt and pepper and chocolates that are apparently illegal in America, and we made spaghetti, and I ate everything in my bowl. And I found that it was good. This is a miracle; that the girl who does not eat could take food she would never look twice at and inhale it. Maybe it was because I was, and still am, hungry. But I like to think that it's me, evolving. I walk everywhere, and am learning to keep up with the native’s fast paces, despite my foot and knee aching. I am learning to fight the wind and the rain, and I am learning to take what is offered, knowing that these chances may not come back again. I am learning accept the help that I need.

This is the paradox of Northern Ireland, as I see it: I am both stronger here than I have ever been, and weaker. 

 

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!

We Give Directions; A Tour of Belfast's History; I Make a Confession

Yesterday was a historic event for Hannah and I. We were lurking by the McClay library, trying to find No Alibi, the bookstore that we had found quite by accident the day before. Hannah was insisting that we had to go down at least three streets to find it. I was adamant that we had to pass the Theological Building and go straight. Hannah plunged ahead, and I followed slowly behind, limping. Travel has not been kind to my body; I sport all sorts of bruises with mysterious origins, my feet hurt, and I’m limping.

Because I was crawling along at about the speed of a turtle, a car driving down the street was able to overtake me and wave me over. “Yes, hello,” the woman sitting shotgun said, “Would you happen to know where Elms Village is?”

They were talking to me

As if they actually thought I might be able to help them out

As if I actually knew where Elms Village was

And…I did. I had been ready to respond politely but sadly that I had no idea how to get wherever they were going, because Hannah and I were lost ourselves; but then suddenly the back of my brain started shooting off fireworks and saying, “You know how to get to Elms Village! You know! Tell the woman!”

I forgot that I had an accent, which people have been commenting about all day; I forgot that I wasn’t a Belfast native. I said, “You’ll need to go back to the main road, and go on University until the road becomes Malone.”

Hannah had heard the commotion by then, and had doubled back and supplemented the information. “Yeah, the road splits into Stranmillis, but you want to stay on Malone.”

“It’s right past a BP station, on the left,” I said.

They thanked us, and left, and Hannah and I jumped up and down and screamed. We had actually given directions!

“I hope they get there okay!” Hannah said.

I had the feeling they would.

Then we went down the three streets, only to find ourselves in a ghetto, and I turned out to be right about where No Alibi was.

Today was our first Sunday in Northern Ireland, and Hannah and I went to Saint Bridgid’s church, just down the road. It was a beautiful little church and was very full, but it was disorganized. There were no ushers, and the responses were given without order. I’m so used to the responses being slow and stately I forgot half of what I was supposed to say, and spent most of the prayers just listening to the way the others prayed. No one prayed in unison; everyone just talked out loud at the same time without rhythm or rhyme.

The priest was barely taller than the altar servers, but he had a good, loud voice, and I could understand him easily. He gave a sort of pre-homily at the beginning of Mass, and during the actual homily, he talked about what Jesus means to us. “It is my answer,” he finished with, “and, I believe yours as well, that Jesus is the human face of God.”

He was also loud about the prayers while consecrating the Host. Usually, at home, the priest sometimes speaks out loud and has us respond with, “Blessed be God forever,” but I could actually hear him asking God to forgive him his sins as he washed his hands. Usually I can’t. They also rang a bell when the priest held the Host and Chalice up, and he held them up for a very long time, which I liked. The Hosts are different here. They’re smaller, and don’t have patterns on them; when I went up to receive mine, this confused me quite a bit.

After Mass, Hannah and I went on a bus tour of Belfast. We passed the Titanic quarter, and were shown the major tourist attractions of Samson and Goliath, two giant cranes on the riverside. Growing up, I loved stories of the Titanic (although I only just saw the movie last year) and adored the fact that when my great-great-grandmother came to America, she had come on the Carpathia, one of the ships that picked up Titanic survivors. Coming to where it had been built was like a giant circle; I was coming back to where I had started. I could see the hand of God working in my life, guiding me, directing me.

“When the Titanic sank,” our guide told us, snapping me from my reverie, “there was an official investigation that led them back here, to Belfast. We told them that it wasn’t our fault. The ship had been in perfect working order when it left, and it wasn’t our fault that the captain was English, the navigator was Scottish, and the iceberg was Canadian!”

After that we went to the peace wall. The peace wall we went to is the tallest one of its kind, and it separates a protestant section of Belfast from a Catholic one. Quotes from the Dalai Lama, famous poets, and visitors were written on it. Perhaps I should have been frightened, but I couldn’t be. I’ve heard about what happened, and I read about the Troubles in the Ulster Museum, but it still isn’t fully real to me.

The thing about everyone here—the tour guides, the professionals, the students, my friends—they all say in the same breath, “This is the Europa Hotel, which was the most bombed hotel in the world until the Hilton in Afghanistan bypassed it a few years ago,” with, “Belfast is the second safest city in the U.K.!” I’m not sure what they want me to think. I know that a riot broke out in the North this week, and I know that the part of Belfast I live in is very safe. I consider myself smart enough to avoid dangerous situations—the reason I am not in the common room right now, because there are freshers with Smirnoff—and I know what parts of a city are seedy and which are not. They tell me, “No one will hurt you, because you are American,” and I’m caught between this ugly, privileged feeling I never knew I had inside of my body before, and this dark worry. For it is fairly obvious that I am American, and that I am gullible.

After the bus tour, Victoria, Hannah, Mel and I went down to Saint George’s Market, and about everyone we met there commented on our American accents. “Is it that obvious?” I asked, without thinking (of course it’s obvious, you eejit, you don’t even know the difference between a five pence and a two pence!) but I suppose what I had wanted was to just be a bystander or observer, to not be looked at and automatically be labeled as foreign. Some of the vendors at the Market even asked us how long we were in town, as if we all knew each other and had come together for a weekend away. “We’re here for a semester,” we tried to explain, and they nodded, their eyes blank, and a different ugly feeling started slithering around in my gut: inferiority. 

I think that this might be the appropriate time to announce that I am suffering from culture shock, which means, among other things, that I am tired, unhappy, cold, and homesick. Considering the fact that I haven’t been homesick since third grade, this is a new feeling. I have been looking forward to going abroad for years, and I daydreamed all of my life of being exactly where I am now, but now that I am actually here I find that I am lonely. Lonely is a new feeling for me, too. I feel completely isolated and invisible.

Elizabeth Hardwick once wrote, “Your first discovery when you travel is that you do not exist,” and that explains a lot of what I’m feeling right now. I do not exist here. I do not know how to phone the police, how to find a music store, or even where to buy tea. I am helpless and at about the same intelligence level as a third grader, so people look at me oddly. One of the Irish girls who moved in this week told her mum there were two American girls living in nearby, and her mum cautioned her, “Speak slowly; remember, we Irish talk fast.” Once upon a time, I talked fast, too. Now I limp along, both on my feet and in my words, so the Irish can understand me, so Mel can understand me. I feel as if I have a handicap, and I am sick of it being looked at as a handicap.

I’m also very much out of my comfort zone. I wrote to you earlier about the ceili dance that was held at Whitla Hall. The dance got out at about ten at night, and when we left, there was a solid group of about fifty of us walking back to the dorms. But as we walked, as we passed each bar, a large group siphoned off and slipped inside. In the end, only four people walked back into Elms Village; the rest were all out, drinking. Some are new, light drinkers; they laugh becomingly and teeter on sea legs. Others drink heavily, and go off in search of getting drunk, waking up late the next morning and then heading to the pub again that night. Tonight I was invited to a party in the common room, and when I went to check it out, there was Smirnoff everywhere. The freshers were celebrating their independence.

I am a teetotaler, for reasons that I cannot really explain or expect to be understood. I myself, if I am being honest, do not know why I am a teetotaler. It’s just something that I am. I plan to have only three “sips” of alcohol in my life—the one I had prior to First Communion, when my teacher wanted to make sure we wouldn’t make faces at the taste at Mass, when I first got here, and when (if) I get married. My idea of a “sip” of alcohol is that I let it touch my tongue, and a little raindrop slides down my throat. At nineteen, I am not ready for everyone to be drinking.

I do not know if I am ready for this, period.

I think about Madonna a lot. Last night I drifted off to sleep imagining room 255, comfortable and warm, with my bird bedspread and all of my favorite books on Egypt, my CDs, and all of the friends I love and care about. I do not feel as if I have made friends here, that I am accepted, or that I am accepting what this place has to offer. I love Belfast so much it aches, sometimes, but I am tired and cold and I hurt everywhere. This morning when I got out of bed I was so stiff that it hurt to move my legs, and I thought I might crumble to the floor.

Sometimes I feel as if I might cry, if it weren’t so hilariously funny.

All of this is what I believe is called culture shock. For every high point in my day there are two low points, but I am trying to take this experience a day at a time. I know that the German boys are cute, and that the music sounds like home, and that today I found two pennies on the ground. I also found the looseleaf tea I like, so I can make myself a proper cuppa to go with my breakfast. I have bought books, so I have familiarity back in my room. I try very hard to spend as little time as possible alone, or in my room, even if it means limping around campus.

Sometimes I think that I might want to go home.

But I try not to think about that. Because then I really might cry.

And if I really do want to go home—if I want to give up on something that has been my dream since I was a child—I will have to reevaluate everything about myself, and how I see myself, and what I want for myself.

I don’t know if I’m ready for that, either.