The long journey across the pond

The past few weeks have gone by so quickly, far too quickly to have actively posted on this newly created blog (especially given my spotty access to internet throughout my initial travels). After the long flight, I arrived in Dublin, Ireland at around 5am. Mark and his dad met me in the airport for an early morning drive through the Irish countryside. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I was able to see a beautiful sunrise over the miles and miles of fields (definitely understand why it's called the Emerald Isle). Driving through Ireland reminded me of all of the romance novels my mum (this is my attempt at using British spelling now) reads.
We arrived at Mark's lovely (another word used as often as we may use y'all) home in Northern Ireland. After a brief nap, I was up and ready to begin visiting with Mark's family. We went over to meet Mark's grandparents, Morenanny and Papa, who live next door. Morenanny and Papa are so welcoming, just like the rest of Mark's family, and made me feel at home right away. I drank tea... and no, not southern iced sweet tea... and ate a few too many sandwiches thanks to an attempt to put some meat on my bones, a concept all too familiar in my family. Mark and I then went to his Aunt Janet's house for dinner and met his cousins John and Emma. After a wonderful dinner and some great family stories, I was soooo ready for bed. It's so nice to go from my own wonderful family to the home of another wonderful family; definitely makes the idea of living abroad so much easier knowing Mark's family will be close by.

September 15th- The next day Mark and I set off to explore Belfast. We met up with Mark's friends Richard and Graham from Methody (his high school). Richard gave us a great tour of Belfast, including seeing Methody and Queens in Belfast. There is one street we passed that looks as if it is the front of a row of houses but actually upon further inspection is a row of building facades. Way back in the day Queen (Victoria?) was going to be going down that road but one side of the street was the backs of houses where people had there rubbish and backyards. This was not considered appropriate for the Queen to see the backs of houses, so a facade of house fronts was created and still exists today! We had a wonderful day in Belfast and the next day we were off to Scotland.