Saturday, aka catch up day...

Our correspondent today is Jacob Clark:

Today was our Saturday “catch-up” day, meaning that we had time to get back in pace with our schoolwork, laundry, and sleep. We had planned to meet at 9:00 to have breakfast and start our day, but many of us overslept. Thankfully, resounding knocks on all of our doors by Michelle at a few minutes before 9:00 awakened us, and we were able to throw on our clothes and hurry to breakfast. After getting some food, everyone did whatever they felt they needed to do, whether it was sleep, catch up on laundry, take a shower and get ready for the day, read more of Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane, or write prayer journals. I multi-tasked and did laundry while reading the book and working on my journals. The kitchen became a common room for some students as we ate lunch and did our work together while enjoying each other’s company. We then had English class with Ms. Duarte, which included a quiz. After class, people waited anxiously for 3:00 to roll around because Mr. Bizga would be back from his shopping spree at Tesco (the grocery store) and let people have free time to go to the city and shop. He arrived at the dormitory with a taxi full of groceries. With great haste, the students quickly brought the groceries inside and unpacked them. Not long after, Ms. Duarte stated, “That was the fastest I have ever seen groceries unpacked.” The pictures of the unpacking process were blurred by the quick movement of the students.

After we unpacked the groceries, we were allowed to go to the city. Since Gina and I still had a lot of work left in our journals for Mr. Bizga, we decided that we would stay home. We completed most of our work as the other seven students went shopping; Ms. Duarte and Mr. Bizga had free time. Mr. Bizga used the opportunity to get a haircut, while Katie, Allison, and Michelle got their ears pierced. They arrived at the John Hewitt at 5:30 for dinner, but it took a while for everyone else to arrive and the pub was full (due to the live Irish session music). As a result, we walked to a couple of other restaurants, and we ended up eating at a cool pub, named McHugh's, near the waterfront. The food was delicious, especially the desserts, and I did not start a menu on fire here as I accidentally did at the Chinese restaurant the night before Mrs. Varnish left.

After eating dinner and making friends with people at the tables around us, we made our way home with Ms. Duarte as Mr. Bizga stayed behind for a hour to talk to his friend Jim. Jim is an intelligent, political mastermind for Sinn Fein, and he took us to lunch on the day we visited Stormont Parliament. When we got home from dinner, we prayed about the day, reflected on the day’s occurrences, and determined that we will be making our own breakfast in the kitchen tomorrow morning after mass. Most of us then went to the BP gas station just off campus in order to buy some snacks and small items, and we later headed toward the building where we normally eat breakfast to see the Italian students who typically congregate there. However, we were not allowed in the building since the Italian group had booked it, so we spoke to many people outside. We met a boy who had a beard similar to Matt’s beard, and I had a couple of people tell me I look Irish again. Also, Mr. Lennon came over and brought his television set, DVD player, and a movie for us to watch sometime. Around 11:00 pm most of us were hungry again, so we went into the kitchen to talk to Mr. Lennon and eat. We practically finished off a bag of Doritos and ate a good amount of biscuits. We concluded our “catch-up” day at about midnight when we headed off to our rooms for some much needed sleep.

Thank you family for giving me the opportunity to go on this trip!

-Jacob

P.S. We all miss you, Mrs. Varnish!!!!