Day 2- Cari Kraus

Today was another amazing day in Ireland! The weather was absolutely beautiful, no rain! We started the day off at the Belfast Royal Academy, we had a mini presentation about Northern Ireland. Before that we talked with some middle sixth students (equivalent to our seniors in High School, most school call this upper sixth but its a tradition to call it middle sixth at BRA). We had tea and biscuits and then had a quick tour of the school. It was beautiful, I wish HPHS could look even close to that. They said it close to 200 hundred years old! Then we were lucky enough to have a chance to sit in on some classes, I sat in on a third year (eight grade) chem class and then math class. Both were super interesting and it was cool to see them learning subjects we learned in America, Enrique even knew some of the math things (we ended up going to an middle sixth math class, as well as a third year) 

After the tour we all hopped in cars and ate lunch, sandwiches and drove off to Storemount Castle, so many beautiful building in NI. Their we were fortunate enough to meet the First Minister and the Deputy Minister, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuiness. Rachel Sacks's Uncle had set this up for us. We took some picture and asked a few questions and then we headed to The Parliament Building. We had a speaker from the Education board who told us how government works, their are 108 MLA's which stands for Member of Legislation Assembly. We were able to see where they sit and discuess things. Such a funny thing, when voting on bills they do an oral vote (ays and no's) and then if their isn't a obvious majority the person in charge calls for a division on the house and then he sounds a bell that goes through the whole building, the others in the building have three minutes to get down and they split on the sides of the room to vote, and then someone goes around and counts. Very cool! and actually very similar to debate, one of our school activities. I gave the thank you after this, I know it's weird but I was nervous but it ended up being totally fine, even a bit fun!

We then went to the CIYSM a sports/ rugby club where we heard from Reverend Harold Good. He gave a speech called stepping stones and building blocks. It was super interesting and he played an amazing part in the conflict resolution. He was one of the two people in charge to note if the IRA had surrender (this word was not used because in the IRA army it is punishable by death to surrender your weapons) their weapons.

After the interesting speech we had some social time. We met the last three Ireland Teens who we hadn't meant, all of their names are Kathy (who I am staying with =]), Leancha (who Ari and Evelina are staying with), Paul (who Jacob is staying with), and Tori (who Enrique is staying with). Rachel is staying with someone who did not travel to Chicago but we all can't wait to meet her! After dinner we went back to our host families. Kathy and I just talked for a long time, I showed her some things about my life in Highland Park and vice versa, it's so interesting to hear about her life!!!

Can't Wait for Tomorrow,

Cari Kraus