Day 2

Today was such an amazing day. Started out with a nice run in the morning. It was rather chilly outside, but I warmed up as I kept running. Went home and had a great breakfast (may I add that Tori and her mom are excellent cooks and make great food!). David picked me up and we drove to the Belfast Royal Academy. I still haven't gotten use to the fact that they drive on the left side of the road and it's been freaking me out. I think we are gonna crash all the time, although I do trust Tori and her driving...

Anyways, we arrived at the BRA and met up with the rest of the squad. We went into a library and soon enough the headmaster, Mr. Dickson, arrived. We mingled with some students from the school and from the sound of it, the school system here in Northern Ireland is a lot different from the American system. They are a lot more formal than we are. Their uniforms are...quite interesting as well...We were shown a presentation on Northern Ireland and we actually learned about some things that we didn't know about(such as the giants causeway which I'm actually looking so forward to going to later on in the trip). We split up from the adults and the BRA students and the tabu kids went on a tour of the BRA campus and got the chance to go into various classrooms around the school. Cari and I went into a first year chemistry classroom where they were learning about basic atomic structure. Then we went to a geometry class, and an A level calculus which is the equivalent to the AP calculus class at Highland Park. I absolutely enjoyed the school, considering ditching senior year at HPHS to study at BRA...jk mum would never allow that to happen.

Best and most interesting part of the day was when we went up to Stormont and actually got to meet the first minister and head of the DUP, Peter Robinson and the deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness(whose a member of Sinn Fein). It was actually so sick because they are such high figures in the political scene of Northern Ireland. Once in a lifetime opportunity! It was rather short though so we didn't have much time to ask questions :(

We headed up to the the main building at Stormont and took a couple of pictures. Since Stormont lies on top of a hill, there is a FANTASTIC view of all of Belfast and it is just incredible. We got a presentation on the Northern Irish political scene and eventually a tour of the building as well.

Next we went to the CIYMS building and we heard a presentation by a Presbyterian reverend named Harold Good. It was quite interesting to hear the role that he played in the decommissioning of the IRA weapons.

All the hosts came to the presentation and it was great to finally have all the TABU students and the hosts at one place. All the hosts are so cool and so chill and I can't wait till we hang out all together again.

The weather here has been absolutely incredible, we picked a great time to be here. Hope the weather stays great. That's it for now, time to go to bed...perhaps...

-riques(enrique)