Orientation Begins

Yesterday was the first day of orientation for international students. I finally got to meet some of the other American girls I had been communicating with via groupchat prior to arriving. There was a lot of information to take in and I definitely won't remember it all, but even though there are a lot of differences from Western, I also saw some similarities so that made me feel a bit more at ease.

Throughout most of yesterday I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and that was causing me to feel a bit homesick, but after we finished our orientation for the day and we returned from our trip to Tesco (which is similar to a Walmart), three of the other American girls and I hopped on the train to Belfast because one of them had a date (already!) and we wanted to be in the area in case anything happened.

We went to a couple pubs for drinks but we ended up having to go to McDonald's for food because all of the pubs had stopped serving food, so that was a bit of a bummer. However, we also walked down to the Cathedral Quarter and it was so cute. (That's where the famous umbrellas hang over the streets and the buildings are covered in murals). It was absolutely stunning. We were all saying how we can't wait to be in the city so much that we actually know where we're going without relying on directions from others and Google Maps.

It was a pretty good first day of orientation though! And by the way, her date went really well! Oh, and I also was able to move into my actual room and finally unpack, yay!