The First Week: Giant's Causeway, Vineyard, Class, The Tropics, a Socialist shindig, a birthday, and St. George

As you might guess from the fact that I haven't posted this week (and therefore, haven't been sitting in front of my computer), it's been a really busy first week of classes. So, here's the rundown:

Saturday - North Coast (with 150 people!)

The International Friendship Association, of which Fisherwick Presbyterian (my church here) is a part, organized a trip for internationals to the North Coast. So, after three touring buses, nearly 150 students, and the great part of a day - we'd been to the Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle, and hung out in Port Stewart for a while.

Here are a few pictures:

Giant's Causeway Trip

Sunday - Vineyard, Belfast Style

Checked out the local Vineyard church on Sunday with John Lenschow. A really good time with contemporary worship and a deep commitment to the city of Belfast and making an impact for Jesus here. This will become John's "home" church while he's here and likely one that I will revisit throughout the year.

Here are just a few pictures from that morning. They meet at a special needs school in their auditorium.

Vineyard Church in Belfast

Monday - A Huge Group at CU!

Monday night was the first meeting of the Christian Union - a student led, evangelical/protestant group in Europe. Queen's University plays host to the largest Christian Union in Europe with nearly 400 people typically attending (although this first week was somewhere between 500-600). N. Ireland is very much like the American south. Christianity here is a cultural thing, so many of these students come because it's the thing to do - but the CU preaches Christ crucified and resurrected boldly - so I trust that God's doing things through it even in the lives of cultural Christians. The focus this semester is going to be the book of Philippians.

Ironically enough, as the 500+ students were dispersing after the CU meeting, several hundred students were waiting outside the CU to get into the dance club/bar/pub that is in the CU (there's a picture of the line below).

Here's a video and then a couple of pictures (sorry, I was in the very back of the room).

Christian Union (CU)

Tuesday - An Hour in the Tropics

In my last post I mentioned the Botanic Gardens. Well, I stumbled across a new piece of it this last week that I really enjoy - "The Tropics House". It plays host to a whole slew of tropical plants, so, in order to share that with you, here are some pictures:

Botanic Garden

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday - Classes

I began classes this week. Intimidating, yet exciting. The general focus here is that courses in a Master's program help develop skills in the student - but don't provide general information. This is different from my understanding of how the US works. In other words, I have to do all the reading and legwork to learn about British History and the British Empire, but the School of History will equip me with theories and skills to handle that information and represent it in writing and presentation.

Tuesday - A research methods course that is tought by 5 different professors (different one every night). Mostly straight lecture with 40 of us in the course.

Wednesday - a free undergraduate, final year course on the end of the British Empire from 1930 to 1997. I'm hoping this may provide a really good way to get into the material that is both pertinent to the British Empire in Kenya, as well as in general. We meet for an hour in the morning for lecture, then there's a "tutorial" in the afternoon for 1 1/2 hours where the students (us) come having read and studied a bunch of primary sources and the teacher facilitates discussion in a smaller group (my group at 1:30p on Wed. was 4! :-) I'm also likely going to take a French languge for non-spcialist course Wed. afternoons - it's $30 and seems like an opportunity that would be a shame to waste.

Thursday - This is the theory course (Historiography) and breaks up the 40 from Tuesday. So, my group is about 12 and it's what I think is similar to a US master's program - students come prepared, a few do a presentation each week and, with the help of a lecture, facilitate discussion on the core topics for that day. It's in this course that we will cover memory, marxism, postmodernism, etc. and how those theories and perspectives effect the study of history.

Thursday - Alpha Course vs. Social Society

Ever so briefly, I had to share about the irony that was Thursday. I attended a meeting on "Barack Obama: Hope or Hype?" Thursday after lunch. Interestingly enough, it was hosted by the Socialist Society and basically was looking at the question of whether or not Obama would bring about the change Socialists look for. It ended with the conclusion that Socialists have to come together to make their voices heard through protest and Barack's isn't the change they're looking for.

In contrast to that, I attended the leaders meeting for an Alpha Group that I'm helping with this semester Thur evening. It's a bible study that is for those who don't know about Christianity or are curious. You have dinner together, watch a video, and then it's an open discussion where people can ask questions, disagree, or agree with what they saw in the video.

Where the Socialists are trying to bring change through protest and their voices, the Church is bringing change through relationships in an environment of discussion and freedom to disagree.

Friday - Slavery & Irish Music

Last night I went to a lecture by Thomas Holt, distinguished professor of African-American Slavery at the University of Chicago, who was in town. A really interesting comparison of 19th century slavery to modern slavery in sweat shops and other situations where labor is abused for the manufacturing of goods.

After the lecture, Jack and I met up with the gang and headed to Kelly's Cellar for a pint and to celebrate Christine's birthday. Kelly's has live Celtic/Irish music on Friday nights - which is fun in of itself. On top of that, it's a very openly Republican/Catholic pub so that brings it's own unique character to it as well. Megan took pictures, so I'll try to get some up this next week. In the meantime, here's a picture from last summer at Kelly's:

From Photos for Blog

Saturday - St. George, You're My Hero

Lastly, Jude, Megan and I checked out St. George's open air market this morning. Rated as one of the best (if not the best) open air market in the UK/Europe, it was a great place with a lot of incredible food, fresh sea food, fruits & vegetables, as well as live music. I picked up, of all things, 4 passion fruit!! Yeah! It's a fruit that my family used to LOVE in Kenya - so I was excited to see it! It will probably be one of our first stops next week when I pick mom and dad up from the airport (they'll be here a week from now!! woohoo!) Here's a picture and a video from this morning:

From St. George's Market