In this issue we will cover:
St. Patrick's day
Easter
Manchester Holiday/ Track cycling world championships
1940s Dinner Party
Okie dokie here we go.
SAINT PATRICK'S DAY
Lot's of folks from home have asked me what St. Paddy's day was like here seeing as how it is an irish holiday and i am in ireland (well northern ireland). It was an interesting day to be sure. It is a big celebration like it is in the states but even more so. There was a parade in the morning (which I missed) and a free public concert (which i caught part of) all put on by the City. So lots of festivities and people having a good time. I also went to the schools final rugby match with Doug Baker (My PCUSA site coordinator), Mo (my housemate), and Craig (my housemate Jess's visiting little brother). Going to a rugby match isn't really traditional St. Pat's faire but a rugby game's always good fun. The schools final would be the equivalent of "The Big Game" of high school football. It was good fun.
St. Patrick's day in Northern Ireland specifically has another side to it though. Along with celebrating St. Patrick it is a time to celebrate being Irish which becomes tricky in a place where the community is very divided over what "being Irish" means. The Irish tricolor flag that we associate with St. Pat's doesn't officially represent Northern Ireland in any way. Northern Ireland has as its official flag the Union Jack flag because of being apart of the UK. Protestant/loyalist affiliated people here would fly the union jack as there flag generally. Catholic/republican affiliated folks, who desire a united Ireland, would consider the Tricolor their true flag. So what happens in a community that is at odds with itself over such an issue on a day when children are given Tricolor flags to wave and Belfast City Hall has to strike its Union Jack flag for the day to avoid trouble. There was a bit of rioting apparently on the day but the papers and news were quick to say that it wasn't sectarian necessarily but just mixer types starting fights and things escalating. The Police Service here is pretty well practiced in crowd control issues so nothing terribly out of hand took place.
Easter
I guess I will start with Good friday actually. The minister at my church, Dr. Rev. Lesley Carroll, is in a group called "dealing with the past" which is one of the parts of the peace process here so she is quite involved in the political side of things as well as the church side of things. In her Good friday sermon she talked about the political aspect of the death of Christ. The event was all about political power plays clandestine collusion, and violent acts which are all things that northern Irish people would understand as parts of their political reality for quite sometime. It gave new significance, for me, to the whole idea of Good Friday. I always sort of saw it as the day that you felt obligated to feel bad about jesus dying so that you could be guilt free excited to eat way too much candy and hunt for painted eggs. But there's definitely more. The Good Friday story and the story of Northern Ireland are both stories about what happens when politics lose their love. The Good friday story is redeemed in the resurrection and so too is Northern Ireland in the process of redemption and reconciliation, hopefully, through the resurrection as well.
Easter itself was another new one for me. Easter Sunday is not the big deal that we make it out to be in the states. there are no little children in their easter best. No elaborate decorations in the sanctuary. No special events They weren't even going to make my youth bible class stay in the service. It was just normal church. It wasn't the celebration I am used to. Especially in comparison to what i had recently seen on St. Patrick's Day.
But it wasn't to be all same old same old. I had been invited to an easter parade easter sunday afternoon by Pat the Groundskeeper at the 174 trust where i work. Pat is Catholic so I jumped at the chance to see what that would be like. I didn't really know what I was going to see. I thought that it might be a religious parade celebrating the resurrection. It could also be more of a secular easter thing with the bunny and eggs and facepainting maybe (I later found out that they don't have the Easter Bunny here or the tooth fairy!). I also knew of the 1916 Easter Rising which is an important event in the history of Modern ireland. (if you don't know about this go to wikipedia and type in 1916 Easter Rising that's what I had to do.) I sort of guessed, based in the neighborhood that we were going to, that the parade was going to be about the Rising. So it was a political parade, complete with people dressed as the the IRA soldiers would have been dressed in 1916, a procession of familly members carrying portraits of those who died in the troubles, civilian or otherwise. That was definitely different. There wasn't anything implicitly religious about the parade, it was completely historical and political, a commemoration. But whoever put the parade on definitely wanted the events of 1916 to be associated with Easter proper because not only did the rising not actually start until the monday after easter, but it is commemorated every year on easter sunday rather than the actual date of the rising. It is still quite difficult for me to put these two things together. To draw lines from christ conquering death to what happened in Ireland in 1916.
Manchester/track cycling world championships
On a lighter note, I took a bit of a holiday over easter week and made my way over to Manchester to watch some Velodrome bicycle racing. Manchester is a cool town although I didn't think so when i first got there. My hostel, becauase it was cheap cheap cheap, was in a rougher part of Manchester not that much unlike the bit of Belfast I was trying to get a break from. It is a college town though and as such has a bit more culture type things to do in its city centre. I found a few really funky little places to eat and poke about in which was cool. But mostly, almost all day I watched bicycles go around in circles. All totaled I watched about 30 hours of bicycle racing over 5 days and loved every minute of it. I've never really had a thing for sports before. Mild interest maybe but never have a been A FAN, you know? But with track cycling its different. For example take one of my favorite events , the scratch race. 160 laps around the track, 20 some odd riders at a time, first one across the line wins. The most simple of all the events and it takes about 45 minutes. You might think something like that would be boring but my heart was beating fast and hard for all 160 laps. It was great. here are a few pics.
Team Pursuit
Aliaksander Lisouski of Belarus who won gold in the scratch race and bronze in the omnium. he is currently my favorite cyclist along with Oksana Grishina of Russia
1940s Dinner party
This part happened just last night. We had a 1940s hollywood themed dinner party and I cooked for 15 people all by myself. I am actually quite proud of myself because the dishes I made turned out better than I hoped they would. I made chicken mole, yellow saffron rice, and balsamic bleu cheese salad with individual ice cream cakes made in empty beer cans. I attribute my skills in the kitchen to my mother who I would help when she throws parties at home. She's a smart and classy lady
well that's all from me for now
know that I am well and think of all of you often
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