Castle Day

Today begun again with the early morning Breakfast Club at Friendship House.  It is still amazing to me that these kids are up, awake and wanting to play Mario Kart first thing while being packed full of coco-pops and nutella.  But it was a great last morning with children we have come to know pretty well in two weeks as we talked and coloured with them before sending them off to school.  We consider it a compliment that we get random visits during the day and have some of them pounding on our windows at night wanting to play some more- and also just to "spy" on us.  We are excited that we will be coming back on Tuesday for a visit after relocating to Downpatrick.

This afternoon we had the privilage of touring and sightseeing a bit.  Harry and Jenny hired a "minibus" for us, driven by a friend of theirs- Barry.  A man with a great sense of humour to say the least, he immediately found it neessary to push our buttons intentionally calling us americans to recieve the banter that followed.  Before long there were jokes between us- he also renamed Jenessa to "Guinevere", and shortened Travis to Trav, as the name reminded him of the "American" program Bonanza. 

We visited Belfast Castle (not a true castle according to Barry) which was a great precursor to Carrickfergus Castle- Barry describes as a "real castle".  The site was great to explore.  Barry ended up knowing one of the tour guides there and got us in for essentially nothing, and we received a specially guided tour as well.  It was fantastic.  We were left to explore for a while and had fun discovering all the secret jail cells and arching towers, and best of all scaring Jenessa as someone would yell or jump out as she entered each one.  A high pitched scream and retaliation resulted each time.  Tireless fun to be sure.

Tomorrow we have a day off and will continue planning for the week ahead.  Although we will not be in Frienship House everyday next week there are many engagements ahead that will keep us busy.  We are all quite excited to move into our new Irish homes.  I have no doubts that the Irish hospitality we have experienced thus far will continue to be outstanding, and perhaps by the end of it we will return with more tea drinkers than we came with.