Day 1: We made it!

Day 1: We made it!

We made it to Newcastle! Hooray! Yesterday I began my trip from Phoenix, Arizona to Northern Ireland. I left Phoenix at noon and took a four and half hour flight to Philadelphia. All of the American Young Ambassadors were on the same flight from to Philadelphia to Dublin. I met Trish from the Albany Chapter while waiting to board the plane. Once we got on the plane we met Mike from the Minnesota Chapter. Kelsey and Ciara from the Milwaukie Chapter boarded the plane and we waved to them as they found their seats. The flight wasn’t too bad only six hours, I just never sleep well on planes. Once we got through customs we met Dr. Tim Campbell and Maddie the Canadian Young Ambassador from the Toronto Chapter.  We managed to put our group of seven people into a seven person van with all of our luggage … let me tell you it was impressive.

 

After we got in the van, we drove from Dublin to Northern Ireland to Downpatrick to visit the Saint Patrick Centre. We watched a video about the Centre and their mission.  We learned a little bit about Saint Patrick as well. The Centre has an amazing garden, we went outside and had tea and discussed our trip what our goals were and what our placements were. It was awesome!

After that we went to the grocery store and picked up some food for the trip. Then we traveled to New Castle where our apartment is! We are right by the beach it is beautiful! Kelsey, Ciara, and I are sharing a room and a bathroom. We were given a little bit of free time before the evening activities. Ciara and I went to explore and walked to the beach. We discovered a ton of really ugly dead crabs. I highly doubt that I will get a better picture of Ciara this entire trip!

                                                 

Ciara and the Crab

 

A view of the ocean

 

Later we when to a Barbeque at the Saint Patrick Centre for dinner. We met many new people and had great food. All of the Young Ambassadors were asked to bring a rock from our part of the world to put in the friendship garden. I chose to bring a red rock from Sedona, Arizona. I also met Alastair for the first time! He travels to Arizona for a couple weeks every spring. He sends a special hello to Mary Moriarty and Glenda!

                                                

Alastair and I

I loved my first day here! It was Brilliant! I am learning so much I can’t even remember everything. Every time we get into the car Tim starts talking about something and pointing at almost everything we drive by and has a whole story about a building or a hill. I hope that I can start writing down all of the things so I can blog about them tomorrow.