Since Halloween ended and November began, several things
have unfolded in Ireland. The first, and most important, has been the Assassin’s
game. This game has managed to simultaneously unite and divide the
internationals and it has been beautiful.
Basically, there is one person in charge (she calls herself The Godfather) whom everyone reports to
via Facebook. The gist of the game is that you are assigned one person to “kill”
from the pool of players. Someone else has also been assigned to “kill” you, and
you have no idea who your “assassin” is. You die when your “assassin” hits you
with water, whether that be from a water gun, water bottle, or full-to-the-brim
bucket. See rules below:
You cannot kill your person when:
1. In class
2. In their home (if they invite you in you can, but no hiding in
closets)
3. Avoid killing someone where other participants are present and can
see the kill
4. NO KILLING AT ERASMUS (International) PARTIES. That's too easy,
learn to stalk.
5. Killing at a campus event- killing someone at the Chirstian Union
might make you look like a dick.
6. Once you are killed you must give the name of the person you killed
7. When you are killed message the master (Kate "The
Godfather" Pfau) and tell them you are dead.
Game continues until only one person is left
8. if you see your assassin approaching, you can hit them with
water before they hit you. This gives you 24 hrs until your assassin can try
and get you again.
SAFE ZONES:
Any University building- *grounds of Uni are okay
In the targets home unless invited in
Erasmus Parties— you could get them on their walk over but once at the
party all guns must be down
So far this game has been a lot of fun and a great contribution to the
end of the semester! We started with approximately 62 people on Nov. 5th
and are now down to about 27. Apparently there have been several Judas-like
betrayals, a full out 5 step duel in the middle of the main academic building,
and countless water gun wars that have waged on even outside in Ireland’s
nightly monsoon weather.
One of the best parts of the Assassins game was last Saturday, November
9th. Another event I should blog about regardless, was the Ceilidh,
which is traditional Irish folk dancing! (Very different from river dancing,
and much more similar to a barn dance.) The International Friends program, the
same one that paired me with the wonderful Nevin family, hosted this event for
all of the international students. They taught us to dance with a live Irish
band, complete with a fiddler, bodhran player and guitarist. They also fed us
tons of cookies (which they call biscuits) and pancakes and tea afterwards, which
made for a lovely evening. I know it had been a while since I talked to several
of my German friends from Portrush in particular, so it was nice to have an
excuse to see them.
… You may already see the problem with this event for all of the
internationals… But in case you don’t, since we are all playing this game, it
was very dangerous for all of us to be in the same place at the same time! I
saw quite a few people packing their water guns in their coats and preparing
for an all out war. Of course the event itself was a safe zone, but out on the
sidewalk you better believe there were at least 10 “lives” taken that night. I
survived, due to my strategy of staying with my international family until the
bitter end when I hopped in the car to go home.
My time in the game came to a bitter end just yesterday, on Wednesday
night. My friend Victoria, the same one I went to Sweden with, invited me over
to her apartment in Portstewart to make pumpkin pancakes. This was completely
inconspicuous to me since we had previously talked about making pumpkin
cinnamon rolls. It goes without saying that when I showed up at her house
bearing gifts of berries and chocolate chips, she capped me, right then and
there. And literally, she capped me because she threw water from a bottle cap………….
After I got over the initial shock and anger of betrayal, we made some
pretty fabulous pumpkin pancakes from scratch (bisquick does not exist). Speaking of baking, Gavin (the other person I
went to Sweden with) and I have been trying our best to make cookies. We have
tried a few different recipes with the flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, chocolate
chips, etc. and they always taste fine, but most of them have been hard as
rocks! What are we doing wrong? If anyone can offer advice, we desperately need
it.
In other news, I have been on two great trips recently. This past
Sunday, I was a heathen and went to the old Bushmills Distillery in Bushmills,
Northern Ireland instead of church… yet I say it was definitely worth it! We
weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the distillery itself, but we had a
wonderful tour guide who spoke with a clear as possible Irish accent and told
us all about how they make Bushmills whiskey from only barley and yeast. Very
scientific stuff they way they distill it by letting the alcohol vapor rise and
whatnot. I found it very nifty, as well as the free sample they gave us at the
end!
The second trip I had was just today, Nov. 14th, with my
international mum and her daughter, Charis. We went into Belfast to see Cats
the musical in the Opera House! It was…. some show?! None of us knew much about
the plot of the show and truthfully, we sat through the first act trying not to
fall asleep. The hour and a half of the cats dancing was wonderful, however! The
production was from the West End, so the set and actors were phenomenal, we
just couldn’t follow the “plot.” Yet it seems the show doesn’t have much of a
plot! A lady next to us from Britain explained how the show is based off of T.
S. Eliot’s cat poems, and subsequently the second act made a lot more sense. I
don’t regret going, however; I will NEVER turn down the opportunity to see a
show. If you know me at all, you know that the theatre is one of my true passions.
And to quote the Aristocats, “Everybody wants to be a cat,” and I definitely
would have liked to be on that stage as a cat in the show. (Real pictures with cats soon to follow!)
Travelling to Belfast this time of season was worth it regardless of
having a show to attend. Starting sometime soon, there is a massive Christmas
market with crafty booths of gifts and food to buy outside of the City Hall.
Endless Christmas lights line every street, and some of them are already turned
on inside the shopping center at Victoria Square. It was very comforting to see
that the lights in Northern Ireland are the same ones we have at home. We also
ate dinner at TGIFriday’s, which was comforting due to the fact that every inch
of the wall was covered in American paraphernalia. Linda kept saying I had just
been drug around all day after the show and meeting her lovely son Stuart and
his wife Rebecca, but on the contrary, I love just hanging out with them. It is
exactly what I would be doing at home with my own family; holiday shopping
trips where I don’t buy much of anything, good meals and conversation, and a
drive home in a car with sleepy children and distant lights. It’s all I could
have asked for in a November evening.
(Stay tuned for more information regarding upcoming Thanksgiving and
Christmas dinners. Hopefully they will be as eventful as the Dinner for
Schmucks, but one can only wait and see!)
And I can’t end this post without taking a moment to remember my
friends at home in Huntington. Today marks the 43rd anniversary of
the Marshall plane crash, and also the first time in history that the
Thundering Herd has played an away game on the anniversary of the accident. Every
Herd member is wearing the number 75 on the side of their helmet during the
game tonight against Tulsa (which I am keeping up with even though it is 3 o’clock
in the morning here). It just doesn't feel right to not be at home to attend the
ceremony and watch the game.
“And in this moment once a year, throughout the town, throughout the
school, time stands still.”
We are Marshall.
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