Met up with my Fulbright mentor Eileen Sug. We had coffee at Connors and I had the pleasure of meeting a few of her mutual friends and colleagues. Jim (great contact for Irish medium [immersion] schools and his partner Collette who is a professor in the School of Education, Mary [mathematics professor situated at Oxford] who was in town for a visit, and Liz [one of Mary's friends] who just might be a great contact for my dog fix. She volunteers at a local shelter. We drank tea, ate scones, and exchanged contact information. Hopefully, I'll be able to start meeting more people in the School of Education next week.
Eileen also suggested I introduce myself to a professor in the Institute of Governance (Evelyn) as her research interests are similar to mine. I've plans to visit an Irish medium school in Galway and hope that Evelyn will be of help to me in securing the right names/contacts. It's looking like next week will be a busy one of networking!
Eileen gave me a short ride about town, showing me the Tesco superstore - it puts any of our WalMart supercenters to shame with two stories, escalators, etc... - huge to say the least. I decided that I'm going to get a local pay as you go phone but there was so much to choose from, I'' have to think it over. I got a tip that the best time to go to the local market on the Square is Friday at 7 a.m. if you want the best fresh fish. Guess the yuppies come on Saturday, so I'll have to check it out early next Friday.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Eileen's sixteen year old daughter, Catherine - a lovely young lady - who is msucially inclined. Eileen has offered to take me to a charity concert event on Friday - her daughter will be playing. The orchestra is trying to get to the U.S. and is putting on the event to raise money. Seems the group has been to the states on several occassions and hopes to make it to Philadelphia this time around.
I also had a look around a local Catholic church and met Jim (J.J.) M8urphy - an elderly parisher who seemed to know everything and everyone! Just my good luck he was there when I popped. He gave me a bit of a history of the church and invited me for11:45 mass tomorrow. So, hopefully, I won't oversleep!
It's getting late, so I'm off to the apartment for, I'm certain, another sleepless night of pub crawling, firecracker setting off revelers! Ah, Belfast at Halloween - you gotta love it here!
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