Rock the Vote NI goes south!
On
May 16th, roughly one week before the Irish Referendum on Equal
Marriage that you’ve probably heard of, Rock the Vote was launched in Dublin,
at the Reco Centre Ballymun.
Dancers, magicians, bands, rappers
(including Lethal Dialect) and inspiring speeches were part of the event and the young people
who organized it did a great job! Of course we have some videos again that will
give you a good impression of how the day went!
The weekend after was full of celebration
as well: Ireland became the first country to introduce equal marriage through
public vote and the Eurovision Song Contest was on! So what else should we do
than celebrating a party?
Of course the ESC is never a real highlight
in terms of high quality music but somehow it’s fun to watch it anyway,
especially together with a lot of people from different countries.
Emelie (you might know her from this blog
because she was doing her EVS with Public Achievement last year) even visited
and brought Swedish flags with her – maybe that’s why Sweden was winning in the
end?
On Monday there was Spring Bank Holiday and
even the weather was good (well, in terms of Northern Irish weather of course, at least it didn’t rain) so we decided to go to the Mourne Mountains, the
highest mountains in Northern Ireland which acted as an inspiration for C.S.
Lewis (author of Narnia) and a filming spot for Game of Thrones.
We went there by bus but to be honest the
planning with Translink services (public transport) can be quite difficult. As
it was a public holiday, Sunday timetables were supposed to operate but somehow
the Journey Planner on the website didn’t show that. When we finally managed to
get the right bus we had to pay £14.50 for a return ticket, even though
Newcastle is only about 1h away and you can even go to Dublin for a cheaper
price! We were the only people on this bus so who knows - maybe we really payed for the
whole journey.
From Newcastle we took a Rambler bus that
should take us up to a place called “Silent Valley” which would be too far away
to reach in just one day if you don’t have a car. It’s a really beautiful place
with a water reservoir between the mountains and you can even go up to the dam that
is holding all the water. It’s incredible how silent it can be if there are no
streets with loads of cars nearby. Also it was surprising that there are
actually some houses and farms in the mountains. Again you could see the
friendliness of Northern Irish people, greeting you on the way or starting
random conversations with you. And of course they are amazed each time when you
tell that you’re an international volunteer.
The landscape really looks amazing and
especially on a sunny day it’s worth a visit!
