Tomorrow morning I will be boarding a plane to Northern Ireland where I will be spending the entire semester through an Earlham study abroad program. As the semester progresses, I will be updating my blog with pictures, travel logs, pub reviews, and anecdotes.
The first stop along my journey will be The Corrymeela Community in Ballycastle. I won’t lie, I’ve been Googling images of the place and it looks absolutely beautiful. We’re just spending a week there so we can acclimate to the climate, our college (The University of Ulster, Magee), and the area.
Hopefully, I’ll have much more to say in later blogs once I’ve had an experience or two worth writing about! So for now I won’t bore you with descriptions of the pictures of Northern Ireland that I’ve found on Google Images or summaries of my professors awesome backgrounds. Instead, I’ll leave you with a list of English to Irish translations I’ve been creating (I’m hoping to be fluent by the time I get back!).
(in no particular order)
- Biro = Pen
- Rubber = Eraser
- Pants = Underwear
- Trousers = Pants
- Jumper = Sweater
- Bin = Trash Can
- Chippy/Chipper = Fish & Chips
- Truck = Anything besides a car (very large trucks and semis are called “lorry”)
- Salad (tuna,egg,chicknen,etc) = Lettuce
- Crisps = Chips
- Fizzy drinks = Soda
- Napkin = Diaper
- Serviette = Napkin
- Uni = University
- Toilet = Bathroom
- Collective nouns (team,club,etc) = treated as plural (i.e. “where are the team?”)
- Sweets = Candy
- Pudding = Dessert Course
- Pudding = Class of sausage
- Tea = A meal or snack that doesn’t have to actually include tea
- Halls = Holidays
- “hay-che” = “H”
I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more this semester and some of these may be wrong or regionally specific, but at least I’ll know not to ask for a “napkin” and if my host family invites me for “tea” to eat “pudding,” I won’t be too surprised if I get served a plate of sausage.