Photos from the US trip Part 1
At last I've got my photos kind of half organised from the recent trip to the States. Not sure where to start, so let's start at the very beginning...New York!


This was the view towards the financial district of the city from the Empire State Building. Kind of cool to think that we'd stepped on a plane in Belfast mid-morning then suddenly (well not exactly but you know what I mean) we're in one of the largest cities in the world in the afternoon. The weather was great so the views were really clear.

This is Ground Zero where they’ve got a number of large boards pinned to the fence with all the names of the people who died at 9/11.

This photo was taken from the Empire State building as well but this time you can see Central Park just behind the skyscrapers.

If we’d had more time I would have loved a dander through the park, but 36 hours isn’t quite enough! New York is a full-on experience, I’m glad I’ve been, though it’s not somewhere you’d go to relax! Would I go again? Well I’m not a city-slicker, but I think probably the best way to experience the city would be to meet a local from each of the districts, then they could show off their city to you. Maybe the next time I’ll couchsurf!

Onto the Summer Peacebuilding Institute and this was my class:

And this photo proves that contrary to popular belief, I actually did some work whilst I was there!

But of course there was plenty of fun to be had and at the Community Dance I made sure I got a wee boogey on the dancefloor.

The fab four included from left-to-right me, my colleague Laura, Laura from Seattle and Candice from Philadelphia. We shared a 4 bedroom dorm on the university campus and the craic was good as we drank tea, shared stories and discussed global issues late into the night!

On the weekend of 12-13th May we had free time from the SPI classes. However my tutor arranged for our class to do a visit on the Saturday morning to meet some of her old-order Mennonite (like Amish) neighbours. We met Lewis Martin, pastor of the local church who explained to us a little more of the Mennonite traditions and beliefs and he also showed us round his Harness shop which was full of everything it seemed bar the kitchen sink. We also met an older lady whose business has been to make rugs and she showed us the looms in her basement. It was fascinating to get a little insight into this hugely traditional way of life, and we spotted a few people driving down the road in their horse-drawn buggies. The Virginian countryside is really beautiful and in some ways reminded me of home. The tradition for old-order Mennonite families is to share out their land amongst their sons. However this means that farms are getting smaller. Already the Mennonites in this area have been permitted to use modern farm machinery because they couldn’t otherwise earn a living from the land. I don’t buy into their way of life and separation from modern living, but I do respect what they’re doing and I’d hate to see this way of life dying out.

On the Saturday afternoon the 2 Laura’s and I headed off to Shenandoah National Park. The park takes in part of the Blue Ridge Mountains which form part of the Applachians. The Skyline Drives runs north to south through the middle of the park for 105 miles which makes it hugely accessible. All along the road are overlooks with vast vistas of the mountains fading into the distance (I now know why they’re called the Blue Ridge Mountains – they do look blue!) and carparks so you can go for a dander or a serious hike along the 500 miles of trails.

We took a wander along the trail to Dark Hollows Falls which are 70 feet. On the way down to the falls we passed a girl carrying a camera and tripod and naturally thought nothing of it. On the way back to the carpark Seattle Laura got talking to this girl and it turned out she was there to photograph bears and the previous week a bear had accidentally stepped on her head! At this point I was suggesting an impromptu karaoke session seeing as I didn’t have any bear bells with me! We bumped into a guy a few minutes later in the carpark who had just spotted a bear at the edge of the carpark. The only wildlife we spotted were deer and hawks and I’m very glad we didn’t disturb any bears!

That evening we were invited to go contra dancing. What’s that I hear you ask? Well I was kind of wondering myself and kind of went along a little bit reluctantly. Basically it’s American folk dancing and I guess borrows a bit from English, Scottish and other folk dancing traditions. Seems to have a big following all over the States. I have to say I did have a really good night. It reminded me a little of Scottish ceilidh dancing from my uni days in Aberdeen and the sweat fairly lashes off you after a few dances! I was amazed at the diversity of age-groups at the dance, there were young guys there about 18 or so – you wouldn’t catch blokes that any age in this country doing something like that for their Saturday night entertainment! Unfortunately no photos – we were too busy trying to keep up with the moves!

On the Sunday we decided to take things a little slower, with the intensity of SPI I felt like I needed to get my head showered and have little bit of solo time in the morning. But in the afternoon we headed back to the National Park, this time with Ionka who is originally from Bulgaria but now lives and works for the Mennonite church in Ukraine. We headed further along the Skyline Drive and decided to do the trail along to Stony Man Mountain and the trail at Little Stony Man Cliffs which also form part of the Appalachian Trail. The views were spectacular and actually it was a clearer day than the previous day had been.

Debs feeling at one with nature:

In terms of transport this was what made it all possible - the Chevy Impala! I had ordered a compact car at the airport in DC but all they had was this full-size model - I called it 'the Beast' because it was just humungous! It was fine to drive but because of its size I really didn't like the blind spots.