Day TWO: Feis!

Hey everyone! Day two in Northern Ireland was all about the culture. In the morning, the four ambassadors who were at the house already were picked up by the Director of the Board for the Friend's of Saint Patrick, Emma. Adorned in our matching "Saint Patrick Ambassador" polo's, we drove about two hours (queue the motion sickness) south, to the old village of Armagh, where we would be seeing her daughter dance in a Feis, which is a Gaelic cultural festival. In other words, it was a dance competition. It was very "Toddlers and Tiara's" like, with big blond wigs, fake tan and glittery dresses for the dancers. We stayed for a while and got to see so many dancers compete in Irish dancing. To see it in Ireland is seriously awesome!

After we left the Feis, we drove to Saint Patrick's Cathredal in Armagh, which is huge and beautiful. We got the walk around for a long time and take everything in. We even ventured to the old graveyard beside the church and saw graves that dated back to 1800. After Armagh, we drove through Emma's small town of Loughinisland, which is next to Downpatrick. We traveled down very narrow, windy roads (which is most of Northern Ireland, every road is a rollercoaster) to see a very, very old cemetery nestled in between hills. This is the talking point of Emma's town. It was very hauntingly beautiful and had church ruins that date back to the 13th century. It was amazing to see. After that, Emma took us back to our house in Downpatrick where we met up with the last two ambassadors from Wisconsin. After everyone said hi, we went out to the local (pub) called "Denvirs", for dinner and drinks! I got gammon steak and, of course, mashed potatoes. After dinner, we went back to the house to catch up some more and played a few card games. Everyone was pretty tired, so after that, we all went to bed. Although we have no WiFi, Callan and I lucked out with our own rooms!