Leaving my home 6 AM EST on Tuesday, May 15 it took over 24 hours of travel time where I passed though the cities of New York, Boston, Shannon, Dublin, to finally reach Belfast.
In the Dublin airport I stopped in the Vodafone while some students exchanged their tickets. There I found out how easily and cheep it would be to get a sim card to use my cell from last summer that I bought in Italy. I could not do so there however because Northern Ireland uses UK sim cards, and Ireland has their own. I was also shown how to use a pen to get the charger I had from Italy into the Ireland/UK power plugs.
At passport checks the first person to go through in our group was asked where he was staying, because he responded studying in Belfast the agent said to all of us that Northern Ireland is a different country and he can not give us permission to study there. We were given one day travel, and are not here illegally I suppose. Others were given until the 13th of June and still others where given the standard 90 days that any US citizen would get in the EU. Enforcement of visa policy seems very nonstandard.
One the drive from Dublin to Belfast I noticed the road signs where unreadable and presumably in Gaelic. Also notable was how unnerving being a passenger in a vehicle driving on the left hand side of the road, the abnormal number of KFCs, and the lovely green country side.
