After welcome and orientation week I managed to make some bus using system. Of course the bus wasn´t even going the right direction and instead of going around university I ended up in center. But after few tries I somehow in cooperation with driver always got out of the bus max 10 minutes walking from home or university.
As I was looking forward to the center to feel safe, today morning (29.1.) 200m from main university building a guy was stabbed to death and we went for lunch around the forensic tent. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-31034980 My safety feelings were sealed by talk given to international students by police, who said that in center this is very exceptional and especially university is very safe place. The only not safe places are just some quarters where international students will never get. At this point I started to laugh a bit. Much helping wasn´t even frequent repeating of "We´re here to help you and keep you SAFE, guys". You know how you stop believing things when you hear them thousand times? (Later we were also told that for turists Belfast is one of the most safe cities. And when I was searching some BBC news to get to know about the place, I found these results. http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=belfast The frequency is in a way amazing.) Everyday you meet at least twice or threetimes honking police car or ambulance. For me it is really a lot.
Anyway, university is really beautiful and people here are very nice and helpful and speak much more understandably. They gave us huge pile of materials, information books and leaflets. The program mostly consisted of talks on different topics like student activities, organizations which will help you with different issues (accommodation, studying, development, carrier, sports), process of enrollment, and enrollment itself. After this process I today got my students card! With historically worst card photo I´ve ever had :D. But I can handle that.
There is really everything at Queen´s university including activities like underwater hocky club. And they have so many people working just on service for students and different advice centers. There´s even sexual health advisor and food and beverage manager who gave us epic talk about how to eat healthily and how to handle your alcoholic drinking schedule with a good care for your body. I like how they are opened and understanding towards students. They don´t consider redundant to say us things like "If you don´t drink, it´s ok to say no." "Don´t be afraid to ask us to speak slowlier." or "If you don´t remember our website, just try to google who could help you or ask."
The best part of Welcome and Orientation week was probably campus tour and traditional Céili with live music and learning how to dance some basic irish dances. It was a great fun and good way how to get to know more people. And I understand now that cowboy dancing is based on irish dances. I think we were dancing nearly the same dance once at a children camp when I was 12 or so. But with leather hats on our heads.
After evening Céili everybody went to city center for beer. I needed to catch last buses so I went away. It will be probably harder to make some friends in this group of people. I feel before starting to socialize I need to have a safe place to stay and possibility to walk home when I want and get back to university when I want.
I will describe beauty of university in next post with some photos and immediately after that I´ll tell you something about beauty of the city. On Sunday I have Bus City Tour! So I hope I´ll get to know the place better too.
Motto of the day: The university is good base for everything you need. They will have lots of organizations to help you with anything that could come up. They are here to help you enjoy your stay without troubles.
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