Today, I woke up later than usual, had the continental
breakfast downstairs, and submitted my first expense report for this trip. Then, I decided to venture over to the west
side of the Foyle River and explore the other side of town. CD had mentioned that the view from Top
of the Hill was amazing, so I decided to hike it.
Again, I underestimated how far that was, especially hiking
uphill all the way there. But I finally
made it, and CD was right…it was truly amazing. I could look back across the water and see the
entire town on the other side of the river, as well as the monastery, cemetery,
football stadium, and all the other places I had hiked the day before. It is pretty awesome to see the expansiveness
of the town and how it sprawls out across the countryside.
Other than this view, there is not much else on that side of
the river except residential areas. I
explored a few of these to get a feel for the types of houses in this part of
the world and then headed back to try to grab lunch. I had lunch at the Sandwich Co. again,
repeating the experience from the day before.
It was just as good this time. I
got it as a takeaway (that’s the word for “to go” here) and ate it in my room,
so I could take off my shoes and let my body relax. I mapped out the trip I had taken today, and
found out that it was approximately 3 miles round trip. No wonder my feet were killing me.
JM came to my room around 4 p.m. and invited me to the
Foyle Film Fesitval, which features independent short films from all over the
world. We bought a package deal which
was for five movies, totaling about 1.5 hours of viewing. The subject matter on these films was a
little odd and disturbing.
The first one was titled Out of the Village and was a
film about a boy and his sister who have to deal with the aftermath of their
parents’ death to Ebola. This was an
emotionally moving film, but left me wondering “what’s next?”
The second one was titled Intersection and was a film
about two construction workers in the middle of nowhere whose monotony is
disturbed by a meteorite falling from the sky.
One of them kills the other to get sole possession of the meteorite and
then proceeds to try to drag it across the desert naked, using his clothes as
leverage. I actually quite liked
this. It was very funny in a dark kind
of way.
The third one was titled Fragile and was a film about
a woman who tries dating too soon after her divorce. The dating experience is disastrous and leads
to a series of destructive encounters across the city, as she tries to come to
terms with her loneliness. The girl in
this was cute, but she was a complete psycho.
I didn’t understand what she was doing half the time.
The fourth one was titled Waiting for Tom and was a
film about a mother and daughter driving across Ireland for some reason
completely lost on me. They bicker the
whole time about things we know nothing about and then have a good laugh right
before the credits roll. I guess you can
figure out what I thought about this one.
The last one was title De Smet and was a film about
three brothers who live the single life, doing everything together in a simple
way. That is until a new woman moves in
across the street and starts a romance with one of the brothers. The other two brothers don’t like the
interruption, so they sabotage the breaks on the woman’s car, and she dies in a
car accident. Order is restored between
the brothers, but it leaves the one brother depressed. JM didn’t even stay to watch this
one. I thought this one had quite a few
humorous parts as well. The girl next to
me was laughing pretty hard, so I guess she also liked it.
It was cool to do something unexpected like this, especially
since the film festival is only done twice a year.
We finished off with dinner in the Stir Restaurant, where we
had a Moroccan Lamb Burger with tzatziki and a toffee, chocolate, and caramel
tartlet with tasted suspiciously like cheesecake. And we all know how I feel about cheesecake!
Later, JM and I are going to walk down to the Omniplex
and watch Spectre, the new James Bond film.
