While at the Iowa State Fair, my mom and her friend and I went to the food contest : A Taste of Ireland. During the contest, a lady sitting next to me leaned over and said in a distinct British accent "What are they doing?" I responded that I didn't really know because the judges were just sitting at a table sampling different Irish foods. Yet they were not announcing what they were eating or quite frankly saying anything.
So we continued in a conversation and it came out that I was going to be going to Belfast for a year. At that she began to say how though she is from Blackpool, England, her son lives in Ballymoney (about an hour away from Belfast.) And she has relatives from Belfast as well.
It was such a funny moment to be sitting at the Iowa State Fair at an Irish food contest and talking to a British woman with family in Northern Ireland. I realized how small of a world it can be sometimes. She then proceeded to tell me to visit Giant's Causeway because it is as "Americans say awesome." I was also introduced to her son and family and told how the Irish are very friendly.
It reassured me in a way about traveling across the ocean to live in another country for a year. Now, I don't expect to meet an Iowan in Belfast, but I was just shocked to have had the experience of meeting a person from Northern Ireland at the fair.
It's a small world isn't it?
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