In the land of Beatles and leprechauns: Liverpool and Belfast

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Hello lovely people! I hope everyone has enjoyed the weekend, which I hear has been quite hot at home. As promised, I'm back for the second half of my adventures over the weekend, which I'm happy to report I survived through. First, I would once again like to take a quick moment to thank the countless men and women battling what is now two fires at home, the Cable Crossing fire which from what I gather has burned over 1,200 acres and the Stouts fire which I hear has burned over 15,000 acres. If you can all send good thoughts and whatever other good feelings you can to these firefighters, I'm sure it would be much appreciated. My uncle has been involved in the process as a doser operator, so my heart has been extra close to these situations. Thank you to all who have been and continue to be involved! Meanwhile in Scotland, we have gotten enough rain to give back to the entire US. Twice. All of the locals have said that this is the worst summer weather that they have had in a long time, and my professor said that this was the wettest July that they have had in about three decades. Of course it had to all happen when 100 American students come to stay. We've all become a wee bitter about all of the rain. My weekend started off by waking up at 4 (in the morning, sadly) on Friday and leaving the university by 5 to head to Glasgow, where we would the catch a 7:00 flight to Belfast (Northern Ireland) for my class excursion. We had all probably had less than 6 hours of sleep so I'm pretty sure we all looked like zombies walking through the airport. The entirety of the flight was I believe around a half hour, however it took us more time to get onto the plane, taxi on the runway, and get back off of the plane than we actually had in the air. It was literally a take off, fly in the air for maybe 15 minutes, and then back down. I think that all of us utilized that time for a nap even though it was short. By the time we got off the plane and took a taxi to the city center it was around 8:15 and we had nothing planned until 9. So we found a small cafe to get much needed coffee/tea/shoot caffeine straight into our veins. The city center is quite lovely, and there is a Titanic memorial plaque outside of city hall with the names of every person who perished on the ship. For those of you who didn't know or simply forgot, like me (I seem to not have known about a lot of things before I came here), the Titanic was built in Belfast and everyone seems to be quite proud of it. We read the names on the plaque while we waited, and around 9 a taxi showed up to take us on a taxi tour of the city. Apparently taxi tours are a thing in many cities, who knew? Since my class is an international relations class, the whole reason that we came to Belfast was to explore how The Troubles has effected and continues to have an effect on the city. For those of you who don't know what The Troubles in Northern Ireland were/are, I highly suggest that you do a quick google search as there is so much information and a webpage will give you much better information than I can. It's very fascinating and very sad at the same time. The best way that I can explain it is that from 1969-98, Belfast was sort of at war with itself. Major conflict arose between the Unionist party, which are predominately Protestant, and the Nationalist party, who are predominately Catholic. The Unionist party is and was for Northern Ireland staying with the United Kingdom, while the Nationalist party is for a united Ireland, which would mean Northern Ireland leaving the UK. Through many various events, much conflict arose and it was a terrible time in Belfast. As things began to calm, parts of the city became very segregated between the protestants and the Catholics, and the peace walls were put into place. The peace walls are located in various parts of the city, but the longest and highest part separates Shankill road and Falls road (one side is protestant and one is catholic, though I forgot which is which). This section of the wall is around 100 feet high and miles long. In a nutshell, one side is catholic and the other protestant, and the two groups do not mix together or cross the peace walls into the others territory. It was very surreal to be in a place where segregation is still happening on such a massive and hugely felt scale. There is a tension that is very palpable but that no one seems to speak of; the walls are just there and people stay on their side and that's how it is. It is very obvious as to which side you are on, as the unionist side has union jacks flying everywhere and on what seems like every house. The unionist side also contains thousands of murals, most of which are political, that express their beliefs and the beliefs of the unionist party. The long section of the peace wall is completely covered with murals on the unionist side and people always sign them when they walk past. We were able to sign our names, which was a strange and wonderful feeling. The catholic side does not really have murals, and they portray their feelings and beliefs in different ways. In some instances, we saw houses that had cages over their back windows facing the wall because there have been bombs thrown over so many times in the past. Some people are very very slowly starting to remove the cages, and all along the walls there are gates that are being installed that people can walk through, but they are only open during the day and shut at night. People of the city say that things like these are progress in the right direction. I have never experienced anything like this city, as nothing happens even close to this in the tiny town of Monmouth. I can't really put into words the feeling that I had going through these parts of the city. The only word that keeps coming to mind is surreal. It's like stepping into a part of a very important and violent history that is still very much present and alive. It was terrifying, sad, and amazing all at the same time. I highly suggest you all book tickets to Belfast right now and see for yourselves. After our taxi tour (which left a very heavy feeling on my heart) we split up and had the afternoon free. A few of us went to the Titanic museum (as if the day hadn't already been sad enough). The museum is absolutely huge and took us about 2 hours to go through. It was quite amazing, and took us through the complete timeline of the ship. At the end, there were actual messages from the Titanic to other ships as it was sinking, and it showed the last messages ever sent from the ship. So that was quite terrible. Overall, it was a good experience and there was just so much information throughout the museum. It was a bit overwhelming at times. After the museum, we all headed back to the city center and had lunch, and then waited for a taxi to take us back to the airport around 4:30. Our flight took off at 6:30 and once again was the shortest flight of my life. We arrived back in Glasgow around 7:15, and while everyone else proceeded to take a bus back to Stirling to go straight to bed, I hopped on a bus to take me to the train station where I met a friend and caught a train to Liverpool at 8:15. Overall the train was around 3 and a half hours, and by this point I was so exhausted that I was falling over standing up. It was not an enjoyable feeling. We arrived in Liverpool around midnight and then wandered around trying to find our hostel. We went the wrong way once and thankfully people are nice enough to notice that we looked lost and pointed us in the right direction instead of mugging us. Thank you for not mugging us, kind stranger. We got to our hostel around 12:30 and needless to say I went straight to sleep after being up for around 20 hours with about 5 hours of sleep the night before. We woke up the next morning somewhat refreshed and headed out. In case any of you are wondering what there even is in Liverpool, there is only one word: Beatles. Not the icky bug, but the groovy band. There is a museum called The Beatles Story, which is where we spent our day. It was a lovely little museum and it took us through the timeline of the band from beginning to end. They put lots of little effects inside to make it interesting. We spent a good majority of our day in the museum, and the other part walking around the city in the rain. That wasn't so fun, so we sat in the train station for the last couple hours of our journey waiting to catch our train back to Stirling. In the train station, I found a pasty shop. Now, when I was a sophmore in high school I took a trip with my french class to France and we also got to stop in London. A friend and I discovered pasties, which is pastry dough filled with delicious sauces and meats and then baked and they are the most delicious thing. So finding the shop in the train station was a glorious gift. We caught our train which brought us back to Stirling and we arrived back to the university around 1 this morning (early Sunday morning). It was a veeeeeerrrry long and not so sleep filled weekend for me and lots of traveling by all types of transportation, but the weekend was a very enjoyable one. Today, a flatmate and I walked into Bridge of Allan which is probably a 5 minute walk and went to the highland games. I'm very glad that I got to go while I was here because it's always something that I've wanted to see. The best way to sum up highland games is that it's like a band competition meets a county fair meets a track meet. With lots of beer. There was wrestling, running, cycling, highland dancing, pipe bands and heavyweights. We spent most of our time watching the pipe bands and heavyweights. The bagpipes just make me so happy. We got to watch the men throw the caber, which is the big log that they throw and what probably most people think of when they think highland games. Today was much more relaxing and I feel that watching the games was a nice way to end my weekend. While you are all burning up at home, today I wore two coats, leggings, jeans, fuzzy socks, boots and a scarf to the games because it was so cold. I'll probably just melt when I get home, so don't be concerned if you see me turn into a puddle of goo. It is crazy and so sad to think that in 6 days I will be home from an incredible journey. I'm sure my next blog will be filled with lots of sappy writing about how sad I am to leave and the impact on my trip, so I'll spare you all that in this blog. Today I was skyping with Rylynn and Cooper and when we said goodbye Ry said "I'll see you in 7 days!" and apparently he has a countdown going, so that was nice of him. The impact that two little boys who don't even always speak in coherent sentences can have on a person is quite remarkable. I hope that everyone has a lovely Sunday and I will do a rain dance for you all and then send some of our rain to the west. I look forward to sharing my final blog at the end of this week with all of you, which will involve one last trip. I like to keep you all in suspense as to what my next blogs will be about, it's always more fun for me that way. Cheers!

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