Blogs from Northern Ireland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 63

Hi everybody, finally the time has arrived that I bought myself a brand new digital camera, and it was about time. Unfortunately, it was not in time to be able to make photo's of the party I had in belfast, during the commemoration of the battle of the boyne. Huge bonfires on the night of july the 11th, and parades on the 12th. It was great to experience such an event, strongly recomended to anyone travelling to northern ireland. I do hope to develop the last role on my normal camera, which will include those photo's as well, but for now you will have to do with this. See you soon, johan.... read more

After having breakfast at the Europa's generous buffet, we went with Rev. Bill Shaw to see the facilities of the 174 Trust. The 174 Trust was established in 1982 by a group of concerned Christians interested in tackling some of the many problems confronting the local community (unemployment, low education, and crime among them). As though the neighborhood problems were not challenge enough, they selected a physical location in an area that might reasonably be called ground zero for the historic "troubles" in Northern Ireland. A demographic map shows that the 174 offices sit right in the middle of a neighborhood where there are Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other. It's difficult for people like us who don't live in Ireland to comprehend how deep the schism has been, and how long it ... read more

We were unsure what to expect as we drove from County Sligo to Enniskillen, which is in Northern Ireland, not the Republic. Our Frommer's guide had promised there are usually no border crossings, and that proved to be our experience. We saw a Presbyterian church and a Quaker meeting house, but really didn't think much about it until we saw a building marked Police Service of Northern Ireland. Once we realized that we were in the U.K. part of the island, it made sense that we had started seeing churches other than Catholic or Church of Ireland. Thankfully, it was an uneventful drive, and we were tickled to find that we had to cross two airport runways in order to reach our B & B, Rossahilly House, which sits on a gentle hill next to Lough ... read more

Hello everyone I know its been a really long time since the last update but after my huge adventure in April i took some time to enjoy Glasgow as well as a week trip to Spain where I lounged on the beach and partyed the whole time! I will now give you all a quick update of my last 2 weeks! Now I am on my 1 month backpacking adventure with Carly and so far we have filled our time quiet well! She came into Glasgow on the same day I finished my exams (which all went well i think) then for the next few days we had the huge task of cleaning out my room, packing everything up, saying goodbyes to everyone, partying for the last times as well as getting her unstuck from my ... read more

hey guys, so after our early flight we dropped off our stuff at the hostel and then decided to check out the city. it seems like a pretty normal place if you are in the middle of the city centre... you don't really see any differences between that and some other european city until someone tells you the history of things that have happened. we basically just did a walking tour of everything and then took the public bus around to both the protestant and catholic neighbourhoods on either sides of the peace line. it was really interesting to see. we were pretty tired that night so we grabbed dinner and then went to bed. the next day we went to the giant's causeway on the northern coast which was amazing! that's why we stayed the ... read more