Northern Ireland

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Katie, Sudie, Jenny and I left on Friday to take a 7 hour bus ride to Belfast for the weekend. Suprisingly, there was absolutely nothing that we had to pass through, or anything marking the fact that we had passed from Ireland into Northern Ireland except the fact that pounds were now the currency used. We got there around 7:20pm, found our hostel, unloaded, and headed out to find something to eat. We ended up going to this amazing fish and chips place that wasn't expensive at all(as long as you don't take into account the exchange rate), and then going to The Crown Bar which is famous for some reason or another. The bar was nice, aside from the smoking which(thank goodness) is not allowed in Galway. The next morning, we woke up early to get ready for our tour on the PaddyWagon. The one tour was too full to fit all of us, so they had to get another guy to come and pick us up. We ended up going to the city of Derry first, and took an hour walking tour of the city. One of the more interesting things about the city is that it is completely surrounded by a wall, which used to be the only way in. In addition to the wall, we saw the memorial for the 17? men who were killed on Bloody Sunday. We hoped back onto the PaddyWagon and made our way back to the Giants Causeway. The Giants Causeway was one the things that I had most wanted to see. It was really neat. The rocks were naturally formed in the shapes of squares, and look like steps. We walked around there for about two hours, and then headed back to Belfast. The next morning we ended up walking around the city taking in all that Belfast had to offer. One of the things that Katie had wanted to do was to take a black taxi tour which took you into the neighborhoods of the Falls and Shankhill. These two neighborhoods are where a lot of the fighting between the catholics and the protestants(as the news reported, however, we were told that religion had nothing to do with it) took place. They have large murals on the side of their houses, and are actually separated by an enormous wall which they call the 'peace wall'. However, these taxi rides were way too much money for us, so we decided to walk there instead. It really wasn't that far, and going from one neighborhood to the other was quite interesting. When we were done, we made our way back to the center of town, and caught our bus back Galway. It was a good weekend, I got to see the Giant's Causeway, and I think that we pretty much accomplished everything we had all wanted to do in the time we had. Belfast as a whole, is nice, however, I didn't feel like there was that much to do there, and it basically just another city.

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Photos

Belfast
I think this is the capitol building

Derry
The wall surrounding the city

Belfast
Queen's College. This building was actually suposed to be Galway's main building(and vice versa) but the plans were switched.

Belfast
The Crown Bar. While we were in it, we realized that they have a Crown Bar(still apart of England), and back in Galway we have a Kings Head. Ha!

Belfast
The peace wall

Belfast
Various murals

Belfast
Various murals

Belfast
Various murals

Comments

[dad]

great
great report, want's me to visit there too.