Pictures!

Pat and I at the Cliffs Of Moher

Pat and I at the Gravity Bar at Guiness

Sam and I on St. Patrick's day...matching.

While I would hate to leave my last post as something so depressing as the return of the IRA, I'm pressed for time in the lest two weeks of the semester so I can't manage to write a whole entry right now. For now I figured I'd post a few pictures.

I'm also going to go back and add pics to other entries now.

Northern Ireland Weekend- aka the return of the IRA

So once again I have a cancelled class, which seems to always be the ideal time to catch up on my blogging. Before I get into the specifics of my weekend, I have a complaint:

The members of the band U2 are from Dublin. I am in Ireland right now, however they have found this to be the apropriate time to do a super duper secret surprise performance right outside the Tufts University campus in Davis Square. They obviously did not consult with me first. More here.

This past weekend I was on a trip to Northern Ireland sponsored by my study abroad program, IFSA Butler. We left early thursday morning and drove the 5 1/2 hours up to Belfast. On our way up there bright red sheets were handed out to us advising us that Belfast is not necessarily the safest city to be in. Belfast was the site of much of the political (and consequently religious) conflict that took place in Ireland in the past few decades. While the country is now considered to be at peace, there still remain some areas which are unsafe.

The sheet we were given actually said 'Some areas of Belfast are unsafe, and some areas which are considered to be safe during the day are not at night'. Frankly this was a cause for some confusion on my part, I'd rather just be given a listing of 'where to go and where not to go', but apparently my program thought this would be more helpful. I think it is this historical concern about safety in Belfast that is kind of defining for the city. Some of the shops still require you to ring a bell before the door is unlocked to let you in, and the city is pretty much dead anytime after about 8PM. It's a little erie because there's no sign of anything unsafe going on in the city center, for the most part it's incredibly quiet, but I think perhaps people still have it in their minds that they have to be careful, and so they are.

Thursday afternoon was spent starting to explore the city, followed by dinner in our hotel. The chocolate cake for dessert was to die for. Friday morning we were up by 7:30 to have breakfast, get our stuff together, and load onto the busses for our tour for the day. Our first stop was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge in County Antrim (note the name of that county, I'll mention it again later). The rope bridge itself wasn't anything too exciting, I would say (just terrifyingly high), but the surrounding landscape is absolutely beautiful. Next we headed to a castle that I don't remember the name of, but I do remember that it is situated on a cliff and at one point while it was inhabited the entire kitchen fell off the cliff and into the sea.

Later on during the tour we went to the Giant's Causeway, a rock formation on the coast that literally looks like it could be made up of steps for a giant. Yin and I were able to get in a picture at the top of one of the tallest formations, I'll try to post it later. It was already drizzling while we were there but the waves were crashing so intensely that you got splashed fairly regularly. Needless to say we left there completely soaked.


On Saturday we got some shopping in. Belfast has come to be known for its awesome shopping and more and more people from the Republic are heading up there to shop due to ever improving exchange rates between the GBP and the EUR. After shopping (including a trip to the Avoca location in Belfast), we went on a black cab tour, which takes you to the areas most affected by the troubles (the conflict between catholic republicans and protestants who were loyal to the crown). There are still areas today that are completely catholic or completely protrestant. They are marked by various full wall murals which are entirely hand painted. The areas are fairly peaceful nowadays, but some of the houses near the peace walls (separating the protestant communities and the catholic communities) have to have cages around their backyards to protect them from items which may be thrown over the wall.

At the end of the black cab tour, our guide told us a little bit about his experiences growing up during the troubles. As one of five catholic brothers the British always suspecting him of being part of the republican activities. While he wasn't actually involved, sometimes they would pull him in to be interrogated for a day or two at a time. He said it never bothered him because they always fed him well.
Belfast City Hall with their ferris wheel.

Late saturday night while in the hotel we saw a report on the news of a shooting in County Antrim (near where we were on friday). The soldiers killed were the first to be killed in Northern Ireland in 12 years. On monday another man was killed. Saturday night on the news they were saying that this was a 'turning point in Northern Ireland's history', so it was strange to think that we were all there for that. There's a lot of concern that this may open up old conflict that was believed to have been left in the past. A lot of news outlets have been making it seem like the troubles in NI have been over since 1998, but a lot of the things we learned about on the black cab tour were happening up to 4 or 5 years ago. It's possible that things aren't as peaceful as they had once seemed.

Me by the rope bridge with a rainbow!

Pat gets here for spring break on friday! Much excitement in the air!