Belfast Adventures: Saturday

And now for the conclusion of the Belfast extravaganza…

         Saturday we got up soooo early again cause our bus got the early Black Taxi Tour at 9:00 :-( However, we totally slept in a little cause our freaking wake-up call came late—at 8:30 instead of 7:45. Oy. But we totally made it, if barely. Our taxi driver was this guy named Pat who had a mullet and who introduced himself with ‘I’m gay so you can’t ask me for my number’ haha. New favorite person ever. The Black Taxi tour drives around the city and basically gives an overview of The Troubles. Basically West Belfast is divided into two sections—the Protestant side and the Catholic side, and the two do not mix. First was the Protestant side, where we saw lots of murals relating to the Protestant domination of the Catholics. Most of them glorify those who hurt the Catholics in some way, like Oliver Cromwell. According to Pat, the neighborhood has their own sort of citizen police force, where everything is dealt with ‘in-house,’ if you will. So it’s very very safe, unless you break their laws. One mural is of King William III, the English king who defeated King James II and began the process of bringing Protestantism into Ireland. He’s on his horse, which has its two front legs in the air. Fun fact: a painting of a king on a horse can have three different meanings. If the horse has both front legs in the air, both king and horse survived the battle; one leg means the king died and the horse survived; both legs on the ground means both horse and king died in battle. Most people have heard of the IRA, which is essentially the terrorist group associated with the Catholics; the Protestants have the UFF, the Ulster Freedom Fighters. There was a big painting of him on the side of a building with a gun, and it was painted in such a way that his eyes and his gun followed you no matter where you walked (see pictures in album for proof). Then we went to see the Peace Wall, which stretches for 3.5 miles, dividing the Catholic and Protestant sections. The highest point is 45ft tall, and the wall was built by the English soldier in a very short amount of time when they came into Ireland to try and ‘help’ quiet the unrest. It still stands today, as tensions are still there. However, now it is called the Peace Wall and people have signed it everywhere, including Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama. Yet the Catholic houses have fences on the back of their house as they are about 10 feet from the wall and Protestants still throw things over to try and hit them, like bottles and rocks. While 86% of random Irish people sampled said that they should tear down the wall, 92% of those who lived in West Belfast said it should stay up, so it probably won’t come down for a few more decades, when the next generation has grown up. There are gates dividing the city that are closed by the army at about 6pm every night and don’t reopen until the next day, since there were still murders up until 2004. There is one gate, called Checkpoint Charlie, that is automatic but is monitored by the soliders 24/7. On the Catholic side, we saw the memorial garden to all of the people killed during The Troubles, and even more recently, both soldiers and innocents who happened to be outside at the wrong time. It is said that The Troubles truly began when the Protestants crossed over to try and burn down an important Catholic monastery that has stood for hundreds of years, and when the Catholics left their homes to defend it (and succeeded), the Protestants turned on their empty homes instead. Thus, the symbol of the Catholics is the phoenix, as they rose from the ashes of their destroyed houses to continue the fight, whether for good or not. They were the minority (the Protestant/British government finagled the borders of Northern Ireland to give a Protestant majority in all voting matters) and were persecuted by Protestant Irish and British alike. The current Catholic political party is Sinn Fein, which is often associated with the IRA, as it was created by their members. On a happier note, we got to take a picture with Pat at the very end so I will always remember his awesome mullet.

         After the tour we dropped some stuff at the hotel and started walking to the Ulster Museum, by Queens University, as it was free and apparently really cool. Despite Alyssa falling behind several times to take pictures of everything she saw (she truly has a problem haha) we did make it there, though first we checked out the Botanical Garden. It was a gorgeous day (sunny, no rain) so the greenhouse containing lots of lovely and colorful flowers was even more beautiful than if it’d been raining. I have pix of that too! The Ulster museum had some interesting exhibits, including gold from the Spanish ship Girona that sank off the coast of Ireland way back when (actually, right by Dunluce Castle, who then acquired 3 cannons from the wreck). There was also an exhibit about rocks, and they had fluorescent ones! Seriously awesome…I want glowy rocks now.

         For lunch we went to a pub called The Globe, which had a deal that for 5 pounds we got a meal and a pint. And it was a damn good hamburger, if I do say so myself. We actually came in in the middle of a Manchester United vs Manchester City football (soccer) game, and oh em gee it was so intense. I think I’m a Man U fan now, though honestly that may change since I don’t really care about football haha. The bar was obvs a Man U fan base cause when they won (with an epic goal) everyone was ecstatic. I had never seen the City Hall so we all went back there; btw it looks like a palace. We wandered inside and accidentally crashed people taking wedding photos haha but luckily we weren’t too in the way so we took our pix and left. The bride was super tan though (unnaturally so), which I guess goes with how I now picture Ireland. The grounds were open so we went and took pix of them too…everything was so pretty, I would totally live there. Reminded me of the Spanish palace, actually. We backtracked to a tiny cupcake shop where I got a disappointing milkshake, but we did run into Danielle and some other people from IFSA. I met a girl who goes to a school near me (ah I can’t remember the name!) who is the President of her rugby club! We exchanged numbers so perhaps we’ll play each other next spring… it was about 4:30 and we were totally exhausted so we went home to watch the Six Nations instead of going to a pub. Scotland totally should have crushed Wales, but dude Wales beat them so badly! Princess Anne was totally there too. Lolz at royalty.

         We went to another pub for dinner, one with the same 5 pound deal as lunch. Also quite good. We had great laughs…for some reason we’re all very random yet crack each other up. Apparently I am the only one who’s taken stupid dares over the years and was mocked for that haha. Not my fault…I couldn’t refuse! That woulda been shameful fo sho. After dinner we decided to try and find the glowy globe thing that we’d seen the night before, but ended up getting lost. On our way back, totally by accident, we found it—Victoria Square, a huge shopping mall. Poor Alyssa is lactose intolerant but totally had a milkshake and shared chocolate cake with me, so she went home. Hmmm sound familiar? *coughalliecough* Then we (Claire, Susan, and I) went to The Crown, the oldest pub in Northern Ireland. Because it’s called The Crown, no Catholics would go there, until they put a crown on the floor of the entrance so people could wipe their feet on it as they came in haha. There were a lot of drunk old people, including an old guy holding his DOG in the pub. One guy came over to us and was asking us where we were from, and kept talking about this pub a couple doors over that was really good. But every time he was about to leave he’d start repeating himself haha…though I def couldn’t understand him half the time anyway. We did talk to someone about our age for a while—he lives in Belfast and was waiting for his friends so we were chatting about the differences between Ireland and the US. It was really funny because him and the drunk old guy kept making fun of how I talk with my hands a lot, and we laughed at how he uses ‘craic’ all the time. Good times though. Finally we went back home since we were leaving early (again!) for Cork the next morning. I did end up getting sick…damn my lack of sleep. But overall I really loved Belfast, though not quite as much as I love Cork :-)

Slán go fóill!