Northern Ireland*

Northern Ireland: March 16 – March 20

In this beautiful country (or province, depending upon your allegiance) I had two brilliant friends to welcome me and open my eyes to a true Irish time. I sat on a bus for a nice long trip, from Galway to Dublin, then with an hour layover on to Belfast. The bus station in Dublin was completely crazy. There were so many people trying to get home for this holiday weekend and on top of that the traffic in Dublin was grid locked. My first bus was over an hour late and I fortunately caught the last bus to Belfast that night.

The ride was uneventful and I arrived at about 23:45. SQ and Tina picked me up at the bus station and pushed me right along to a local pub. We managed to sneak in due to maximum capacity already being reached. I quickly settled in with a pint and watch the crazy drink/dance fest we call Belfast. I had a splendid time meeting all of Tina’s friends (this may be an appropriate time to tell you Tina studied at UST for our senior year and we got on quite well). We had a splendid time!

The next day was the day of all days! St. Patrick’s Day!!!!!!! I started with a nice, cold run along the river in the Holy Land neighborhood. Upon my return, Tina had prepared a fry-up (a traditional Irish breakfast, pretty similar to an English breakfast). Home cooked and the perfect way to begin this holiday.

From here we met SQ and Tina’s friend Stephen for some downtown celebrations. It was very windy and chilly and the performances I would say were sub par. The more important part of the day was our arrival at a pub. We pubbed it for most of the day with only a quick departure for a hard to find dinner. Upon the later evening approaching, Tina, Stephen and myself headed for Alison’s house for a proper Irish house party. Now this was a great time…15 or so until 4 in the morning. One of Alison’s friends thought it inappropriate I am at a house party on St. Patty’s day, but to be honest, I was surrounded with fun Irish people, a great atmosphere (spacious, music but quiet enough where you did not need to scream, and a perfect temperature), and plenty of drink. Who could ask for more? In addition to this, one of the Protestant churches was handing out free cheeseburgers until 3:00 am; I had two and man were they delicious. As the night came to a halt due to the sun rising, we headed to Stephen’s for tea. Then to bed at a refreshing 6 am.

After a good 4.5 hours of sleep, I woke up and walked through the Holy Land to an amazing bakery for a delicious sandwich. I then met up with SQ, dropped off my stuff at her place, and then went to the Bot for the final of the Six Nations rugby match: Ireland versus England. Let me tell you, I was in a Nationalist pub and there was no way I could even make a peep about wanting England to win. In the end, Ireland beat England in the closing minutes and the pub lost control!!!! Screaming, dancing, jumping on tables over almost an hour. The sheetrock dust was falling from the second floor. I would have it no other way. That in itself was an incredible experience. We returned to SQ’s place and watched Mickeybo and Me, a movie taking place in Belfast about a Catholic boy and a Protestant boy. We watched over a delicious plate of spaghetti.

The next day was the black cab tour. Belfast is a city still deeply divided over faith, politics, and allegiances. I found it completely fascinating to see how entrenched the city still operates: people paint curbs blue, white, and red (Unionists) or green and orange (Nationalists), pubs do not allow sporting gear to be worn (a form of gang colors if you will), neighborhoods are still segregated by religion and strangers are harassed and sometimes ruffed up (spies). The black cab tour showed us all of these areas in the safety of a taxi. We visited probably 60 murals, the “peace” wall (where we talked to an 8 year old boy and his attitude crushed your heart, to see the hatred passed on at such a young age), and various other sites. This was probably one of favorite parts of this trip. We finished the tour at the Ulster Museum where I was able to learn the ancient history of this conflict. We finished the night off with a group dinner of tacos and a nice walk along the river.

On Monday I headed to the countryside on my own. I crossed a beautiful rope bridge over the coast to an island, visited Bushmills (a distillery), L____ Castle, and Giant’s Causeway (a rock phenomenon that has created thousands of hexagonal shaped rocks that rise up hundreds of feet). I took a nice long walk here and absorbed the crashing waves along the coast. The tour lasted about 10 hours and when I finally arrived, I made it to Tina’s a bit late for dinner and then washed my clothes at SQ’s and we sure did divert a major catastrophe (my clothes got locked in the laundry room with no key in sight, but fortunately we found the only security guard to open the door). Back to Tina’s for sleep and a generous ride at 4:30 in the morning to the airport.