Northern Ireland.

So this past weekend, my school took a trip up to Northern Ireland. For those who aren't aware, Northern Ireland is a separate country than Ireland. They are part of the UK and there's conflict over that fact. I'll give you a brief history lesson. No so long ago, early 60s, trouble broke out in Northern Ireland between the Catholics and the Protestants. The Catholics were Nationalists who wanted a united Ireland and the Protestants were Loyalists who wanted to remain part of the UK. There was tons of violence. Any time the police even attempted to control it, they were petrol bombed. It was just an all around bloody mess. Read more about it here if you choose. So anyway, the conflict didn't end till the late 90s and this is where our school decided to take us. I was a little nervous, won't lie.

Friday


Woke up around 9:30 to head to Londonderry/Derry. We got up there around 1:00 and went on a walking tour. We were staying in a hotel right in the middle of the city, and back in the day it was a pretty small city. They had built a wall around the entire thing, but it only takes about 30 minutes to walk around the wall. Now the city has obviously grown outside the wall, but we didn't go out there. On the tour, we learned about how there was huge debate over the name of the city. The Protestants call it Londonderry, while the Catholics call it Derry. Tying back to that whole UK thing. Also, everyone in the Republic of Ireland calls it Derry. It was a nice city though, I did enjoy it. We also ended having to switch to Pounds, which has a worse exchange rate than the Euro. It's practically double. Also, the 3 banks up there (Bank of Ireland, Bank of England, and Ulster Bank) all give out different looking money. Can you imagine every bank in America giving out it's own money. Granted they all hold the same value, its just annoying to deal with. And makes it look even more like play money. That night we went to an awkward pub/restaurant thing that advertised £1.65 pints of 30 different beers and ciders. They lied. They had about 4 different gross beers to offer and no cider. But the bar tender did end up making us this really delicious pitcher of a couple different alcopops. We ended up getting about 4 or 5 of those pitchers and then meeting some really cool locals who took us to a pub called The Metro. It was pretty packed, which was nice because the other place was empty. We should have taken that as a hint when we walked in. The pub was playing really cheesy 80s and 90s American music, but it was still fun.  The guys were really cool too. One was a doctor who lived in Switzerland, one was a lead guitarist in a band called Flying Castros and was also studying music management in London, and well, I didn't really talk much to the other two. I know one of the other two guys was living in another country as well though. But overall Derry didn't seem too bad of a city.

Saturday


Saturday, we woke up by 9:00 and headed over to Giant's Causeway. It was really cool to see. All the rocks there grow in hexagonal formation - which is weird. But we climbed all the way out to the edge and there were some cool little tide pools. The wind was crazy strong though and at one point it was pushing me towards the water. Even when I sort of sat/laid down to keep the wind from pushing me, it was still pushing me. That was near death experience number one.
After the Causeway, we all piled back on the bus and drove to lunch. We went to this nice, little restaurant and had a chicken pot pie type thing. It was the chicken and the sauce with the crust on the side haha. Oh, and french fries. Everything here's served with french fries.
After lunch we headed to carrick-a-rede rope bridge. From the parking lot, we hiked about 30 minutes (slight exaggeration). I was expecting this big, long, dangerous rope bridge. I was hoping that it would literally be four pieces of rope tied to trees across a gorge with little pieces of wood going across every so often. Maybe one would even crack as I stepped on it. But no. There was the original rope bridge with a billion precautions on it. Safest rope bridge in the world. It even had a net. Bummer. But after the bridge came more cliffs. Shocker there. The edges of Ireland are all cliffs. No beaches. Now the ground was really muddy and wet. As I was walking downhill towards the edge of the cliff, I fell and slide a good three feet towards the edge. Near death experience numero dos. My butt was all muddy, so I hiked back over the bridge and to the bus to change so I wouldn't be sitting in a swamp all the way to Belfast.
That night we got to Belfast. We stayed at they Days Hotel and were told not to go left out of the hotel. That was Loyalist territory. Kind of scary being told you can't go to some places in a town and not being told where you can go haha. So that night, we all piled into one hotel room with all our alcohol and just chilled out there for a while. At some point we made it out to a pub that was near the hotel, but I forget the name. It was a really cool pub inside though. Tons of people and a pretty good band. That's the norm in Ireland though :)

Sunday


The next morning, we all piled back into our bus and took a tour of Belfast. We went left into Loyalist country and got to see all the murals and the peace wall. We all got out and signed the peace wall, as well, which was pretty cool. But it was still a little strange. There were still barbed-wire fences up dividing neighborhoods and gates that closed at night around the neighborhoods to keep people out. Or to keep people in. Not sure which is worse. We also saw the most bombed hotel in Belfast. City centre wasn't bad though. It just seemed like your average, safe city, with tons of shopping and restaurants. The tour wasn't too long though. We left Belfast by about 1pm and were back in Dublin by 4ish.



And that was my weekend in Northern Ireland. Now I'm in Dublin for a while and my parents, brother, and grandmothers are visiting! That means tons of free meals and drinks and taxi rides and tickets to places. My grandma even gave me money for laundry haha. It's good craic! :)

Trip to Galway.

Okay, sorry this blog thing is lacking so much. I won't lie, I'm lazy. But here's a little video of my trip to Galway. Well the daytime events anyway. I'll blog soon about my classes and stuff!