Day 6: A trip to Belfast

This morning I woke up at 5 am because we had to meet at 6:30 to catch a train to Northern Ireland. The good part about getting up so early was that I was ablr to Skype with my mom! It was only about 9 pm in Arizona, so she was going to bed and I was just getting up. So we walked to the train station to catch the train to Belfast.

I had never been on a train before, but it was pretty neat. It made me excited to leave Dublin and see more of the country and hills and farms. Once we got off the train though, our day never stopped. We did a "black taxi tour" but in out tour bus with one of the guides. Belfast is kind of scary. He said there is 10 percent of the violence that was happening a few year ago. But the police stations are still extremely fortified, a lot of windows are bulletproof glass with steel cages around them, and the Peace Wall is still up. The Peace Wall is a HUGE 16 foot (i think that's waht he said) wall seperating the Catholic neighborhoods and the Protestant Neighborhoods. There are murals all over the sides of building that say "Prepared for peace, ready for war" and that have pictures of men dressed in army garb pointing guns out at the world.

For lunch we went to the shipyards where the Titanic was built. It was really cool, and we ate at the cafe they have there. Afterwards we went to the Belfast Telegraph and talked to the director of digital media. His job is to create the layout of the paper to be printed as well as create the website. He told us that everyone in Northern Ireland has broadband internet and they use is often. It is such a contrast between the visits we've had so far.

We went to a group dinner at the Morning Star. It was delicious! I ate so much food. But it was fun and the least rushed activity of the day. After we ate, it was back on the run to find the train station so we didn't miss our train. It left at 8:10 and I slept most of the way back. It didn't make a difference though, I was still exhausted when we got back to the apartment. Tomorrow is our free day, and as of right now, I have no plans. I need to find someone to talk to about my web project, but that has not gone very well so far.