April 19- Belfast

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The Peace Wall

The Whole Group


(We left at five in the morning... but the bus never came)

Belfast was crazy, man.
We were only there for a day, because it was a stop over on the way to Barcelona. But boy did we all wish we had stayed for longer.
We took the train up from Dublin, and met our couch surfing host at the train station. Mike was super nice, sounded Australian, but don't tell him I said that.
Molly and I got to sleep in beds to make up for our two nights in the entry way of the cottage. Sweet deal!
We went to the Festival of India, where we met up with another couch surfer, Tobias. I've never met a Tobias that I didn't like. He was awesome. He was Cornish, and had only recently moved to Belfast. But we ate tasty Indian food, watched Indian dancing, and had a great time. Then we went on a three hour walking tour of the city, with Tobias as our guide. Belfast is still really religiously segregated. There's even a wall running down the middle of the city that's been up for longer than the Berlin Wall. Wikipedia tells me that there is a movement in the city to bring down the 'peace walls'. But if I were Catholic, I'm not so sure I'd happy about that. Both Catholic and Protestant sides have builds completely covered in murals. And I was just struck by how militant the Protestant ones were. There was one that was an Ulsterman decked out in black, pointing a gun that seemed to follow you. And there was another one that quoted Oliver Cromwell who declared that peace in Britain would not be achieved until all the Catholics were dead.
And yeah, the Catholics were memorializing the IRA and Bobby Sands, but it didn't seem to be glorifying violence in the same way.
That is one conflict that I will never tire of learning about.

So after that intense afternoon, we went and got a pint. And then made dinner as a whole big group and drank cider and danced the electric slide with a Minnesotan boy who was staying with Tobias.
Also, I had the best shower I had had (or would have) in four months.