Only a Northern Song

This past weekend was busy as it was our group trip to Northern Ireland. We visited Belfast, Ballintoy (super small town) along the Antrim Coast, Carrickfergus Castle, Giant's Causeway, and then Dunluce Castle. This whole trip started really early on Saturday. We left the academic center at 8 AM. Luckily, I thought ahead and packed my bag the night before. Since I don't do well with thinking that early in the day, I figured it would be safer to pack the night before. I woke up at 7, put the remainder of stuff in my bag, did one last e-mail check, then left. The bus ride up is a few hours up, in which I did manage to take a quick nap. The interesting thing about going from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland is that there is no border check, despite the fact that they are different nations. The only noticeable change is the fact that some of the road markings change and the road signs become miles not kilometers.

Once we got to Belfast, we picked up our tour guide. We rode around in the bus, getting out at the stops. We got to see many of the numerous murals in Belfast. There was some real artistic skill in the murals. I noticed that there were a few anti-George Bush murals, which I was surprised about. Not that I was surprised that people were anti-George Bush, but that they would put that in the murals. We went the the "Peace Wall" after. The Peace Wall separates the Catholic and Protestant sections of the city. They close the gates at night. It is a bit strange to have such a wall running through a major city in these days. Our tour guide told us that public feeling is that the wall should actually stay up, even though there is now relative peace. After, looking at more of Belfast, we headed out to Carrickfergus Castle where we had a tour. It was fairly interesting. We got to take a look at some of the weapons used when the castle was in use, but it wasn't much beyond the sword and some other tools. After that, we headed to the town we would stay in. We stayed a hostel at Ballintoy. When I say it is a small town, I am not joking. There is one road and two pubs. That's about it. I think there are more sheep than people.

We got up the next day for breakfast at the hostel. I took a few photos of the wonderul landscape shots from the hostel. After that, we made the short drive over to the Giant's Causeway. The causeway is a geological formation of rock in hexagonal shapes of all different hights. We were there for about an hour. It was very neat to climb on the rocks. I managed to grab a few cool shots while there. We took a stop by Dunluce Castle after the visit to the causeway. This castle was in far worse shape than Carrickfergus. It was bascially a ruin. The tour was a bit less interesting owing to the fact that some of the info on the basic castle building was already covered at Carrickfergus. Also, at this point, I was bit tired from walking a lot the past few days and not sleeping too well in the hostel. Our original plan after going to the castle was to go to a beach, but the weather had taken a turn for the worse while we on the tour of Dunluce. We made a choice to go on a tour of the Bushmills Whiskey distillery. The town of Bushmills was a short drive away from Dunluce. As sticking with the classic sterotype of the Irish, drinking is in fact a part of the culture, so seeing how an Irish whiskey is made is definately a part of understanding the culture. It was interesting to see the process of making a bottle of whiskey.

With Peace and Love,
Scott

P.S.- For those on Facebook, I posted a photo album of our tour. Feel free to comment.