Heading North

This past weekend I went on a school trip to Northern Ireland. What some of you may not know is that Northern Ireland is a separate country from The Republic of Ireland (which is where Dublin is located) Northern Ireland is run by Great Britain. This also means they use pounds as their currency and sadly it has a worse exchange rate for us American students. Our first stop was Belfast which was once a very troubled city with a split of the Catholic and Protestant religions. The city now has much changed. But being Catholic myself it was very interesting to hear about. There was even a wall there separating the two communities that still exists today. The wall was filled with murals, graffiti, and there was even a part where the public could write on (I did of course). Belfast also had a great shopping center called Victoria Square (if anyone is every heading up that way- I recommend it). We also went by the most bombed hotel in Europe: The Europa Hotel.

We then proceeded to spend the night in Ballintoy a small village on the north eastern coast of Northern Ireland. It was beautiful and much different from the west coast we visited only a month earlier. I saw the sunset down on the rocky beach and then later that night in one of the two pubs the town had everyone from our group gathered to see traditional Irish music (which in the end we ended up taking over) the guy who was the paid entertainment encouraged us to get up and sing. It was a wonderful experience and it gave all the locals a good laugh too. The next day we headed back to Dublin but stopped at numerous other Northern Irish land marks including Giant’s Causeway (a cool rock formation on the ocean) a castle and we even went over a rope bridge which was 90ft above the crashing waves! Overall Northern Ireland was neat to see and I’m so glad we got to go. Despite my camera problems (my chip broke- but it got a new one) It was a great weekend!

(me, nick, and lindsay singing I'm a believer in the pub and a cool picture of the sun down by the harbor)