northern ireland

a spur of the moment decision led me up to ireland. after a 12.5 hour a bustrip (before you ask, it was the cheapest transport), i arrived on the emerald isle. i was up here on a paddywagon tour, which went across both northern ireland and the republic. as it happened - we were a bunch of about 30 gap students, mostly aussies & kiwis, with a handful of south african's too. best group of gappies ev.

together with our 100% irish born & bred guide, conner (conrad), we kickstarted the tour with northern ireland. bit ashamed to admit that i didn't know a thing about irish history until last week...but it was a slap in the face to hear that they're still recovering from civil war. 

we had our first night in belfast, the capital of northern ireland. we did the famous black taxi tour (with a taxi that was actually bright red...) around the city, to give us belfast's troubled history in a nutshell. it was a bit of a laugh trying to understand our taxi driver & his belfast accent. imagine the irish accent 10x quicker, with half the syllables left out, and the other half with different stress... and you'll understand why we only picked up about half of what walter (or as he said it, wo-ar) was saying.

we passed the europa - ireland's most bombed hotel with 31 hits to date, as well as the peace wall. it's a brick wall covered in murals depicting happenings from the intense '80s. this wall essentially divides protestant belfast from catholic belfast, and still closes its gates every evening - so you can't get from one side to the other after dusk. along shankill rd you can find more murals again (the irish are big on their murals), as well as a part of the wall where the public can write peace messages.

we dropped into giant's causeway, the bizarre rock formations on the north coast, leading into the irish sea. they're made up of hundreds of hexagonal stone columns squeezed together. it was formed by volcanic lava, 10's of millions of years ago. the gaelic folklore behind the causeway however, is that it was made by a scottish giant as he fled ireland, destroying the stone pathway connecting the two countries as he went. click here for the full story..

derry, or londonderry (depending on whether you're catholic or protestant) was next. despite being in the north of ireland, it's a mostly catholic city - with only about 300 protestants, who still live within a caged section of the city, for their own safety. you might've picked up on the fact that personal identity in ireland is not so much your nationality, but more your religion - namely catholic or protestant. this was a weird concept for me, because in australia, religion doesn't play such a huge role in defining who we are.

in the protestant part of londonderry, the curbstones are painted blue, red & white (the colours of the union jack) to emphasise their belonging to the uk.

so now i'm making it sound like ireland is a grim place to be...but it's really not! derry is home to peadar o'donnell's pub. aka the epicentre of irish river dancing. while enjoying a beer or ten, we all got to both watch a professional river dancer (yes, there is such a thing) ....& then join in, with live irish music bouncing off the walls.

i also think it's important to mention that i bought a pint o' guinness by choice (because it was the cheapest, but that's not the point), and that i actually finished it. mean effort on my behalf, just sayin'..

slán agat,

S.

"sinn féin", gaelic meaning "ourselves alone"

"there was never a good war, or a bad peace"

belfast peace wall gates

belfast peace wall

dinner and a pint for 5 quid. life is good

where are the cups?

love those belfast student nights

token irish sheep

that awkward moment when matt breaks the couch

giant's causeway

typical grey irish skies

the grave of w.b. yeats, the famous irish poet

clover in my guinness

aaaand....finished

tower bridge

after a string of sleep-ins, this morning hattie & i actually managed to get our lazy selves into the city before midday. crazy stuff, i know. we meandered in and around st. paul's cathedral. it's near the river thames, and is the highest point in the city of london. it's especially pretty at the moment because it's stone walls have been cleaned in prep for the 2012 olympics. potentially getting my dates wrong here, but i think st. paul's was built in the 17th century...making it one of the oldest cathedrals in london.

there were grey skies all round, so we took a pitstop in a café facing st. paul's. we chatted over a morning coffee - watching the rush of london peak-hour go past outside, along ludgate hill.

one of the things i've loved the most about london (& europe in general), is that behind every building & monument there's a story - if you bother to ask/read about it, there's almost always a peculiar or funny story that can be told. 

for st. paul's, i discovered that there's a whispering gallery beneath the huge dome. if you get really close to the wall and whisper to it, you can be heard on the other side - because your voice is carried perfectly across the curve of the dome. bit impressive??

keeping true to our lazy nature, we opted for a bus to tower bridge - rather than walking. my first ever london double-decker bus trip! naturally, we zoomed up to the second level, keen to get a spot right at the front. i was completely crushed to find somebody in the seat i had mentally claimed. ah well, life goes on.

we walked around the tower of london, but after emptying our wallets at camden a few days ago - we stuck to appreciating it from the outside ;) 

tower bridge was pretty funky, i'd never seen it up close before - only in about a million different movies. there were a bunch of guys re-painting the bridge. pimping it out in bright, bright, blue for the olympics next year. good stuff.

finally, it was off to euston railway station to get hattie on her train back home, up north. you'd think i'd be getting good at this whole "goodbye thing" by now...but no, it was sad times all round. until next time hatatat...it better be soon!

S.