Day 6

Today we traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland. We left Dublin at 7:00 in the morning by high-speed train. The train was very nice, and there was a great view of the pretty countryside. We had a black taxi cab tour, which ended up being a tour guide showing us around the city in our bus. He was really informative and knew a lot about the city’s historical past. Not that long ago, Belfast was in major conflict between two warring groups—the Protestants and the Catholics. The city has moved past this clash in religion/culture in most ways, but there are still some signs of disagreement. There are many murals on the houses that show the conflict between the two groups of people.

We first traveled to the House on the Hill, which is also known as the Parliament Building. It was an elaborate building that had a great view over the Belfast countryside. Then we went to the Belfast Castle, which is known for its cat gardens. There are seven cat statues and other artworks surrounded by beautiful gardens. Next, we went to the harbor where the Titanic was built. This was very interesting to see, although we will be going on a walking tour of the Titanic next week in Cork.

We met with Jerry Davis from the The Belfast Telegraph. This newspaper is differs from the Southern Ireland newspapers, which makes the The Belfast Telegraph more similar to U.S. newspapers. All of Northern Ireland has access to the Internet, which is not the case in Southern Ireland. This allows the newspapers in Belfast to publish more news web sites and be more up to date with this technology. Although they are lagging behind the U.S. in comparison, Belfast in doing much better in that regard than Southern Ireland. Jerry told us that whatever we do, we should always want to do it and always have a passion for it. I like this advise; I feel like I will keep this in mind when I go out looking for a job.

Then we had a group dinner, which was really amazing. They had great food; I had mussels! They came in their shells and were covered with garlic butter—very yummy. Then we left Belfast for the night and traveled back to Southern Ireland.