Belfast, Belated: Part 2

     The next day in Belfast, Saturday, we took a famous black taxi tour of Belfast.  These tours highlight the Protestant-Catholic conflicts in Northern Ireland, are given by a Belfast taxi driver who takes you to lots of places that were important in the conflict.
     The first thing you should know about Belfast is that there is a wall separating the Catholic and Protestant communities.  A real, physical, 40-foot wall with barbed wire on the top and gates that close at 7.  It's very disconcerting--I never thought I'd see anything like that, especially nowadays.  It reminds me so much of the Berlin Wall.  In some parts of the city, the wall cuts through parks; in one place, it divides a children's playground into Catholic and Protestant sides.  I can't imagine living like that.  Although, as our guide made sure to tell us, this wall was put up because the people wanted it, and it will come down when the people don't want it any more.  So I guess it's voluntary.
     On some level, though, it makes sense.  The history of violence between the two communities would leave anyone feeling nervous.  We got a lesson in that history in our tour.  Oh, one more thing you should know--the Protestant community supports English rule, while the Catholic community is generally more nationalistic and wants to break from England and join the Republic of Ireland.
     The first place we went was a completely Protestant community.  This place had murals on the buildings, murals of Protestant heroes. Not your typical Protestant heroes, though--no Martin Luthers or John Newtons here.  Instead, these were notable Protestant (English) kings or leaders.  One mural was of a "hero" who assassinated twenty-six Catholics, including many innocent civilians.  But, as our tour guide reminded us, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

A mural commemorating Stevie "Top Gun" McKeag, who  murdered twenty-six Catholics before he died of a drug overdose.

    

     The next place we visited was the wall, up-close and personal.  This was the portion of the wall that murals are constantly painted on, and famous people constantly come to sign.  Rihanna, Bono, even Justin Bieber had all signed the wall.

Rihanna's handwriting is shamefully bad.

 
   After the black taxi tour, we went to see the Titanic Museum.  There I learned everything I could ever possibly want to know about ships, sailing, and the Titanic. Throughout the museum, they would have facts about a few people aboard--some 1st-class, some 3rd-class passengers, stewards, etc.  At the end of teh museum, they told you what happened to all of them. Not surprisingly, they pretty much all died, but I was still disappointed.  (Oddly enough, although I'm Titanic-ed out, it made me want to see the movie....even though I really, really hate that movie.)  I even got to see clothes that Leonardo DiCaprio had touched.  (Secret confession: I think he was extremely attractive when he was younger, but now he looks like a cross between a chihuahua and a rat.)

Titanic model ship statue outside of the museum.

The museum from afar. Pretty pretty!

The clothes of the Titanic cast.  Can you see Leonardo DiCaprio's clothes glowing with heavenly light?

   We walked around Belfast some more, and stumbled across the gorgeous city hall.

 
   We all went out dancing that night, and early the next morning we trekked back to Dublin.  It was really a fantastic weekend.  I don't think I've ever had that much fun in such a short amount of time.

   In other news, I'm leaving for Italy on Saturday!  Reading Week is next week, when all the students are supposed to be studying for their assignments and writing papers.  Instead, I'm going to Italy for the whole week.  (No, I haven't suddenly become an extremely negligent student; I started writing papers the week classes started, and none of the papers are due until the end of March.)  However, after spending seven hours completing a very annoying lab report today, I feel perfectly justified in taking the weekend off.  But I won't have internet access until I return, so no posts until then!