Once we first arrived we went to the Titanic museum! This totally exceeded my expectations. The amount of detail and actual artifacts they such as letters and actual voice recordings from the survivors was amazing. The Museum was done so perfectly down to every last detail. It really gave me a new lens for how not only the lives for the people on the ship were, but also how the lives of the workers that built the ship in Belfast were. I am very happy we were able to experience this.
Next Stop was lunch which, I have to say was one of the best meals I've had in Ireland, so delicious I debated licking the bowl clean :)
After deciding not to lick the bowl.... we had traditional black taxis pick us up for a more personal and in depth tour of Belfast. Each Taxi was able to hold 4-5 people so it was a much more intimate setting then our other tours had been. As our tour guide explained to us. The city center in Belfast is integrated. People will work together and grab lunch together and it won't really matter what religion you are. However, when it comes to housing and living, the Catholics and the Protestants DO NOT live by each other. Our tour guide explained how it would not be safe for him, for example a protestant to go over and walk on the catholic side at night. There was much pride on each of the different living sides with red white and blue murals and flags for the Protestants and green and white and orange for the Catholics.
It was hard to conceptualize that this wasn't something in history that was going on.. that it is going on right now, and it is his actual life he is living. However, he did explain that it is much more peaceful then when he was growing up. Hearing stories from his childhood about bombs, and making guns at age 13 was very hard to grasp and understand. Therefore it was kind of nice, that by the end of the tour he brought us to one of the many "peace walls" throughout Belfast that were created to divide the two living areas and keep the people on either side safe. This wall now is signed by millions of people in the efforts to support peace. So much so that it has to be painted every 2 months. I thought it was nice that despite all of the passion he feels for his side, and despite all of the ugly things he has seen throughout his life, he still at the end of the day just wants peace, not revenge, but peace. So he brought us to this wall gave us markers and let us sign it. This was truly an eye opening experience to how big and vast the world is and how there can be such drastic things going on a few thousand miles away and Americans can be totally blind to it.
After this amazing experience we had some free time to relax, my group decided to go to a couple pubs and talk!After getting on the bus again, our last stop before Trinity was a quirky little restaurant called Fitzpatrick's. Again the food..... let's just say I left more than full. Today was an awesome food day in Ireland!
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