Park Avenue Belfast

... rd protestant area and were shown around by one of the protestant taxi drivers. it was just a quiet suburban area but it was quite scary listening to him talk. the uda (ulster defence army - pro uk) and ira (irish republican army - pro republic of ireland) have a cease fire now but aparently they're still active just not officially armed. when we first got in the taxi the driver asked us if we'd seen any ira members, we said no and he said how do you know? then he asked if we ...

We hit Giants Causeway and Dunluce Castle today, which is a huge castle<br>that literally fell of the side of the cliff while people were in it<br>waiting for their meal. It was pretty cool to see, then we drove the<br>entire Coastline which was unreal. It was soooo cold and rainy and<br>windier than ever today, yet still there were a million ...

... all hoping for one thing, PEACE... <br><br>Beautiful memorials have been painted in areas, comemorating events, celebrating lives lost and generally asking for equality in many places, not just Ireland (Cuba, Romania, Africa, etc). Truly a powerful and memorable experience. <br><br>Then back to the hostel - Josh and I have scored our own room! then out to dinner to a local pub with the whole crew - which turned from a quick dinner to major drinking ...

Took a drive into Belfast this evening as I've never been before and I was curious to see it. I drive round in some trepidation as the is city has quite a violent past that is still quite vivied in my mind. I feel like I'm running some kind of guantlet by being here.<br><br> It was an odd experience in some ways, I would driving past housing areas that look like they've seen better ...

... I asked the bus driver about it he told me that I shouldn't do that. He told me that the bus would only cost me 1.60 compared to 7 or 8. He also said that if I just walked to the end of the street and turned right, I would run right into the buses and have no problem getting home. I was up for a challenge, so I thought, why not. Once I got to the bus stop I realized that there were different numbered bus stops all along. I looked onto the timetables and drop offs, etc ...

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... checking into our hostel when Gem's hand luggage was stolen. It was the work of a moment - the luggage was close to us, we had been turning around frequently... it just so happened that he was quick - draping his coat over the bag before lifting both up to walk out. He was caught on CCTV, and a copy was given to the police, but still that night, Gem and i were running around trying to see any trace of whether the bag had been dumped or not. I don't think i ...

... along well). I met a friendly Irish woman who told me I should make a Christmas turkey with half onion and half orange to make it more moist. She told us of many stories of Ireland and was very friendly. We then met a random senior from Ireland that drank way too much and started singing Valarie song (the German folk tune) as he fell down the escalator. We walked around for a bit downtown. They really tried to make their club ...

... particular Protestant areas seemed poorer in comparison to the Falls Road, the terraced houses were generally not as well looked after, some of the shops were boarded up and there was a lot of litter piling up in the streets. The murals were much more foreboding too, almost exclusively glorifying Loyalist paramilitary groups with paintings of balaclava-clad men pointing machine guns in a show of strength for the Loyalist cause. <br> <br>I found these places just as ...

... fighting, taken from newspaper photos, one is a painting of Raymond McCartney, the first prisoner to die on a hunger strike in 1981. This one I recognized from the Bogside Artists American tour in 2001, where they displayed many scaled-down murals in cities thru the US. As dramatic as the smaller sized murals were, the building size originals has everyone on the bus silently staring. Tom Kelly and his brother William, and ...