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Catholic versus Protestant
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So we arrived in Belfast yesterday and got a little lost but finally found our hostel. this hostel has free internet which is really nice to e-mail everyone. we decided to stay in last night, cooked dinner in the hostel kitchen together and played the card game Spades which is a lot of fun and i had never played it before. it was very relaxing and i liked not going anywhere for a change. today we started the day with a Black Cab tour. the cab takes you all around town to lots of different places and you can stop, go inside and take pictures or he'll take pictures for you and then continue the tour. we saw City Hall, St. George's Market, St. Anne's Cathedral, Queen's University, and all around town. there is actually a movie about the Black Cab tours in Belfast that is supposed to come out late this year (2007) starrin Vince Vaugn. it has the potential to be really funny. our cab driver was the one drivingVince Vaugn around when they were filming. what was really nice about the cab tour is we learned a lot about the history of Northern Ireland and the war between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland (Protestants and Catholics) that happened in Belfast. we saw watch towers and high rise buildings used as lookouts, murals, memorials about the war, and a giant "Peace Wall" separating the Protestant neighborhood from the Catholic neighborhood. a ceasefire was signed in 1994 and goverment signed in 1998 but there are still killings as recent as 2004 when a 14 year old Catholic boy wandered into a Protestant neighborhood and was beaten to death. it happens on both sides and it's so sad to be fighting over 2 religions that worship the same God just in different ways. despite all this, Belfast is very safe and very beautiful. most of Belfast is integrated with everyone living together in harmony Protestants and Catholics together. after the cab tour we walked past a couple peace sculptures and later went to St. George's Market. for dinner we had tradtional Irish food of potatoe pancackes, steak, and mushrooms, they're called Boxties. i really enjoyed Belfast and learning the differences between Northern and Southern Ireland. the memorials we saw today were very sobering though.
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