I’ve been up since midnight Pacific and we’ll be home ’round midnight tonight. Right now we’re in Boston enjoying some fried clams and chowda’ and washing it all down with some kickass sangria.
Can’t wait to get home and sleep in my own beds. To say nothing off the copious amounts of drugs I’ll be taking. Flying with a congested head sucks. Having three takeoffs with a congested head is HELL!
‘Nuff said.
I have to say, probably one of my favorite things that we did this entire trip was the political mural tour in Belfast. Our driver was great and had a wealth of knowledge. You could just feel his pain when he told us about life on the Protestant side of the Peace Wall growing up.
It’s just amazing to think that it’s only 8 years after the Trouble’s ceasefire in 2000. According to him, the city is an entirely different place. Yet at the same time, the Peace Wall is still up and the gates are locked shut each night.
While there’s not too much fighting going on, it’s still not completely peaceful. There was talk in the news just yesterday of a pipe bomb going off that was meant for an IRA official. That will probably take generations before the hatred dissipates. So sad.
According to our tour guide, these murals take 2-3 weeks to go up. As the older, more discriminatory and threatening murals start to fade and peel, they’re being replace by the city with more friendly, cultural morals.
Here are a couple of photos from that tour. This first batch are taken from a Protestant housing project.
This one is creepy as all hell. That gun follows you as you walk by. The entire time it’s pointing at you. I must’ve been quite freaked since that’s actually the only shot I got of this mural and it’s not even a full-on shot.
One of the many myths depicting the story behind the red hand of Ulster.
This is the Peace Wall – it locks in the Catholics and keeps the Protestants out. You’ll notice that it’s built in three stages. Turns out, it was never quite tall enough to keep out the bombs and the rockets from the Protestant side.
This is one of the many sets of gates into the Catholic area. Each gated entrance actually consists of two sets of gates – one further in. The Peace Wall entirely surrounds and encloses the Catholic town and extends fully into the mountains beyond. They’re all locked down every night.
This is on the side of the IRA headquarters. It’s a mural of Bobby Sands, one of the first IRA prisoners to lead a hunger strike while imprisoned. I remember hearing about his when I was a kid.
On the Catholic side, they have an entire wall dedicated to the international causes that the IRA supports (in some cases, schools the local terrorists) and opposes. This is an example of what they oppose about the US and (soon to be former) President Bush. You’ll notice that he’s sucking the oil out of Iraq.
Fascinating stuff, all of it. I wish the tour could have been another hour longer still. But really, that alone made the drive into Belfast so worth it.
I caught it. Yep, seems I caught Richard’s Irish cold. Which of course means now I get to drink all the Irish Whiskey!! Haha!!
Tomorrow we take the Black Cab tour of Belfast. I can’t wait. One, we don’t have to drive. Two, we get to see everything we want to see. Three, we get to stop for photos. Four, we don’t have to drive. Woohoo!!
Jameson & Ginger Ale, my drink of choice…
Still haven’t seen a castle, but here’s another church (there are plenty of those around) Saint Sinian’s Tyrrellpass
House in ruins
There’s a lot going on in the news out here. On the 7th there was a HUGE cocaine bust in Cork.Then the following day or so, there was a gang-related murder of an innocent rugby player. All this recent gang activity is making for demand in changing the current legistlation. Needless to say, the gangs aren’t too happy and have been calling in some bomb threats. I believe that’s what’s happening in this photo here.
PS – not happy with the way the photos are formating on the page, but I’m not going to mess with it now. Maybe it’s just time to change up the blog theme and header again.
Seriously. We got lost again in Dublin. We got lost trying to find our way to Temple Bar, the area where our hotel was. We got stuck in some major rush hour traffic (one roundabout took nearly 20 minutes itself – the first time we went through and yes, that means we went through it more than once looking for the road we needed). Then we got really, really lost just trying to find our way around the streets to get to the hotel itself.
Let’s face, Dublin streets have been around since the Medieval age (not counting all that druid, celtic and earlier stuff), what would make anyone think that they’d make any sort of sense. One ways changing direction. Streets that look like alleys (or one ways) that turn out their regular streets. Areas closed down to traffic. You name it. Luckily, here in Dublin we don’t really the car until we head to Belfast. Even then, the hubs is driving as I’m done with the driving and the traffic and the construction. I’ll let him take over and try my hand at navigating. I will miss those roundabouts though.
No photos today. We took some as we were driving from Galway to Dublin, but they’re taking forever to load into Flickr. So until they get up there, I’m going to crash. Man, I feel sleepy today – could be those Jameson & Ginger Ales (yum!) Now that I’m not driving, I can finally have a drink or two 😉
Well, that’s not entirely honest. We did see a castle, or at least the outline of a castle in the dark of the rainy, evening sky as we drove to Galway. We were also near a castle or two in Killarney – again, while in the rain, as evening was quickly approaching. I do have it on good authority, that there is a castle a short (ha!) drive out of Dublin that we can visit easily.
Let me just say, I knew that it would be rainy in November. I knew that the day would be shorter in November. But I didn’t realize until we looked it up last night that sunrise is 8:30ish and sunset is 3:45ish. Um…that’s only about eight hours. Now add in some rain…okay a LOT of rain…and the day is shorter still. No wonder we’re not able to see all that much. We’re typically back at the room around 6:30 or so with a short nap and then out to dinner and the pub around 9:30 or so. So yeah, the moral of the story, no castles and ruins for us yet. But there’s always tomorrow (and the next four days in Dublin and Belfast).
Of course, it didn’t help that the hubs seems to have come down with a pretty nasty cold (and to think, we thought I’d be the one to catch something that would turn into an infection of sorts). So basically, we spent today in the room. We did venture out to visit the pharmachemist to get some cold/flu meds and then some fish and chips for lunch. But otherwise, I’ve just been reading and forcing the hubs to inhale EmergenC and ginger tea.
Interestingly enough, he’s not complaining about the vacation. I guess to him, as long as he gets some good music, good drinks (be it beer or his new sickly favorite, hot whisky), good food, and time to just relax away from the office it’s a good vacation for him.
On that note, I’m off to my next book while the hubs naps some more. Poor guy, he was up half the night tossing and turning.
Luckily , we were able to have some dry weather during our walking tour of Kinsale. I’ve always enjoyed either taking the historical walking tours or ghost tours when I visit new cities. I love seeing things first hand while hearing the stories – be they sordid, gory and ghostly stories, or just the history and folklore. It must be the teacher in me (I get the same way at museums…give me the docent tour please).
Here are some photos from that tour…
This purple building was once the lighthouse and is actually the location of one of the two town wells from the early, Medieval, walled-city days.
Across the harbor looking towards the town of Kinsale.
Immediately after our tour, it starting raining and turned all sorts of blustery (as they say here). So much so that we couldn’t even see James Fort in front of us – but we could see the water splashing up over the seawall on the way down the crazy, narrow hill from the fort (the big spot isn’t an orb, it’s a raindrop).
I just thought this was pretty and a bit picturesque. The local “giant” lived here before joining the circus in Bath, England hence the name “The Giant Cottage”.
Seriously, outside of the obligatory food shots, this is my one and ONLY photo from Killarney. Just as I finished taking this photo, the rain starting coming down something fierce. Our jeans were completely drenched just walking from the car a block or two to the pub (thank goodness I splurged on those waterproof jackets with hoods!). It was so bad all day that the hubs refused to bring his camera anywhere outside the car so he doesn’t have any photos either. But man, Killarney sure was super crowded and super touristy, even in the rain (check out that dark sky).
And I’m soaking wet. Hard to take pictures in the windy rain. Seriously, it blows sideways.
Brief stop in Killarney for lunch. Hoped to head to castle (Rossmore maybe) but if we can’t appreciate the view and still have a rainy drive ahead it’s not really worth it.
Having fun though, even with all the rain.
