Da Nort

I admit that I approached the IES trip to Northern Ireland with some degree of trepidation; the whole group hadn't been together since orientation, and after traveling alone and in small groups, I wasn't sure how I would take to the big American-masses-on-a-tour-bus thing. But IES Dublin continues to exceed my expectations so thoroughly that I'm almost considering revoking whatever cynicism I've managed to retain here.
First of all, just to make sure we're all on the same page, Northern Ireland is part of the UK and therefore a separate country. I'll restrain myself from going into the history and politics here, but it's well worth a bit of research if you're into that sort of thing (as is the current political system; hugely experimental, hugely controversial). We didn't need our passports, but we did need to exchange currency, and let me just tell you that if going from the dollar to the euro is bad, going from the dollar to sterling is downright tragic.
We got into Belfast midday on Thursday and ate lunch at a historic pub across the street from the Europa, which was at one point the most bombed hotel in Europe; the IRA bombed it more than 31 times in 24 years during the Troubles.

Then we went on a black cab tour of the city, which took us into historic sites from the Troubles in both the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods (which are still segregated), as well as past an incredible number of political murals.
Protestant/Loyalist murals:

The mural below was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. You know those portraits where the eyes seem to follow you? That happens with UFF member's gun:


Catholic/Republican murals (Catholics claim an affiliation with Palestine, while Protestant neighborhoods fly Israeli flags):

Dedication to the ten Republican prisoners who died during the 1981 Hunger Strike:


Offices for Sinn Féin ('Ourselves Alone' in Irish), the IRA's political wing and Northern Ireland's largest Republican party ('Republican' means something much different here than in America):

Things have cooled down considerably in the past decade, but the Peace Wall still divides the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. People from all over the world come and sign it; I saw one message from an Aussie that said 'You'd be a lot happier if you just had more sun!'


Gates between the neighborhoods; these are still shut and locked each night:

We didn't actually stay in Belfast. At first I was a little disappointed--I would have liked to have gotten a feel for the city besides the intense (and intensely depressing) political memorials--but in retrospect I can understand why they shipped us out of there; I can just see some drunk IES kid saying something stupid and offensive or getting stuck on the wrong side of the wall after dark.
So after the tour we headed up to Portrush on the north coast. We took a scenic coastal highway which was, in the words of my friend Emily, painfully beautiful: green hills (green mountains, really), huge cliffs, the distant coast of Scotland, and, believe it or not, a full rainbow over the ocean. We've established that photos from buses don't turn out, so just picture the most idealized landscape possible--that's basically what it looked like.
Friday morning we started off at Bushmills Distillery, the oldest legal whiskey distillery in the world (our tour here started before noon; have I mentioned how fabulous IES is?) We got hot toddies at the end of the tour, which are maybe better in theory than in reality:

Reba and Jess enjoyed theirs as well:

Then we went to Giants Causeway, a bizarre volcanic rock formation on the coast. The legend is that the giant Finn McCool built the causeway as a bridge over to Scotland to fight the Scottish giant Benandonner. When he saw how large Benandonner was, though, he was so terrified that he ran back home and made his wife disguise him as a baby. When Benandonner came over to fight, he in turn saw the size of the 'baby,' decided not to wait around to see the full-grown version, and smashed up the causeway on his return to Scotland.
Remember how I went on about the wind at Newgrange? That was nothing compared to the wind at Giants Causeway. This video doesn't do it full justice, but just realize that Johanna wasn't trying to run down the hill; she was being blown and genuinely couldn't stop (just as I apparently couldn't stop yelling 'I'm going to die!'):

Out on the causeway; again it doesn't look that bad here, but I was literally knocked off my feet at one point, and at another had to actually flop down and cling to the rocks to keep from getting swept away.



Emily and I bracing ourselves:

A few hardy souls. The woman next to me is Megan, one of the IES staff. She's actually American, but studied abroad in Ireland and loved it so much that she moved back after graduation. Mom, does it make you nervous that this is one of my role models?

The cliffs surrounding Giants Causeway. When we got back to the visitor's center (is it a good sign that I had a hard time using the American spelling?), we read that we weren't supposed to go on the cliff walk at all because of the wind. Oops.



Saturday we went to Dunluce Castle and just played around in the ruins:


Johanna and I burning up in the old oven:

The castle was built so close to the edge of a cliff that the kitchen fell off into the ocean in the 17th century.

Despite the fact that it was nice to stay in a real hotel (where one night--one glorious, glorious night--I had a king sized bed to myself), and eat real food at real restaurants, and (I admit it) have itinerary planned for me, it's good to be back in Dublin.
Although is anyone else having a hard time accepting that it's March?