Beautiful Belfast...

It seems I have once again been neglecting my blog. My apologies. :)

On my 21st birthday, I had the privilege of visiting Belfast. Yes, that's right... Birthday in Belfast... has such a cool ring to it. A family friend, who had studied at Queens University in Belfast, took me through. It was truly an incredible experience.

Visiting the Titanic Museum was one of the most educational, interesting places I visited, and definitely, worth the money you pay to get in. So a definite gold star from my end. With floors and floors of Titanic information, you can fully understand the immensity of it all. Each floor tackles a specific aspect of the Titanic. With the bottom floor giving you a rollercoaster-ish type of ride "through the ship yards"... showing exactly how it was built. The middle floors show you exactly what life on the ship was like, giving you an idea of how everything looked and what exactly was on board. Another floor shows you all the movies, books or songs etc that have been made based on or in tribute to the Titanic. Whilst yet another floor focuses on the discovery of the Titanic (you can even watch a film of the underwater exploration). To add to the experience you can see the infamous Samson and Goliath from outside the museum. These are two giant cranes, with Samson being the bigger of the two, situated in the Harland & Wolff Shipyard.

Taking a "black taxi" tour of Belfast is awesome. You get an inside view of how Belfast is, and more importantly used to be. It is incredibly interesting, and if you know to ask, as did I, you can ask them to take you past Campbell College, which is where the famous author, C.S. Lewis went to school. You can even sneak a photo at the famous lamppost from "The lion the witch and the wardrobe."

If you're lucky, you might get to see the Parliamentary Buildings at Stormont... from the outside. They were preparing for the Queens arrival on my visit there.

One of the things I found most fascinating were the murals all around Belfast. They take you back in time and show you the history of Northern Ireland in beautifully, yet sometimes quite frightening, pictures, painted to represent the fears, beliefs and feelings of the citizens of Belfast. These murals vary depending on which side of the city you are on. Specifically whether you are on the side of the Catholics or the Protestants. These two sides are separated by a wall, now termed the Peace Wall. This was my favourite site in Belfast. It is quite scary to see how the wall was extended through history as fighting intensified. Now, as an attempt to beautify this, everyone is free to write or paint on it... basically acceptable graffiti. :) The messages of peace, love and hope are inspiring and beautiful.

Finally, I ended off my day touring around the breathtakingly gorgeous Queens College. With incredible old buildings and incredible botanical gardens next door, it was the perfect way to end my Birthday in Belfast before heading back to lovely Dublin.