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Sure, they say they broke up this big terror plot, but what if they didn't get everyone? God, I wish I didn't have to fly on Tuesday. On one of the airlines and on one of the routes they're most concerned about. As everyone knows, I hate flying in the first place, and this certainly doesn't make it any better.

*trembles*

Well, I guess I just have to put my life in the hands of MI5 and the FBI, which is certainly not a comforting thought. I'll be so glad to touch down in the US that I'll probably burst into tears. If I haven't been restrained already from having a nervous breakdown.

I've still got some time...

My week went well - I conducted five interviews and got loads of useful information. I'll probably go to the Feile this weekend...they have some neat events going on, I just have to decide which ones I'd like to do.

I also need to find a larger carryon bag. Continental is allowing us to check three bags now, since they're not letting us have a carryon, so maybe I can find one and shove all my books into it. I hope I don't have to pay anything for the overweight fees...I bought too many books, I'm afraid...but the Queen's bookstore had all these books I'd been trying so hard to get in the States and couldn't find!

Anyway, I'm going to take a nap. I was up way too late last night, I'm afraid. Nerves, and the fact I slept half the afternoon. BTW, if I'm ever here again (fingers crossed, I will be) remember Four Star Pizza on the Lisburn Road. They have delicious pizza and cheesebread.

So, my program at Queen's is over, and I am now comfortably situated at the my guesthouse on Wellington Park Road. I'va managed to pirate a wireless signal which, while not incredibly good, seems at least to be mostly stable and allows me to browse the internet. So I can update my site and check my e-mail and everything without paying the incredible amounts of money they want here for internet cafes. (5GBP - approximately $10 for about an hour!)

I was, as a whole, very satifsfied with my program. Some lectures, of course, were better than others, but I found it to be very interesting and very informative. The best part to me was simply being here, and seeing first hand the things I had for so long only read about. I have to admit some of the younger students in the program did bother me. They seemed far more set on getting drunk (since they weren't legal at home) than of getting anything out of the program. But I guess that's par for the course, and there were enough serious students that you could just ignore them for the most part.

Yesterday I met my friend Michael and we went to West Belfast for a discussion by an ex-Orangeman of his new book that is critical of the Orange Order. It was very interesting - an Orangeman talking to a room full of Republicans. This is what needs to happen. Meaningful discussion between the communities. It was neat, though, because on our way down the falls towards the An Culturalann where this was taking place, I saw my tourguide from three weeks ago - and he recognized me! I couldn't believe it. :) Michael thought it was a bit disturbing that I was being recognized by ex-prisoners on the Falls Road, but at least he was able to give us directions to where we were going...

On our way back, we decided to cut through Sandy Row. It was a bit of a short cut to where we were going in the first place, and I had walked past it a thousand times without actually going down there. Partially because of this very welcoming sign:




But I got up the courage and walked down the road, and I must say it was creepy. But I'm going back sometime this week because they had this incredible looking bakery there...right behind this shop that sold Dr. Abshire's "Hey Hey let's kill the IRA music and a huge variety of flags.

My interviews start tomorrow. I've got to go make a photocopy of my informed consent statement later today, but nothing's going to be open for a while anyway (actually I may have to go in the morning). Everything closes up like a fortress around here on Sundays!

But I still have two weeks left in Northern Ireland! Yay!

The weather has been wretched - cold and wet. I had to go out today and buy some warm clothes because I was absolutely freezing. It hardly ever REALLY rains. It's just this dreary grey mist that makes you really wet without you really noticing it. And then the sun generally comes out at least a bit in the afternoon.

It's been two long days of lectures - no pictures to show. They've been quite interesting, though. Perhaps I'll type up my notes later.

Had Chinese for dinner tonight...quite good selection of asian resturants here Belfast (expensive, though).

I'm getting so bad at updating this!

I do have an excuse though, I've been half-dead with a killer cold all week...(yeah, that's an excuse, right?)

Right now it's pouring down rain outside, though, so I'm going to stay in and get all my pictures uploaded and updated and get over this. It'll be good to just have a relaxing day.

Let's see...the last day I posted was on the 25th...so let's see what's happened since then...

July 26, 2006

We went to Stormont. Interesting place, but WAAAAY too fancy for the size it is. Northern Ireland has around 1.7 million people (smaller by far than Chicago, not that much bigger than Indianapolis) and yet it has this platial parliament building. Unreal. Inside, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but they had incredible amounts of real gold and real silver...rather pretentious and uncalled for in a province that has always suffered from terrible unemployment!!! After the tour of the building, we met with representatives from all the different political parties - Peter Weir from the DUP, Roy Beggs (JR) from the UUP, Francie Molloy (Sinn Fein), David Ford (Alliance - cool to meet their leader!) and an SDLP lady whose name I can't remember but I should really look up. It was interesting, although they said very little that was unexpected. :) My question ws one of the ones chosen to be asked, though. :)

Stormont pictures are behind the LJ Cut:

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July 27, 2006

I felt really sick this day, and skipped the "Public Art Walk" in the afternoon in order to sleep and hopefully get to feeling better. In the evening, I was able to make it to the Ceilleigh, which was fun, although I'm certainly not a dancer. This is also the day I discovered that Orange Juice is the favorite drink of New Yorkers (check out the pictures behind the cut).

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July 28, 2006

We went to Strangford Lough in Co. Down. It was really cold (although they all said it was rather normal) but enjoyable. We started the day at Nendrum, an ancient monastic site overlooking the Lough. (See pictures behind the cut).

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Then, we headed across the Lough to have a brief lunch at a cute little pub called Daft Eddy's, and spent some time walking around the little island it was located on, including an oyster bed (see pics behind LJ-cut).

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After lunch, we headed down to Downpatrick, Co. Down, one of the three places (the others are Cashel and Armagh) that claim to have the remains of St. Patrick. The church where he is supposedly buried is now an Anglican church, but it's pretty, nonetheless. (pics behind LJ-cut).

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July 29, 2006

Then, yesterday, I got up early and caught the train to Derry, meeting Michael as I did. It was a two hour train ride up through North Antrim (through Antrim, Ballymena, Coleraine, etc) and a ways along the North Antrim coast, but it was a nice view and enjoyable (except when I was riding backwards and thought I was going to throw up). We got into Derry around eleven, and by the time we situated ourselves (around 12) we headed down to see the UU Magee campus. You know, I'm not sure I'm very fond of the campus. It could very well have been because it was very empty because of summer, but it seemed rather run-down and not in very good repair. Queen's is a much nicer and more vibrant campus! Then we made our way back into town, following a map which finally got us to Rossville Street and into the Bogside. I'm not sure exactly how, but somehow we missed our tour (we were waiting in the right place at the right time, I KNOW we were) but it worked out well enough anyway and we just made our own little tour of the Bogside. Let me say straightforward that no place I have been in Belfast is as "in-your-face" about its Republicanism as the Bogside. It had a totally different feel than West Belfast. One thing that disturbed me a bit is that there seemed to be a LOT of graffiti for dissident groups such as the RIRA or CIRA, and there was certainly a strong INLA/IRSP presence as well. It was cold and raining in Derry, and I got absolutely drenched, but it was still quite an experience. After we walked around the Bogside, we happened across the Bloody Sunday trust museum located in Glenfada Park (where the last shootings on Bloody Sunday took place). There I had a long conversation with the guy in charge, who ended up throwing some free books into the bag of books I bought. :) Very interesting place. (Bogside pictures behind LJ-cut)

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Then we spent the rest of the time touring the rest of the city, which is actually far smaller than I thought it was, being Northern Ireland's second biggest city and all. The walled city itself is very small, and has really steep, San Francisco-esque roads leading up to the Diamond. Pretty, though. Then we took a bus tour, which, unfortunately, didn't show us much that we hadn't seen walking around on our own, although I was able to get a picture of the Hands Across the Divide statue at the base of the Craigavon Bridge (other Derry pictures behind lj-cut).

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So after that we headed back on the train from Derry. Rather uneventful except for when we changed trains in Coleraine, we got on a train with the entire Belfast brigade of the UVF (ok, I don't know that for sure, but it seemed that way. ;))...and at Ballymena some Orangemen in uniform and with drums got on...

Interesting place. ;)


And yay! I'm updated!

...I was a little bit under the weather and have been very busy!

Sunday was my birthday and I didn't do a whole lot. I was really tired from the week and pretty badly sunburned from Saturday, so it was nice to just stay in and do nothing. Amy and I did go out for Chinese at a really nice resturant on Botanic...well, I guess this is a bit of a story...

You see, first of all we started out heading to this Thai place we'd seen on the Dublin road, just a block or two from the movie house. So we're almost there, and it's just a normal day, lots of people on the street, when this guy comes out of one of the little loyalist enclave side roads covered in blood. I'm not joking. His shirt was covered in blood, as was the rest of him. Amy and I just stared at him in shock, unsure of what to do (were we supposed to call the cops? Or what?). It was honestly like a scene out of the first five minutes of Law and Order. The strangest thing about it, though, is while he was obviously trying to get away, he wasn't running or anything, and actually looked fairly calm. There was this car across the street with these two guys in it just watching him, as he crossed the street and headed somewhere...we were so freaked out that we ended up going to dinner quite a few blocks away, on a different street, and having quite a lot to drink. So here's my question - was it drugs? Was it sectarian? Was it both? The guy made it and obviously didn't report it, so we didn't hear anything about it in the news, but I've honest to god never seen anything like it...

Yesterday we had lectures on drama and music in Northern Ireland, which would have been far more interesting had I not been coming down with a cold and absolutely exhausted. Still, they were quite interesting, and there were several plays that they talked about that I'd really like to get my hands on. Firstly, Thompson in Tir-na-Og, which is about an Orangeman who ends up dying and going to the Celtic land of eternal youth. They acted out a scene for us, and it was so funny - there's a lot of interesting interaction between Thompson and Cuchullin about who is really defending Ulster. Also, I'd love to read Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching to the Somme. Also picked up some books at the Queen's University bookstore - one by Brian Kennaway called "The Orange Order - A Tradtion Betrayed," and then the trilogy of Martin Dillon's books which I'd found difficult to get in the states. Today I bought a book on powersharing with an introduction by Donald Horowitz and some pamphlets from a onference here in Northern Ireland. I'll be seeing Brian Kennaway speak at the West Belfast festival a week from this coming Saturday. Should be interesting - hopefully I'll have the book read by then!

Today was an incredibly long day of lectures and the such, although they were quite interesting. The best one was the one we had tonight on troubles movies...gave me several titles that I'd really like to see...

Went on a tour of Republican West Belfast today, led by an ex-prisoner who had been in prison for "political" reasons for 15 years. Now he never admitted DOING anything (of course), but he was in prison for hijacking a car, killing a prison guard during the Hunger Strikes, and getting into a shoot out where some people were killed. So he was pretty hard core, and a bit scary. Well, if you thought about what he'd done. He was actually a really friendly guy on a personal level. He'd been on the blanket, and on the dirty protest as well.

So this tour was pretty hard core. We started at Divis Flats and he took us quite a ways up the Falls Road before turning down side roads and showing us "real" West Belfast, as opposed to where the tour busses take you. He took us up past Clonard Monastary, then back through Bombay Street, telling us Republican stories the whole way. He took us past the peace gate (which was open), but we couldn't go down the Shankill because he made it very clear that while it would be interesting, he most certainly wouldn't be safe there. It was fascinating while we were in the Republican areas, though, because everybody was waving at him, or honking at him, or giving him a thumbs up. It was like everyone knew him and everyone liked and supported him. It certainly was the way to take a tour of West Belfast because we were most certainly with a trusted and admired member of the community who knew his community quite well.

We ended the tour at the Milltown Cemetary republican plot, where Bobby Sands, Kieran Doherty and Joe McDonnell are buried, among other Republicans. He told us the story of how Michael Stone shot up one of the funerals there. What I found interesting is that there's really no special thing for the hunger strikers. They're buried right beside and in the same way as all the other IRA volunteers buried in the plot - he said it's because in death every Volunteer is at heart the same as every other Volunteer, and they're all brave and special. An equality in death sort of thing.

After that, I caught a black taxi (yes, one of the West Belfast black taxis) back to the City center, and made my way back to campus from there. The black taxis are really nice and really cheap - only a pound, while the city taxis START at 2.70GBP. But he says you have to watch out because some of the city cabbies are now driving black cabs, but they're EXPENSIVE black cabs. He says you can tell because the West Belfast taxis have white registration tags as opposed to yellow ones.

So, I have now conquered Belfast. I made it to West Belfast and back again in one piece all by myself! Go me.

Again, pictures are behind the LJ-cut.

[EDIT: For pictures, go to my Belfast gallery]

...or so it feels. Lots of walking today, but it was a good day.

Got a bit more sleep last night and wasn't QUITE as exhausted today. Had some good lectures in more political fields (yay!) and then had a tour of city hall. In between, Amy and I walked through Donegall Pass over to the Ormeau Road because she wanted to check out some minority-owned shops that had opened up over there and were apparantly facing a good deal of harassment. Well, unfortunately, I can tell you that it's true from experience. Some guy was standing out front and as Amy and I started to go in told us how we "didn't want to go in there." It was kind of like that store's personal heckler.

According to what Amy says, a lot of Chinese are settling in Loyalist areas, even though from her interviews all of them have told her that protestants are far more hostile to their presence than are Catholics. There just aren't very many places available in Catholic areas so they're being forced to settle in places where they're not welcome, and may, in fact, face violence. It was really kind of sad, and as we both agreed, that place had a "freaky vibe."

I was able to get some Republican anti-parading murals photographed to, so it was worth the trip.

Then we met up with Michael and went to see "The Wind that Shakes the Barley." Jeez, that's a good movie. I think it's far more powerful than "Michael Collins" actually. I can't write about it now, though, maybe later when all the emotions it's caused in me have settled.

Ok, pictures for today are again behind an LJ cut:

[EDIT - for pictures, go to "Belfast" gallery]

Today we went to the Ulster American Folk park, about an hour and a half from here, near Omagh, Co. Tyrone. I enjoyed the drive through the countryside of Northern Ireland - it was absolutely lovely. It was also interesting to drive past Long Kesh, and to see all the Tri-Colours and black Hunger Striker 25th anniversary flags in the Tyrone countryside and the loyalist flags and Union Jacks (I even saw the Orange standard flying) near the exits to Portadown.

The museum itself was a rather unique experience. It was as if it were trying to be some place like Conner Prarie or Colonial Williamsburg, only not. It had two parts - an indoor display with the typical museum places, and an outdoor display. The outdoor display depicted three stages of Ulster emigration to America. First, it showed the "Old World" - the Ulster that they left behind - turf houses and the like. Then it had a brief recreation of the "crossing", with a ship you walked through to get to the "New World" - America. The America part was much like most of the American villages I have seen recreated, although they really planted their corn strange...I guess the Northern Irish don't know how to plant corn. ;)

After we went through it, we had a debriefing back at the Center for Migration studies, which was also located there. We pretty much decided as a group that while the display had a predominantly Protestant slant to it, this was not necessarily a bad thing, as that side tends to be very underrepresented anyway. Anyway, it was a good discussion and a good day, and I have pictures again. :)

Again, behind an LJ-cut.

[EDIT: For the pictures, go to the Belfast gallery]

Oh yeah, and somehow I got a really bad sunburn yesterday. Ouch.

Today waa a day of lectures, and was very interesting. Our first lecture was an introduction to Irish literature, which isn't really my thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Dr. Hughes read the poetry he had chosen. There are certain people who are simply talented at reading poetry, and he is definitely one of them.

The second lecture was on identity in Northern Ireland, and that was fascinating, It was one of Dr. Bryan's lectures, and we spoke a lot about "telling" and about Rosemary Harris's 1950's study of rural attitudes in Northern Ireland.

The third lecture, after lunch (which I slept through because I was so jet lagged) was on Ulster-American migration, which is important because tomorrow we're going to the Ulster American Folk Park just outside of Omagh. I'm looking forward to that and should have lots of pictures.

Then afterwards, I went out for some drinks with Michael and some of his friends and really had a blast. Pubs here are so much different than pubs in Madison - they're made for young people and not hicks in cowboy boots and cowboy hats playing horrible country music and getting in bar fights...

All in all, I'm really starting to love this city. I think history has given it a really bad rap that is not completely deserved...