An overdue account of a short trip to Ireland

At the end of March we made a short jaunt to Belfast to see the sights and visit some friends from Macalester who are there for the semester. Thought it was a wonderful city to visit, I'm glad I made the choice to come to Edinburgh. I think it's a much better fit for me. While in Ireland I found myself missing things about Edinburgh and Scotland. As one my friends pointed out, isn't it nice to feel homesick for somewhere that isn't your home?

The journey there was an exhausting one. Between finishing essays and staying out late celebrating a friend's birthday, I was running on very few hours of sleep when we woke up at 6am to catch our plane. Upon arrival in Belfast we met up with Lily and Eddie (two fellow Mac students), got some breakfast, and began what would be a day full of walking. Our first stop was St. George's Farmers Market, which was lovely and full of fish.

After that we walked around the City Centre neighborhood and then headed over the Falls, one of the Catholic neighborhoods. I'm going to tell you this upfront, I was told many, many details and facts about the history of Belfast and Northern Ireland. However, I remember most of them only vaguely if at all (like I said, I was running on very little sleep) so I'm afraid you'll have to get your historical account from another source. One noteworthy thing about The Falls is all of the murals. I don't really think this counts as a mural, but it was one of my favorite pieces of graffiti.


Pictured below is the wall of international murals. It is also of the rainbow (I know it's hard to see) we saw over said murals. Yes. We found the end of a rainbow in Ireland, though no gold was found that I am aware of.



The next day was spent wandering around town some more, looking at monument and exploring neighborhoods. One of the highlights was stopping at The Cookie Box. They have lots of freshly baked cookies in addition to 101 FLAVORS OF MILKSHAKES! I had a berry milkshake. Other flavors sampled by our group include: chocolate chip cookie, double chocolate chunk cookie (the clear winner), and Cadbury Creme Egg. That milkshake may have been one of the best I ever had. Later in the afternoon we walked along the river a bit and frolicked in some daffodils.


After we finished frolicking, we very innocently picked up some of the flowers that had fallen on the ground. I repeat, they were already on the ground, their stems had already been broken when we arrived on the scene. While we were standing by the bridge, two police officers walked by and informed us that there was a police camera across the way watching us "pinch them flowers". We're pretty sure they were just teasing us, but we left all the same.

Well those are some of the highlights of the trip. I'll add the rest of my pictures to the Snippets album.