Saturday, May 1

Today we woke up at about 8am. We needed some breakfast so I went for a small box of cereal and a little carton of milk. No bowl or spoon, it was an interesting way to eat cereal, but "convenient" is not a word in my personal dictionary anymore so it was no big deal. We made our way into the city center and found a bus tour of the city. We saw tons of stuff! Northern Ireland is separated between Catholics and Protestants; there is a lot of history of hate and crime between the two. There is actually a wall of peace that separates the two. This part of town is dangerous and is quite the eye sore with lots of junkyards and barbed wire fences.

This is peace wall. There is graffiti on it for what seems like miles.

I wouldn’t want to try to get over this.

There are so many political signs every as well. This one is celebrating Ulster's division from the rest of the country. Ulster, the northern province of Ireland, is the only province that still belongs to the United Kingdom.

This is a leaning clock.

We got to see the Parliament building and we learned about a man who is a large part of Northern Ireland being separate from the rest of the country.

I think this means “yield.” I can't say for sure though.. good thing I'm not driving here :)

The president, Mary McAleese went to college here, The Queen's University of Belfast.

Here are some other neat things we saw on the bus tour..

The bus ride was unbelievably cold because we were on the top, which was uncovered. We wanted to be up there so we could take pictures though. At one point in time I just looked back at Steph and there was nothing we could do but laugh hysterically. It was just cold, that’s all I can say. Then, I realized my carton of milk spilled in my bag, all over the phone my family let me borrow, my wallet, etc. (not to mention it’s Andrew’s bag- not mine). Shortly after I discovered this it started raining. So here I was on the top of a bus going about 55 mph on a motorway, trying to clean up spilled milk in the pouring, freezing rain. It was quite an experience, really.

The Titanic and several other famous ships were actually built right here in Belfast. Steph and I decided to take a boat tour of the harbor. I couldn’t get very good pictures, and nothing really looked significant, but it felt very strange to be in the place where the Titanic was constructed. I was actually surprised there wasn't some huge memorial there or something. I guess it's because they still do business there.

This is where the Titanic was first put into the water. The white posts were actually there. The boat tour guide was saying he's afraid they're going to lose them soon.

Steph needed to use the restroom after our boat ride, but as always it was difficult to find a public restroom. She had to resort to one of these. She had to pay 20 pence (20 cents in Pounds) to use it. The door slides open and you get 20 minutes to use it. I would hate to find out what might happen to someone who needed it for longer than this.. would the door just open on them?

Afterwards we made our way to this awesome shopping center, Victoria Square Shopping Centre. It was more or less outdoors, which was great because it was becoming a beautiful day after the rain.

We’re both trying to save a little bit of money, especially here because Northern Ireland uses Pounds which is even stronger than Euros (kills Dollars basically). Due to this, we went for McDonald’s for lunch. A cheeseburger, fries, and coke were about 4 Pounds, which is about $6.40. I can’t imagine spending $6.40 at an American McDonald’s, I could get 6 double cheeseburgers for that price!

Once we were full we decided to take a long walk to the Belfast Botanic Garden. It was absolutely beautiful. I want to get married here J, but don’t worry I won’t! It really was amazing though, full of flowers and a few greenhouses. It was such a peaceful and gorgeous place.

These white flowers^^ apparently are smoked in some cultures by people who have asthma. Mom and Kyle, I think you should give this a try.

Inside the garden was the Ulster Museum (there are four provinces in Ireland, Belfast is in the Ulster province). This was a good way to kill a little bit of time.

Check out this disgusting, but cool-looking fish. I was intrigued.

The bottom of a hippopotamus jaw!

Once we had enough of the museum we walked back to Belfast’s center. I saw these two stores that both were directed towards me I think J

My middle name is Jean, some of my friends call me this.

K squared, my initials!

We found a Starbucks and decided to spend a little time there (surprise). It was a nice way to relax because we had been walking around all day. After Starbucks we got some dinner at Subway and took it back to the hotel. We ate and watched a little TV. I also DJ’ed for a small 90’s concert in our room, consisting of a little Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morisette, and 98 Degrees.

Now we’re watching the Tonight Show, hosted by Craig Dahle, who happens to have children that attend Steph’s school! Tomorrow we’ll be waking up early to take a tour of Giant’s Causeway!