North Day One: Political Taxi Tour and Titanic Museum

The second school trip, and this time we were headed to Northern Ireland. We took off at 8:15 in the morning on Friday and made our way up to Northern Ireland, stopping once for a break and then arriving in Belfast. We were being driven by our favorite coach driver Frankie, and being led by Lily and Adam.

Our first event was a Political Taxi Tour in Belfast. Everyone split up into groups and we all got put into these old style cabs.
The cabbies gave us some background information on the History of Belfast with the uprisings, the peace walls, and the bombings that had happened. As well as some of the history behind the Catholic versus Protestants. We stopped in different neighborhoods and learned about the communities that lived in each along with the murals painted on the apartment complexes.

We then visited one of the many peace walls in the city. This one was about forty-five feet high, and had so many peace messages posted on it. After the cabbies gave us some more information on the walls and then gave us time to take pictures, and write our own messages of peace.

After finishing up the taxi tour we had a short break at a really cool indoor outdoor mall, and then made our way to the Titanic Museum.

This museum was really cool, it was interactive for all ages, and just really enjoyable to walk through and learn about how the ship was built. Some crazy workers built that ship and Belfast is still very proud of it, and how it was fine when it left the city.

"Standing on a boat"

After walking around inside the museum we went outside to where the ship was actually built, and got to see the harbor front. We were able to look over at Titanic Studios were pieces of Game of Thrones was filmed.

Titanic Studios

It was a fabulous afternoon, and before we knew it, it was time to go back to the bus and make our way to Ballintoy. 

Ballintoy is another very small town in Ireland (similar to Doolin in the west, but even smaller) We all stayed in a very cute little hostel where they made us a great dinner and made us all feel like we were at camp. After dinner most of the group made our way to the pubs. In Ballintoy there are two pubs, so most people ended up in one rather than the other. It was so nice just to hang out with everyone, talk, relax, and have a drink.

Majority of everyone made it an early night in preparation for an early morning Saturday and much more to do in the North.