June the 11th- First Day in Ireland!

I just spent 3 days in a foreign country with no computer, no cell phone, no camera, and no iPod. And I had a blast! And it hardly bothered me at all to go without those things, except for my camera. (I left my camera battery in its charger in London) But some of my friends let me take pictures with their cameras, so it turned out ok.

We left the flat at 5:30 AM (Yikes!!) to catch our flight to Ireland. The flight was only an hour long but there was a delay so we got there at about 11. 

Since the hotel wasn’t ready for us to check in when we got there, we dropped our stuff off at the front desk and went across the street to St George’s Marketplace. The word is LOVE. It was this awesome place where locals sell fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, handmade crafts, and fresh baked goodies.  I loved the community-like atmosphere of the place.

After lunch we took a bus tour of Belfast and learned about the city’s history. Around the time of Industrial Revolution, Ireland became the world’s number one seller of linen and tobacco. There are still a lot of linen factories throughout the city, but very few of them are still used to manufacture linen. I found it really neat to see the Peace Wall- it’s this wall that divides Ireland and North Ireland. The wall itself is a very sad thing, but over time people have covered it with their hopes for peace. It’s covered in graffiti and such and it’s actually really neat. 

We also got to see the place where Titanic was built. I had no idea that the Titanic came from Belfast so that was really neat. And it was incredible to see how big the Titanic was- if it was stood up on its end, it would be taller than any building of that time!

When we got back we were finally able to check in at the Hilton Hotel. And holy cow, the Hilton was AWESOME. It was soo much nicer than our flat in Kensington!

We walked into the shopping area of Belfast to get some groceries for Sunday and to find dinner. After wandering around for a good place to eat for about 2 hours, we finally settled on the Kitchen Bar. I had this soda bread pizza that was way good. 

We conked out by 11:00. That’s the earliest I’ve gone to bed this whole trip!