Day 2- Murals!

Well I woke up completely confused! I had no idea if I was on the right time frame or not. I kept hearing doors in the hallway and thought I was really late. After getting showered in my very tiny shower (mom it's actually smaller than the shower in your suite) I headed off to find breakfast. At breakfast I met Megan from Indiana and Christina from Barcelona. I would also like to use this moment to expound upon the glory that is bacon here in the UK. It is salty, and flavorful, and not like any bacon in the US. I love it.

Anyway, Christina and I headed over to the university about 9 for our first lecture. They got us registered and gave us our computer information (yay!). After that Dr. Dominic talked for a while about the history of the university. Then we pared off into groups and took a quiz. It was all fun and games; we made asses of ourselves and didn't know too much. I met Anna from New Hope, PA and Leigh from Boston. Leigh is actually from Boston College and was in their Irish Studies program but is now in English with a concentration in Irish. There are some very young people in this program. The age range is from 17-55.

We were then given a brief tour of the College before heading to lunch.

From there it was onto see some of the murals in Belfast. For those of you who don't know, the murals were a way to identify one area or another since most Nationalists felt they weren't being heard. Most of them are still around but are slowly being toned down or covered up with new murals. The interesting thing about the sections of Belfast is that West Belfast is traditionally Catholic and Nationalist while East Belfast is Loyalist or Unionist and Protestant. If you pay attention you can see what area you're in. In the Loyalist areas they'll fly the Union Jack, paint the curbs red, white and blue, hang the Orange order flag and the murals will be about the U.V.F. (Ulster Volunteer Force), Ulster Freedom Fighters, and will contain the Red Hand of Ulster. Closed the Red Hand symbolizes the UFF open it is just a symbol of the 6 counties and Loyalist pride.

In the Catholic areas (Falls Road in particular) it was interesting to see very few flags but every sign had English and Irish written on it. They weren't as vocal about their support but made sure it was known. Also, it is very important to note that if you're seen wearing a Glasgow GAA Football Jersey it identifies you as a Loyalist and if you wear a Celtic GAA jersey you're a Nationalist.

There are a lot of things going on with the murals and such. But the biggest thing we learned was that you just need to pay attention to where you are. Note the picture of the wall that I took. That wall divides Falls Road and Shankill Road. Shankill is a predominantly Protestant area and Falls in Catholic. There are gates that can be closed and locked when police feel that trouble between the two areas may happen. That is still a reality in some areas of Belfast. Northern Falls road and there is an area in East Belfast where there is a pocket of Catholic houses near the UVF murals you see. I'll probably talk more about this later as I find it really fascinating but for now I'll let it go.


Later tonight we met the Vice Chancellor and had wine in the visitors center. Then we headed to a nice little pub for some drinks and Tesco for some food for my room.

And now since my computer keeps restarting itself, I'm going to bed.