Another Courtney Visits

A few weekends ago my friend from my church back home came and visited me, also named Courtney. She is studying abroad in Cork and was able to come up for a short weekend and it was really great to have her. She is also blogging and I took this excerpt from her blog about her time in Belfast :

"I went to Belfast the weekend of February 8th to visit an old church friend (also names Courtney) who is doing a volunteer year through the Presbyterian Church.  She was kind enough to let me stay in her house and take me around the city for a couple days.  The first thing we did the morning after I got there was get an Ulster Fry.  Its comparable to a full Irish breakfast, without the black pudding, which is OK with me.  I tried my very best to finish it but the bacon proved to be too much.  It was still a lot of food, lets just say I wasn’t hungry again until about 4 pm.  After the food coma, we went to the new Titanic museum that was built last year.  The Titanic was built in Belfast, and the last place it sailed out of before it sank was Cobh, which is about 30 minutes south of Cork.  Inside the museum, it showed the history of Belfast and how it became such an important port city.  As you moved through the galleries, you could see how the Titanic was planned and built, including the people involved.  They had a room dedicated to its maiden voyage, such as what the rooms looked like and who was on board, as well as a room that showed the very last messages it sent before it lost power.  After the museum, you could walk to the actual dock where the Titanic sailed out of for the first time.  Standing in the same place as the Titanic was a really awesome experience.  I’ve never really been in a place with that much incredible history before!  An older man named Desi who was a member at the church Courtney was volunteering at came and picked us up after the museum.  He had lived in Belfast his entire life and volunteered to take us on a little driving tour of the city.  If you know anything about the history of Belfast and Northern Ireland, you would know that peace hasn’t come easy over the past century.  The first thing I found interesting was that no one identifies themselves as Northern Irish.  They are either British or Irish.  The British are generally protestant, while the Irish are Catholic.  There are different political parties within these two groups as well, with most of the violence happening between the more extreme, working class parties.  The British Unionists want to stay a part of the UK, while the Irish Nationalists want a united Ireland.  There was a particularly difficult time called “The Troubles” in the 1960′s-1980′s in which a lot of violence between these two parties caused many deaths and damages to the city itself.  Desi lived through these times so it was interesting to hear how he was personally affected by The Troubles.  He told us more about the more recent violence and rallies involving a ruling about flying the Union Jack.  I recommend doing some reading up on all of this, I could go on forever.  In Desi’s words, “Don’t try to understand it.  I’ve lived here my whole life and still don’t understand it.”  He took us around and showed us some landmarks such as the local government building and a lot of the famous murals and peace walls.  It was an extremely enlightening experience and I’m really glad I got the chance to do it.  After the tour, we went to dinner and a couple local pubs.  The next day, we went to church and a birthday party for a 6-year old girl of a family she knows from church.  The food was great and the hospitality was wonderful too, it was a great end to my weekend!"

Courtney and I standing in the dry dock where the Titanic once was

Courtney and I in front of the Titanic Museum