Belfast

Sunday morning Joan and Owen took me for an "Ulster Fry" - Two fried eggs, rashers (bacon), sausage, soda bread, potato bread, baked beans, a fried tomato, and french fries. Then we headed downtown and took the open topped bus tour of the city. Owen and Joan insist they learned new things and enjoyed the tour. While I've been in Ireland, the leaders of the catholics and the protestants actually meet and shook hands in public, which is seen as a groundbreaking event and another step forward in the peace process. However, the wall still stands between the two most divided neighborhoods in West Belfast, and both sides recently objected to proposals to remove it. So the city council agreed they'd let the neighbors decide when (if?) it should come down. Here is a picture of some of the murals on the Catholic side of the peace wall:
Next, we visited the Giant's Ring, a megalithic monument with a dolmen in the center. It was used as a race track in the 1800s - 6 laps was 2 miles.
Here's a picture of me on the Dolmen:
We then visited Stormont, the divisive and historically important center of government for Northern Ireland built by the British and kept under extremely tight security up until a few years ago. You still can't go inside but the grounds are pretty and you can walk up to it.
We finished the afternoon with afternoon tea at the only 5 star hotel in northern Ireland, where Joan and Owen got married. It was everything a girl could have asked for in a weekend, and more. Also, America needs to get it's act together and start using more clotted cream. A picture of the hotel:
Joan gave me a ride back to the city and I was home by 8 PM.

I've been asked a lot of questions about American politics, etc in the last week. Luckily for you guys, the security guard needs to lock the office so you won't be subjected to a rant or ramble today. But the Virginia Tech story has been very big here (bigger than the tremendous toll in human lives in Iraq last week, interestingly) and I've been forced to think about American politics. Not that that's bad.