Belfast

A scary statue in Derry
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The flight over was empty except for some really drunk Irish people (A sign of things to come). It was 11am by the way. The flight lasted 25 minutes so it hardly felt worth it.

When we arrived at our backpackers we were informed of our 'upgrade' to a 6 bed dorm instead of an 8 bed dorm. The room was horrible. It stank and the beds were so crowded that they touched each other and there were some weird girls in there sleeping so we couldnt even unpack and get things organised AND there were no lockers so we had to carry the valuables around everywhere.

The view at the giant's causeway
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As we really had no desire to visit Belfast we decided to go on a tour the next day which covered the northern coast of ireland and a few tourist hotspots. We got up early to get breakfast at 7:30 (supplied by the hostel) and our tour started at 8. The kitchen was locked because the workers were still in bed so we had to miss breakfast to get the bus at 8. At 8:30 the tour bus finally arrived. As you can imagine we were pretty angry and not enjoying Ireland at this stage. To make things worse the worker at the backpacker abused the hell out of some tourists who were inquiring why the bus was late. We just wanted to get out of there.

The stones that make up part of the giants causeway
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Then like a gift from heaven we met our tour guide. He sang irish songs and told us so much information about the area which made us more enthusiastic. We went to Derry where much of the conflict between the catholics and the protestants took place (Bloody Sunday). We learnt that up until last year there were more British troops in Nothern Ireland than there were in Iraq. Sections of town are painted with either the colours of the Union Jack or the Irish flag as symbols of who lives where. It was fascinating and a little disturbing.

We then went to the giants causeway which is a natural rock formation on the coast of Ireland. It comes from an Irish folk tale about an Irish giant named - Finn McCool - who made a road to reach Scotland to steal the Scottish giants woman. We just love the giants name and am very tempted to change ours to it. It was very beautiful and made us appreciate Ireland a little more than Belfast had.