Sunday May 29

We finally got to sleep in until 7:30 today! We had a laid back night at the hotel last night and actually got to bed at a reasonable hour. A good night of sleep felt so good! Michelle and I went to breakfast early and took our time for once before we had to meet up with everyone to get on the bus.

We loaded the bus at about 9am. It was another long ride to our first stop of the day. Our first of the stop of the day was the Drogheada Cathedral. It was a really pretty church. This is where the reserved head of Oliver Plunkett is. We did not spend much time there but enough time to walk around and take some pictures.

We drove for a little while longer and arrived in Belfast at the shipyards where Titanic was built. It was sooo windy there today but really neat to see the docks and place the ship was built. We walked around the shipyard and visited the history center. It was interesting but I think I learned more watching the movie Titanic than actually being at the ship yards :)

Our day in Belfast continued with a black taxi tour. This was the scariest tour ever. We had to get into a taxi that were allowed in the restricted zones. Buses and other vehicles are not allowed there. The tour was of the Protestant vs. Catholic war. We drove through the districts and walked through some of them. The guys said bomb threats were normal and the last bomb actually went off last week and there were fourteen threats yesterday, one of them was real and they found on time to diffuse. At this point, the girls especially just wanted back in the cab but the tour guys wanted us to walk around. Baylee was asked to put on the tour guides jacket to cover up her Dublin Ireland sweatshirt because it would offend people and make her a target. We were told if kids threw rocks at us when we were walking it was normal and to not worry and then he said if he heard the taxis horn go off three times to run back as fast as you can cause that means trouble…..at this point I just wanted back in the taxi and back on the bus. We made it out of the Protestant district and went to visit the International peace wall that divided the two districts and we signed our names to recognize we are for peace. It was very interesting but pretty freaky.

We headed back to the center of Belfast and walked to the Victoria Town shopping center for lunch. A few of us stopped at this really good deli restaurant. We got back on the bus and started to head towards Dublin. On the way we made a stop at the Monasterboice Monastrey grave yards to see the ancient Celtic crosses. I am not a fan of grave yards so I took my pictures quick and stayed on the out skirts of the grave :) Our day was then over and we were on the road to Dublin. We got back to Dublin around five and went shopping for a bit and to get some wine. We are getting ready to go meet a few people at a local Irish pub for dinner and then to conquer Dublin by a pub crawl. Our flight is at 6:30am tomorrow morning and we need to be in the lobby by 4:30am. About 15 of us packed our bags tonight and are headed out for the night until we need to meet to get on the bus. It going to be an all nighter and a rough plane ride back but how many times are you in Ireland? Headed out to celebrate our last night here! We will post more pictures and check in when we are back in Belgium.