Our Neighborhood

On Thursday we went to an integrated-school conference and learned all about the conflicts that are going on in Ireland and N. Ireland. Currently both countries are divided into the Catholics and Protestants. Most Catholics are the original Irish people and are the majority in Ireland. Northern Ireland is mainly composed of Protestants which are mainly descendants of British people. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and is not part of Ireland anymore. Even though anyone can attend the public schools, mainly the Protestants stick to Protestants schools and the Catholics stick to Catholic schools. I'm going to be working in an integrated school, which is a school that has both Protestants and Catholics in the school. this type of school only makes up about 7% of the schools in N. Ireland. WOW!
If you look in the distance, there are three different church steeples right next to each other.
Belfast reminds me of Tucson, which is in a valley surrounded by mountains. In the distance you can see the mountain.
Just a funny road sign. instead of 'bumps for 450 yards' they call them 'Humps'
due to the differing view points of the Protestants and Catholics, there have been many fights (years ago) you can see in the mural a guy holding a machine gun. this particular area that I'm in is a Protestant area, as you can see by the red white and blue colored posts. those are the colors of the British flag.
Downtown Belfast
The Crown Bar is a pretty well know bar in Belfast. It is really nice inside and has these really neat enclosed booths to sit in.
Belfast's Opera House
This castle looking building is actually a shopping mall.

I'm standing in front of I think a congress building. behind that is Belfast's Wheel, a much smaller version of 'London's Eye' I have not decided yet If I have enough guts to ride it yet, I kinda freaked out when I was on the London Eye, so I may not go on it.
In the distance is another Micky D's! This particular Mc Donalds actually saved me this day. I went about 5 hours without eating and I had a really bad headache and almost ended up passing out! luckily we were across the street from this wonderful lifesaver, and I was able to get a fry and a coke!!
I'm sitting in a wee pub here drinking my coke from Mc Donalds.
This is the street I live off of. I'm going to walk down this street every day when I go to school where I will catch the train. it is about a 15 minute walk, but it is a gorgeous walk. It is going down hill, but in the distance are the mountains.
I wanted to take pictures of the houses that I walk passed every day so you can get a feel for what they are like. Keep in mind that these houses are probably worth about a million dollars!! Our little town house that we are staying in, is about 3-4 grand a month to stay in.



The couple who own the town-house that we are staying in lives just down the road in this mansion! they are obviously doing pretty well.
A cute little side street filled with big houses.

I went for a walk with a few other girls and found this beautiful walking trail just down the road from us. It's about 10 miles long and will take you the nature-way to downtown Belfast.

These past few days I've gotten to see more of the neighborhood that we are living in. We are actually in a very wealthy part of town, which is referred to as 'middle class' To me is seems like upper-middle class.