Doing the American Thing

Now for the random shots of the day: 1.09 per gallon I know you're jealous

ASDA is our Wal-Mart

Heather's Birthday at the AH-mazing Indian Restaurant...

The American Restaurant, they actually served FRIES!!! Not chips!

The beginning of the Irish-American Scholar Conference. Stormount, the Irish parliment of sorts. We were only allowed to take pictures of the main hall.

Everything in the hall was exactly symmetrical. The middle chandelier is actually from the Queen of England.

ME!! With my sweet rolled pants I must say.

There was two of these gateways, Stormount is set up almost identical to the British Parliment.

All the Irish American Scholars...

The crucifix shrubs that surround the tombs of the one people buried on Stormount.

We weren't supposed to take pictures but the doorkeeper said he'd turn a blind eye.

Interesting fact: During WW2 Stormount was used as the headquarters for the British Air Guard. So in an effort to keep the building from being bombed, they painted the entire building with a mixture of black chemical and cow manure and the driveway, which incidentally forms a large X in front of the building to keep with the symmetry, was covered with coal and ash. The black on the building is where the mixture would not come off.

Side of Stormount

Front of Stormount

The man who prosecuted Oscar Wilde

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Stormount...

The Gate House...

Mural entering the Protestant side

Wire lady with hoop :D

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One of Belfast's Trade schools

Gorgeous Church

Old Courthouse...

It's going to be renuvated into a hostel or apartments, and there's actually a tunnel that leads under the road to the prison on the other side of the street that they used during the "Troubles"

Some of the last people to be killed during the "Troubles"

Union Jack...

Pretty church..my pictures are a little out of order...

The top of the old courthouse, someone climbed up to the top and stole the scales.

The prison

Murals from the Peace Wall

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....the barbed wire to protect? All places has some form of protection against someone coming in

Another random mural in the Protestant Area

With Stormount, a lot of the doorkeepers used to be jailers and a lot of the representatives from Sinn Fein were jailed by the doorkeepers, making the order of power a rather interesting thing to behold.