Saturday Excitement a Week Late

So I went to Protestant side of town last night, they have such an amazing view of Belfast. However, it definitely looks a lot different at night. Vanessa and I got lost trying to find our way back to the gate, luckily we found a woman who was willing to help us, granted she was extremely wary of us and probably only helped us because of my American accent, but that is life.
After returning to our part of town, Vanessa, Heather, and I went to The Bomb; a play based on the Brighton Hotel bombing in Britain and on the relationship between Patrick McGee (the bomber and IRA man) and Jo (who lost her father in the bombing) and how they form an unlikely understanding. Jo and Patrick have met several times and the last 15 minutes of the play is lines taken from their actual conversations during their 11 meetings thus far. What amazed me is that although Jo has never said she forgives Patrick she states she understands why he did it. It's truly an amazing play and although it was written by a British man and the cast was entirely British, it wasn't biased in the slightest. They had a discussion after the show and it was truly a learning experience.
Afterwards we went to an amazing pub that had live music downstairs, mostly American stuff, and then upstairs was live Irish music. I got my stair workout going up and downstairs to the different types of music.
So I ended up going down to City Centre to see the parade, and accidentally sort of participated. Let me start from the beginning. Vanessa, Barbara, her friends from Poland and I all walked down to City Centre on Falls Road and immediately you could feel the tension. There were no pedestrians, no cars, no anything. We weren't even sure if we would be allowed to go. The Catholics had gathered in the park near our house, according to Jerry there was a couple thousand, as we walked further down we found another gathering of Catholics at the large block of flats. We continued to walk down to City Centre and found many, many police armored trucks one of which was stating that those taking part of the protest would be arrested. So we continued down and got caught up in the Protestants walking to City Hall. We stopped and got some nutritious food from McDonald's while I asked some boys about the poppy pins everyone was wearing, for the war veterans. Come to find out that all this protest is about is the fact that there were soldiers coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Basically, these are men who are from Ireland and are in the Irish brigade and fight with the British Army, but the Catholics see them as the British Army, through and through. And although, I was going without taking a side, I took one when I cheered for the troops. I understand where the Catholics are coming from, in fact I heard the stories tonight of British troops killing Catholics just to attempt to start something; however, I have too many friends over there not to be empathic to the troops. After the march, we started to head home when some teenagers decided throwing rocks at police officers would be fun. So I got a tiny tiny tiny taste of what the "Troubles" used to be like. Suddenly there were police everywhere in full riot gear, there were rifles and shields. The weirdest part was when about 10 officers with rifles in hand walked straight through our little group, it was almost surreal. And of course, me being curious I followed (at a good distance) and found where they were funneling the Protestants. I tried to go back to Falls Road but there were policemen blocking the way, Barbara tried to take a picture of me talking to the policemen, she said it just looked so weird with only being able to see their eyes. So instead we walked down and around City Centre for a bit, stopping and talking to another policeman for a bit, he was nicer than the first one.
At 3 we were able to go up Falls and met Jerry, a nice older man who has lived in Belfast his whole life and who the Polish girls met at a pub and has taken it on to be the international students' tour guide. He took us on a two hour walking tour of Falls Road and the murals; I was so amazed at things that I've walked by like nothing for the past month and a half. There is so much pain and blood on that street, it's crazy to think about walking past the store where 3 people were murdered, through the intersection where a woman was shot point blank with a plastic bullet and the police attempted to say it was a riot (the shooting was captured on camera), not even contemplating the murals on my own street about the Gibraltar killings. I took in so much history this weekend; it honestly doesn't even like it was the weekend. And this coming week is going to fly. Wednesday we are going to Hunger, the movie about Bobby Sands and the hunger strikers, Thursday we're going to Derry to the museum there, and Friday we're going to St. George's market.
I can't believe I only have a few weeks left and with school and traveling it seems so hectic and crazy. The time has flown by, however, one thing I will never regret about coming here is coming here with an open mind; the more I learn and experience, the more I am happy I didn't do research beforehand, I came with no preconceived notions or any side chosen just an open mind and I think that's what makes me appreciate every experience so much more, hearing it for the first time from someone who lived it, granted I know everything is tainted by where they come from but that's part of the experience and even though some days are hard, I know that I will truly appreciate this when I'm old and gray. The gate

The first views of the Protestant side

The Protestants have a much nicer view of the city

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No drinking in public and you must pick up after your dog

Why can't we have signs like this on our street?

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The Catholics gathering at Divis Tower, there was two different Catholic protests and this is the one that didn't have the okay from the police

This would be the signs that many carried, which lead me to believe that whatever they were protesting was right to be protested (holy horrible English)

The police waiting for the marches to begin

Some newly painted graffiti

The warning for those who gathered at Divis Tower

More policemen

We were having breakfast at McDonald's (Burger King was closed) and saw this influx of Protestants heading towards City Hall

Belfast's own leaning tower...Albert Clock

Even their firetrucks look different

The mass of people we are about to enter

Man on a bus stop wearing a Saddam Hussein mask, I should mention we are deep within the Protestants now

Those two bug like objects would be the helicopters that were circling abovehead

The mass of people waiting was huge

And after waiting anxiously, we found out what the Catholics were protesting, the troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

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A welcome home banner

Everyone leaving after the troops had passed

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And the rioting starts, teenagers start throwing rocks and bottles at the police. This is the police trying to push them back

Riot police emerge

The reason we weren't allowed to take Falls Road home

Yeah, this is just in the middle of the street...I took this picture and ran away so he didn't take my camera. The only reason I'm posting it is because you can't see his eyes and his finger is on the safety the entire time.

Making a barricade to keep the two marches apart

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Keeping the rioters under control
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And then some pretty scenery as we walked around City Centre waiting to be let back up Falls

The Titanic Memorial