Day 13 - To Scotland

I'm still rugged up in my winter coat as temperatures have been down and descending steadily. We are enjoying staying at the Europa, right in the centre of town, with myriads of hotels and eating houses within easy reach. The only problem is it is a Saturday night and we hear that the populations in post-war cities know how to party, and party they are doing in Belfast. We can barely fit into one of the pubs opposite and then it is almost impossible to find a seat to sit down. But we keep our eyes open and go for it when we see what looks like a vacancy.
Our guide says that the English came up with the idea of putting mileage on food packets, for example, it has not come further than 600 miles. It is against the rules of competition to advertise as Buy English or Buy Irish or Buy French, so the new packaging shows clearly how far some meats or cheeses have come. In the case of lamb from New Zealand, the packaging will show 1700 miles and this

may be a deterrent for some shoppers.
In this northern area, loyalist flags are flying more frequently. This is the area of more wealthy middle and upper class Irish. Economics plays a huge part in Ireland. A disproportionate number of public service jobs are found in this area. There are 275, 000 jobs in public service alone. At present in 2017, the Northern Ireland Assembly has collapsed. The parliament has gone and not been restored. Sin Fein put in a proposal to get a fifty thousand pound grant for the Irish language to be upheld. The place is running on its own steam. At the same time, Brexit is happening and this affects Northern Ireland, a British territory. Some are wanting to make a solid (hard) border with the rest of Ireland, not a fluid (soft) one as is the case now. Peter says that no one is running this part of Ireland right now though it is fairly stable.
We are taking a City Tour today. We see Queens's University and the City Hall. We also see Ulster Hall where there were dances during WW2. The Americans introduced the Jitterbug and they danced so much that the floor collapsed. The US Defence Department paid for the damage. The Old Court House is so dilapidated and is about to be made into a hotel. The linen industry and the rope industry were huge businesses years ago,but not today. Tourism is the new industry, along with the film industry with two new studios. The Titanic Studio is where the Game of Thrones is being produced now and a

Superman sequel is also happening. Cyber Security is another big industry in Northern Ireland also.
The Hastings Hotel group were resilient enough to keep repairing after the bombings during The Troubles as they call it, and their hope in the future. We saw at least three cranes from our high window at the Europa. Our guide said there are eight new hotels being built in the city now.
We hear from our City guide that 100 schools now in Northern Ireland are integrated schools where children from any religion or non-religion can attend. Years ago, Catholics went to Catholic schools and Protestants went to Protestant schools. Today it is all changing, for the better. We hear that Belfast has one of the youngest populations in Europe with 41% under the age of 30.
We travelled to see the Peace Walls which were the huge barricade walls separating Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods in Belfast years ago. They are exceedingly high and with barbed wire at the top so you would need to be an acrobat to get over. The bus passed through a huge barbed wire gate to get to the walls, a gate previously locked and manned with soldiers.
We wrote our peace wishes on the Peace Walls. We hear there are 17 of these walls in Northern Ireland. By 2023 they are all to be pulled down, so that the city can return to a new "normal".
Late in the afternoon, we board the ferry at Larne and cross over the waters to Cairnryan in Scotland. It is exceedingly windy and fairly rough on the way over, but only takes a short hour or so. It was wonderful to think we were heading to Scotland and were soon on our way through the pretty Ayrshire countryside en route to Glasgow.