Lots of updates- Belfast

OK, so it's been a while since I updated, so I think I will just do a series of updates from the past week. Last weekend, (June 18-22) most of our group stayed in Derry for the long weekend. Traveling every weekend is not only exhausting, but expensive. So, we took a weekend off, but still had a wonderful time. It was very relaxing, I got caught up on sleep, laundry and some reading. I also went out with my friends to a dance club that we had not been to yet, and it was great! On Monday, we traveled to Belfast for the day. They have a very large shipyard, and boast building some of the largest and finest boats in history, including the Titanic and it's two identical sister ships, the Olympic and Brittanic. So, we took a tour to see the places where the Titanic was built. It probably would have been very neat, except that most of the area is under construction. The city of Belfast has invested lots of money recently to rebuild the area into what they are calling "Titanic Quarter." In about three years they will have apartments, restaurants, shopping, a park and a really cool Titanic museum. For now, there is mostly rubble. Thus, the tour was pretty boring, the highlight was probably having construction workers whistle at all of us girls!

However, we got to see the dry dock where the finishing touches were put on the ships, and that was actually very cool. There was a lot of really smart engineering that went into it, plus it is just huge. You can really get a feel for how big the boats really were. Then, we did some shopping, got some dinner and headed back to the bus station. On our way, we saw something quite interesting. There were TV cameras outside of a restaurant pointed up to the sky. We didn't stop to inquire, but one of our student leaders, Andy was interested. He stepped behind the cameraman to look in the same direction, but just gave us a shrug because he couldn't see anything. As we got closer to the bus station, there were more cameras and people stopped on the sidewalk looking up into the sky. Someone finally told us what was going on. There is a ferris wheel right next to city hall, and someone had climbed up it, and was sitting on the top! (He had also taken off most of his clothes, but thankfully left some shorts on.)

We were shocked, and making guesses as to what he was doing up there. Of course, many people thought he was going to jump off. It was scary, but also very intriguing. After a while, a good crowd had started to gather, and there was a lot of chatter about what was going on. Finally, some businessmen standing near us gave us some info. Apparently, this guy was part of a group they call "travelers" in Europe. Basically, they're a band of gypsies or trailer families. They had been camping out in the city, and the city had ordered them to move. They had just finished their trial at the City Hall, and apparently it didn't go in their favor. So this gypsy man decided to protest by making a scene and climbing the ferris wheel. It was quite an ordeal to get him down. There were 4 firemen/policemen who climbed up the wheel (with harnesses, of course). They got within about 40 feet of the man and looked to be talking to him. I guess they coerced him down, because he started climbing down, without a harness. He got to where the firemen were, and they had a harness ready to go for him, but he refused to wear it! He continued to climb down on his own, and even beat the firemen to the ground. He was quickly arrested, probably for a public nuisance. (You can find more info and pictures on a BBC link on my facebook page, and some pictures of my own!)

That basically summed up our day in Belfast. It was a very wild day, with super boring stuff, and super weird stuff.