My last few days in Ireland =(

Ballynahinch is a little town outside Belfast where I spent my last few days in Ireland. I am so sad to be leaving! But at least it ended well with beer, bombs, traditional irish sports, a bit of scenery, and a bit of craic!

Saturday morning we were awakened by the police because someone had planted a bomb near the house down the street (like 4 or 5 houses away). We were told that we weren't allowed to leave the house and that we should stay at the back of the house away from the windows for now, but there was a possibility that we would be evacuated. Within a half a hour the bomb squad showed up and some people in spaceman looking suits. Since I always obey policemen, this time was no different, and all 4 of us were standing near the huge front window watching the excitement. Fortunately we're all still alive and we were allowed to leave the house about 4 hours later. :) So we spent the afternoon driving around the Mourne mountains, our third attempt at showing me there. I was starting to think that they didn't really exist! The weather was so bad the first 2 times we went up there. It's actually kinda pretty. Then we went to a gaelic football game, a cross between rugby and soccer I suppose. It was great fun! At one point during the game it started raining on only one portion of the stands and it just so happened to be full of fans supporting the opposite team we were supporting. Take that you wankers... but they ended up winning :(

Then the next day I was given the grand tour of Belfast! The murals were quite interesting (I especially liked the ones making fun of Bush :). The murals on the Catholic side of town are all about freedom, but on the Protestant side it's more of guys dressed in all black with black masks and huge machine guns. One mural said "Prepared for freedom, ready for war". I got a few pictures in, but they left the car running for me in case I had to make a run for it.