Warming Up

It's morning, after the first day of the tour. The bus is packed with people, our tour guide is awesome and we've made it to Belfast.

When we arrived, we took the Black Cab tour of Belfast, which was quite intense and very sobering. We were taken around the city through both the Protestant and Catholic areas (kept apart by a massive wall and gates) to take a look at the various murals painted on the walls.

You can hear the stories, you can see the sights, but actually understanding the violence that happens over is completely beyond me - and it's something I'll never understand. So far, it's possibly the best thing I've done this entire trip. It was quite scary too, wandering around areas still controlled by armed militia.

By the time I arrived back at the hostel I had a severe splitting headache, so I took some Nurofen and... went up to the pub with the group. I had a feeling my sore head was from the early morning Guiness we enjoyed at the factory in Dublin (not really worth a visit), so after a hair of the dog I was almost back to normal.

The whole group spent the rest of the night drinking and getting to know each other and we had a really mad time. There was a Canadian girl, Alison, staying in our room and she tagged along with us, so in the end there were around 16 or so of us at the back of the pub having a blast.

A few hours later it was decided we needed to move on to a club, so we all wandered up the street to 'The Parlor'. The usual clubbing antics ensued: drinking, dancing and unsuccessfully hitting on girls. That is until Steve dragged this gorgeous little red-headed girl over to us, who was bragging she'd stolen a bottle of wine from the bar.

Leigh and I ended up chatting to her for a little while until she ran away, so we thought nothing much of it - until five minutes later at closing when she brought her two friends along to introduce us. The six of us then headed out to the street to chat some more, until we eventually ended up back at their house.

I wish I could continue on with some wild crazy adventure, but the truth wasn't awful so I may as well be honest: we basically just sat around chatting, drinking some more and playing tin whistles (well, the girls were - they were brilliant at it). We finally headed back to the hostel at 4.30am and was woken up at 7.30am. I'm in a surprisingly good state, all things considered.

Today we head to Derry, where we're staying for two nights. According to the guys, last night was a warm-up for the rest of the tour. I'm not sure if I should be happy or scared...