Derry - Londonderry

I know what you're all thinking, four posts in one day? Crazy! But I felt bad that I haven't kept this up to date, so I'm working really hard on catching up. After this post I will only have Belfast and Cork left to update before I can move onto the recent happenings. I'll try to get through the rest of Mom and I's trip tomorrow.


So, Derry! This has turned out to be one of my favorite places in Ireland (Northern Ireland to be specific). The city itself is beautiful and it has a very interesting history.

The day that we arrived we were told about a walking tour all about the Troubles in Derry and it happened to be starting soon so we decided to do it. On our way to the museum where the tour started we made a quick stop at a cathedral.

The tour that we took was called the Free Derry tour. It took us around a small part of Derry outside of the main city walls where the Republicans live called the Bogside. The tour was given by a man who lived through all of the events he told us about. It was a very informative and emotional tour.

This is a mural of the scene of the first person killed on Bloody Sunday.

This is the phrase that they borrowed from Berkeley.

This is our tour guide in front of a memorial for the people who died during the hunger protest in the H block.

After our tour we walked around Derry a little bit until the restaurant we wanted to have dinner at opened. This is a picture of the Peace Bridge.

Finally we made it to dinner! This is the inside of the restaurant.

Cosmo!

Tequila and tonic!

The food was amazing!!

The outside of the restaurant. It was called Karma and it was a Chinese tapas bar.

Mom outside of our hostel with Tintin!

The next morning we decided to go out for breakfast and we split a delicious pastry.

Next we took a bus tour around the city.

The tour took us to the other side of the river (loyalist side) where we got to see their memorials and murals.

Our tour bus!

We then spent the afternoon walking around the walls of the city.

This thing totally freaked me out.

The loyalists call it Londonderry.

There was a wedding going on at the church.

After our walk of the city walls we went to the museum (sorry, no pictures allowed inside) and when we were finished there, we wandered through the city for a bit. We found this really cute walkway.

This somehow seems impractical. Maybe it's just me.

We saw this building on our bus tour and had to come back to see it again.

One of the linen factories in the city.

For dinner that night we went to a sushi restaurant!

My dinner came with miso soup :)

Sushi!!!

Mom got pad thai. It was really really good.

After dinner we walked back over to the Bogside to check out a few of the murals that we didn't see on our tour the day before.

We also found a church that Mom had spotted from the tour bus.

This is the Free Derry museum. It's where our walking tour started from.

This is back in our hostel. I was emailing Dad probably.

Alright, I think that this is going to be it for today. Like I said, I'll work on the others tomorrow. Now it's time for me to go make dinner and get some more reading done for class.