Day Fourteen- Black Cab Tour

The day started off with us doing a bus tour of Belfast. It wasn't until we started to drive out of the downtown areas of Belfast that I started to understand The Troubles. That being said the bus only gave us a brief overview and it left me wanting more.

After lunch some other classmates and I grabbed something called a Black Cab Tour.

These tours take you around the areas that were hit hardest during The Troubles. The person doing the tour is someone that lived through that. I think having that perspective is what makes these tours so informative.

Our tour guide was in his early teens at the time. He told us how when going to school it was very normal to step over military personal laying down on the street, gun poised and ready to fire at the opposing side.

Helicopters flying directly over your house all night was a common occurrence.

A number of the victims in the attacks were personal friends of his.

Today he raises his kids in neither religion. His middle child goes to a school mixed between Catholics and Protestants. What struck me most about this is that he has to pay a tuition equal to a private elementary school in the States. If she were to go to a Catholic school there would be no charge.

The whole experience was in many ways very overwhelming. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Northern Ireland. It really gives you a feel for what these people went through and are currently going through.