Stormont VIPs, Tour, Belfast Dinner (Day 10)

On Monday June 11th, our whole group headed up to Stormont for an afternoon dedicated to meeting all of the important people involved in Northern Ireland's political scene.

We began the afternoon by meeting Ian Paisley Jr, a member of Parliament and the Northern Irish Assembly, and of course also the son of Ian Paisley who founded the Democratic Unionist Party. We were only able to shake hands and meet with him for a few minutes before some quick photo ops, but it was still pretty neat.

After our brief meeting, we went inside Stormont and we were able to meet the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, William Hay. He is the first elected speaker to the Assembly (the previous two had been appointed) and everyone there seemed to think that he was doing a pretty good job! In his role, he is required to remain impartial and to chair plenary sessions of the Assembly.

Finally, we were able to meet two of the best-known political figures - First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. In the picture below Martin McGuinness is on the left and Peter Robinson is to the right. Martin McGuinness is fairly well known throughout the world because he is a former IRA leader. Today he represents Sinn Fein and Peter Robinson represents the Democratic Unionist Party.

After meeting all of the VIPs of Stormont, we went on a short tour and we were able to sit in on an Assembly session which was pretty interesting.

Once we finished up at Stormont, the Young Ambassadors all headed into Belfast for some dinner. We ended up eating at a hotel restaurant and the place was absolutely terrible in terms of food and service - we should have looked for a place where all of the locals are eating; an empty restaurant is always a bad sign! Still, we had fun together.

Following dinner, the rest of the group stayed out in Belfast and went out to some of the pubs there, but I wasn't feeling well so I caught a bus back to Downpatrick on my own. Once I was in Downpatrick, I waited for about an hour for the bus that was supposed to take me the rest of the way to our house but it never came. The good news is that the Irish are very friendly, and so a lady who was also waiting for the bus at the station let me come along in a cab with her and I made it home just fine. :)