"Wow you really had a bad tour of Belfast if you hate it that much."
I think I was turned off when the tour guide they had hired to take us around Belfast, kept mentioning Bill Clinton. That was her first mistake. The unending, controversial murals, and the monuments to IRA members (I'm not sure what street they were on), only added to my disappointment of the place. I was really put off by the way the guide (born and raised in Belfast) basically shoved all that political stuff in our face the first part of the tour. After viewing the anti-Bush, anti-Israel murals, as well as others with negative messages, I was so pi$$ed off, all I wanted was for the tour to end.
The steak dinner at the restaurant in the Europa didn't help either. I don't think I had a worse piece of meat my whole trip. It was supposed to be rib-eye, done medium, but it was practically charred and dry as a popcorn fart.
I wasn't the only one on the tour who felt that way. The group consisted of Aussies, Canadians and New Zealanders, as well as other folks from the U.S., and many said they would have rather passed Belfast by completely.
Okay, I know you had other good points in your post, but this just made me laugh:
The steak dinner at the restaurant in the Europa didn't help either. I don't think I had a worse piece of meat my whole trip. It was supposed to be rib-eye, done medium, but it was practically charred and dry as a popcorn fart.
They really have a way of killing a good piece of meat over there. I've learned to eat a lot of things with gravy, especially when my MIL has is cooking.
But yeah, it's unfortunate that you got such a one sided tour guide. I always recommend that anyone that goes over to Belfast do a Black Taxi Tour. Those will take you through both sides of town. You'll definitely see murals - Republican and Loyalist - but you won't really be able to tell which side your taxi driver sympathizes with and you'll be shown them more as a history lesson than political propaganda.
To me, despite these killings - which I feel very confident a vast majority of the Catholic/Nationalist population does not support - N. Ireland, and particularly Belfast are still very safe, wonderful places to visit.
I hope the Real IRA are not successful in derailing the accomplishments that have been made in recent years. It would be tragic to start taking steps backwards.