North

I travelled across the border today into Northern Ireland and it was strange how literally seamless the transition was. You couldn't tell where the border was, where the line had been drawn. You need to wait for the different road markings, or a sign painted oddly, to know you're in a different country. And despite what nationalists might try to force you to believe (or convince themselves to) you know you've distinctly entered another state. Urban N. Ireland is a place that can seem almost alien, until you get used to it, with all those loyalist flags today seeming like a last desperate stand by a community surrounded, and with a mother country across the water that treats them like an unwanted child. And it's dreary, with not much of interest to see - flags can get very tiresome. The quaint little bus shelters dotted around the countryside in places of no importance reminded me of a trip I took to Republika Srbska last year, and the rural people getting on and off at locations in the middle of nowhere. And as I think of it now, that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina is a last remnant of an old world; its Serb population not unlike Northern Ireland's loyalists; living by history rather than the hear and now. North of the border is a place I like to visit, but it depresses me too. A feeling not unlike nostalgia, with all the good bits taken out