My first day in Belfast was a mixed bag, to say the least. The train ride was lovely, I got a table to myself and food, and I was treated to gorgeous views of the Ireland countryside out my window. When I arrived in Belfast, my phone and credit card both stopped working and I ran out of money so I had no food all day. Ah, good times.

Then I was sent to shadow journalists covering the Twelfth parade. Every year, the parades commission decides where the Protestant organization can and cannot parade, and for the last couple of years they have not allowed them to parade up a Catholic neighborhood due to fear of violence. The Protestants protest this by parading up to the police barrier on the Catholic street, and it generally turns violent. Last year, it was peaceful, so the reporters were crossing their fingers that nothing went wrong.

A reporter, photographer and I squeezed up against a house next to the police barrier, so we were about 10 feet from the protesters. The parade marched up to the barrier, and people started shouting at the police. Within just a few minutes, bottles started being thrown. Suddenly, one of the protesters threw a ladder straight at us (not sure why they were so mad at the media?) which didn’t hit me but hit the other reporter and photographer both in the head. The crowd rushed straight at us and the line of police, and we had about 3 seconds before they were all going to hit us. The officers beside us turned around and ran, which was part funny and part terrifying. The photographer yelled “RUN!” and so we ran, jumping over gates next to the houses as fast as possible and then sprinting behind police cars in the distance.

Police cars and officers in full riot gear came tearing down the street to push the crowd back. After they got the line back under control, it was a waiting game to see if anything else happened. The crowd kept throwing bottles and we kept having to move backward to avoid getting hit with them.

Soon, we realized that some of the crowd had moved. We went back up the street and saw that protesters had surrounded the Catholic street on all sides, so there was no way out except through the crowd (which wasn’t really an option). We simply waited and tried to snap a few pictures of the crowd around the line of police. At one point, a girl got severely injured as a car backed up into her to avoid getting hit by rioters. That was an unfortunate sight to see.

The rest of the night was spent shivering (it was a very cold night) and watching the police try to push back the protesters. They used water cannons and threatened them with rubber bullets until they finally dispersed. As we left, one of the rioters threw a bottle straight at us. Again, I don’t understand why the media was a target for them.

So, that was my first day. My second and third days have been much less eventful. I have been writing up short stories for the Telegraph about a variety of topics. I got my first byline today on a short brief about an avian flu outbreak in Britain. Today I am writing about a 16-year-old who was arrested for riotous behavior as a followup to the parade. It’s a great experience to sit in a big-league newsroom in another country.