Advertisement
Published: March 20th 2006
Edit Blog Post
city hall
it's fashion week in belfast I love that i've been in italy so long that once i got into belfast friday i felt like i was home. clearly there are a thousand differences between northern ireland and new jersey, but compared to the differences between new jersey and rome.. downtown belfast might as well have been my backyard.
ok everyone. so i got into belfast international on friday and by some wonderful luck found my hostel and checked in with no hiccups at all. i immediately set out again for some good ole fashion wandering so that i could see the city before it got dark and buy some groceries. i ended up in a mall, at a starbucks. not exactly culture i was getting. but in my defense, everything in the city seemed to be leading to this massive shopping area. and i wasn't going to go shopping! not in pounds, that's for sure. a little example, my shoes that i'm wearing now.. my lovable chucks.. i paid the same number of dollars as you would have to pay in pounds here. that is practically double the price! oh my goodness i couldn't handle it.
so a few observations on the belfast city
center - private school uniforms EVERYWHERE. ok, that's fine, i'm in the UK. BUT. the girls, tiniest freaking school uniform skirts i've ever seen in my life! i was flabbergasted. i don't even know if that is a word that i just spelled, but i need to convey some sort of older person horror at the silliness of those younger than me.
that was just one observation.. but i've lost my train of thought now i'm so flabbergasted.
well anyway, luckily friday night i met some nice kids at the hostel who had been there a few days and i went out with them to the pubs. and yes, i had a guiness. and yes, it was good.. in that kind of drinking mud way.
Saturday i took a day trip up the coast and oh my goodness it was so worth it. since this was the part of my trip where i was alone, it was nice to have a little structure. aaaand belfast is a pretty small city, taking the trip saved me from more starbucks/mall time.
again sure luck, i met up with a friend (someone i had met in the airport the day
city hall
it\'s fashion week in belfast before) while boarding the bus for the daytrip, so i had someone to hangout with all day. the bus climbed northern ireland on the stunning.. absolutely stunning.. amazingly stunning coastal highway. it's isn't a straight coastline, it weaves in and out, and in every inlet there is a little town. and they're all picture perfect. the kind of place you sail your sailboat into in the summertime. man, where is my sailboat?!
our first stop on the tour was at the carrack-a-rede rope bridge. some form of the bridge has been up for a horrifying amount of years. it connects the mainland to a tiny little island where they.. salmon fish? something like that. anyway, the rope bridge is awesome. and it's right next to sheep island, where they bring their sheep to graze for a month in the summer because the tide gets so low. and there is also another island in that area, a huge one with a population of 80. i'm going to be number 81.
the pictures really will explain all this much better, so i'll keep it short.
the rest of the tour included lunch in the town of bushmills, a tour of
castle court
the mall, complete with starbucks the bushmills whiskey distillery - the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in great britain/the world - some where more enthusiastic than others in the telling of distillery history, and the main stop of the trip.. giant's causeway!
so the wiskey distillery was great fun, buuut i don't really care too much.. i tasted the 12 year special distillery brew, but as it was just after lunch and the most ideal time for alcohol, i kind of sipped it and let out an 'oooh that's nice,' when really i wanted to spit it back at the man behind the counter.
the main attraction, giant's causeway, was great! ahh. great. it is this crazy rock formation on the coast that apparently goes under the irish sea and resurfaces in scotland. i don't know if that is really true, but my busdriver said it and it sounds cool.. so i'm just going to go with it. the rocks that make up the causeway are just stacks and stacks of hexagonal rocks. it is so weird. and definitely doesn't look natural. but the hike to get to the rocks from the bus was spectacular! save the freezing cold rain and strong wind that
threatened to blow me off the side of a cliff. oh, and there was the fact that i wasn't dressed for rain or hiking. i'm such an idiot. but really, i knew we were going to see giant's causeway, but i had no idea that we were going to have to work for it.
but it was a great hike nontheless. and done properly.. like with the right clothes and maybe at a slightly warmer temperature, it would have been perfect.
oh and giant's causeway is a UNESCO protected site. yay museum management class.. we learn about that!
bwahh.. i've started in on the nerdiness. and it isn't going to stop.
sunday morning i took a black taxi tour of belfast with a couple i met in the hostel. they were so nice, they were austrailian and had kids my age, it was great. but. the taxi cab tour. i HIGHLY recommend it. we took a political tour, but most companies also give historical ones and i think there is even one about the life of c.s. lewis. who was from belfast.
the tour was everything i wanted. the man who gave it was this older belfastian gentleman
city hall again
what can i say, i'm a sucker for good lighting who spends his life driving around tourists and illuminating them as to the nature of the conflict in northern ireland. i'm gonna admit that although i am close to a degree in european studies.. i had absolutely no idea what was going on. i knew sort of buzz words like IRA and Good Friday Agreement, but not really what they meant. the cab tourguide explained the nature of the disagreement as he took us through protestant and catholic neighborhoods. there are tons of murals all over the city that are a reminder of what happened there. the conflict is technically over, but the sentiments behind it aren't gone yet. the negotiations on the peace only ended in 1998. and the IRA only just gave up their weapons something like 6 months ago. it is so strange to think about violent conflict in western europe in my lifetime. maybe that's just me being naive, but there is something about listening to this man talk about the bombings he lived through, while i'm in his car looking at a hotel that has been bombed something like 33 times that caught me off guard. but to my defense.. i'm a history major! i'm
supposed to learn about things in the past tense, this politics stuff is too much for me to handle.
something i really didn't know though, there is a peaceline running through part of the city. peaceline = huge wall. there is literally a divider between some catholic and protestant neighborhoods. and there are six gates in the wall. some are open all the time, and some only open during business hours. but all of them can be closed at a moment's notice if something goes wrong. it is incredible.
and the man said that 5% of students attend integrated schools. 5%! even if it was 20% i'd still think that was an amazing statistic.
but not to finish on some whacked out statistic, the city is gorgeous. there is a 50 pound on the spot fine for littering and apparently it is enforced because the streets are very clean. and there has been a ton of construction in the past few years, and employment is way up.. so for now things look pretty good. i had a great stay in my hostel, i ate some really really good fish and chips, and the countryside was breathtaking! so green.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.251s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0489s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
the dish
non-member comment
coming to see you!!!!!!!!
i want you to know that i can't read these blogs. i look at the pictures and skim through the words, but the moment i start to comprehend what you are saying i start to cry. i cry because my cousin left me, again. i cry because i think about the moment i will see you on April 10th at the airport and the amount and plethera of emotions that will envelop us both. i can't wait to run, hug and tackle you in Rome International. tearfully yours. that girl who sends you candy from new jersey.